The New England Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 26-3, last season in Foxborough, Mass. This fall the two teams will meet again in Frankfurt, Germany on Nov. 12. AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper

A little before Thanksgiving and a little after Oktoberfest, the New England Patriots will head to Germany to play American football.

The NFL will release its entire 2023 schedule on Thursday, but it announced its international games on Wednesday morning, including the Patriots’ Nov. 12 game against the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt, Germany, at Frankfurt Stadium.

It will be played at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time (3:30 p.m. in Germany) and will serve as one of the Patriots’ home games.

Frankfurt Stadium, the home of Eintracht Frankfurt, holds 51,500 fans. The game figures to be a hot ticket with Ramstein, an American Air Force base, less than 90 miles away and a strong base of American football fans in Germany. When the World League and NFL Europe were still running, Germany had among the strongest fan bases in multiple cities.

New England linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley was curious about what the experience would be like.

”I’m open-minded. I’ve never been to Germany. I’ve heard nothing but great things about it, whether that’s from (Sebastian Vollmer) and everybody having a great story about it,” he said. “But that’ll be my first time even out of the country, so this is a whole new thing for all of us. So we’re excited. Football is football at the end of the day. Once you hit the field, obviously you get in that mode. But just seeing the opportunity of where football is able to take you is huge. So we’re excited about it.”

The Patriots have a fan base in Germany connected to their recent success and local players. They drafted German-born Vollmer in 2009. The offensive lineman helped them to two Super Bowl wins in eight years. In 2019, the Patriots signed Germany native Jakob Johnson through the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program and he emerged as the team’s starting fullback.

The entire NFL international schedule includes:

• Jaguars vs. Falcons on Oct. 1 at Wembley Stadium, in London.

• Bills vs. Jaguars on Oct. 8 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.

• Titans vs. Ravens on Oct. 15 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

• Chiefs vs. Dolphins on Nov. 5 at Frankfurt Stadium in Germany.

HENRY RUGGS, the former Las Vegas Raiders player, pleaded guilty Wednesday to driving his sports car drunk at speeds up to 156 mph on a city street before causing a fiery crash that killed a woman and her dog.

Ruggs, 24, who will avoid trial and is expected to be sentenced Aug. 9 to three to 10 years in state prison under terms of his plea deal with prosecutors. The minimum three-year sentence cannot be reduced by converting the year-and-a-half that he has spent on house arrest to time already served.

Ruggs was convicted of felony DUI causing death, will go to prison, and won’t be able to appeal his conviction and sentence, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said in a lengthy written statement. “When someone dies as the result of a drunk driver’s actions, this is the most serious charge the law allows.”

SAINTS: Tight end Foster Moreau has agreed to a three-year, $12 million contract with the Saints less than two months after being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma during a physical with New Orleans, Moreau’s agent said Wednesday.

Moreau, 26, announced in late March that he was stepping away from football to focus on his health. Now it appears he could be ready to return to football sooner than later, although no timeline for his return has been announced.