There is a balance to the schedule. We are guaranteed to face every other team in our conference at least every 3 years, we rotate the other divisions East, North, South, East, etc. Whoever we face on the road in the previous matchup in this cycle, we face at home in the next and vice versa. The same follows against AFC opponents, albeit on a 4 year cycle instead of 3, since you account for 4 divisions there instead of 3.
The thing is, when we went to the new schedule format in 2002, every team lost 2 divisional games, with every team having 6 divisional games, 4 interconference games, and 4 intraconference games, leaving a couple empty dates. The NFL decided that these games would be against whoever finished in the same spot in their divisions in the same conference against the teams they were not already scheduled to play, one home and one away. These matchups can't always be balanced on where they're played, because they have to be slotted based on who finished where.
This year we are playing the North, so we are playing Detroit in Detroit because we played them in Seattle in 2021. The last 2 years we played Detroit because we both finished in 4th in 2021 and 2nd in 2022, the balancing home games were the Giants in 2022 and the Panthers in 2023.
For those wondering, our games determined by our finish last year on the 2024 schedule are home against the Giants and away against the Falcons. The NFL also took a similar approach to the 17th game, which is against a rotating-by-division foe who finished in the same position in the opposite conference that you aren't already scheduled to play, with it flipping between home and road every other season.
Hope this helps.
