Lions will be a regular opponent for a ;long time.
reason---teams ggenerally dont want to play teams they will not play that season---with Detroit being the closest NFC team they are the candidate to regularly play.
the other thing, the team doesnt want to travel far for preseasons. That is a big reason why it happens this year you still have west playing west even though they play each other this year.
Sure Wilson living in Detroit factored into it. But Buffalo and Detroit are close to each other and have the rivalry in hockey so playing them is natural.