Who would you most want to see the Chiefs play to open the 2024 NFL season?

The 2024 NFL Draft is in hindsight. Now we turn our attention to the 2024 NFL regular-season schedule, which will be unveiled later this month.

Presuming the NFL sticks with the tradition of having the previous season's Super Bowl winner host the NFL Kickoff Game, we can once again expect the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs to be the home team for the first contest of the year. And we know Kansas City's home opponents will be the Broncos, Chargers, Raiders, Ravens, Bengals, Texans, Bucs and Saints. With this in mind, we asked our analysts to answer the following question: Who would you most want to see the Chiefs play to open the 2024 NFL season?

https://www.nfl.com/news/which-game-should-kick-off-the-2024-nfl-season… ( watch for details). 

Jeffri Chadiha

PICK: Baltimore Ravens

One of the popular beliefs coming out of last year’s AFC Championship Game was that the result came down to Baltimore blowing it instead of the Chiefs winning it. That makes for great theater in a rematch to start the season. Kansas City is chasing its third straight championship. The Ravens need to prove they didn’t waste their best chance to win a title in the Lamar Jackson era by  melting down and relying on a bizarre offensive game plan. We obviously won’t know who’s going to win the AFC after one game. But we definitely would have a better sense of whether the Ravens actually can overtake the Chiefs as we move deeper into the season.

Marc Ross

PICK: Houston Texans

At this time last year, the Texans were just hoping to build on a promising draft haul. That was before a transcendent rookie season from quarterback C.J. Stroudand head coach DeMeco Ryans, who led Houston to the AFC South title and a playoff victory. The Texans have done a lot of great things this offseason, acquiringbig-time talent such as Danielle Hunter and Stefon Diggs, and now their sights are set on dethroning the reigning champion. Stroud would get his chance right off the bat to go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes, the current NFL standard at the position.What better storyline than an up-and-coming team trying to take down the champs? I’m here for it.

Scott Pioli

PICK: Las Vegas Raiders

I’d love to see the Raiders visit the Chiefs for the season opener. It’s a historic rivalry and the last time these teams took the field together, the Silver and Black came out victorious, 20-14, on Christmas Day. Their bitterness has spilled over since the teams began playing each other in the AFL, when the Chiefs were known as the Dallas Texans. These contests are never short on surprises or intensity. Who can forget the 1969 AFL Championship or The Brawl from 1970 or the TWO brawls on Oct. 5, 1986?

My personal experience with this rivalry takes me back to 2011, when I was general manager for the Chiefs. We had the chance to capture back-to-back AFC West titles and needed to win the final three games of the regular season. We won two games but fell to the Raiders on Christmas Eve, when Hall of Famer Richard Seymour blocked two field goals, the second of which came on the final play of regulation, as the Raiders went on to earn a 16-13 overtime victory. That stung!

The current Raiders are being built to reflect their new head coach Antonio Pierce, a tough and smart leader. As interim HC last season, Pierce stated prior to Christmas game against the Chiefs: “They’re creative, they have fun doing it. ... We saw the ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ deal they did last year. All fun and games, that’s cool.
“But at some point, the best way to stop a trick play is to do what? Hit it in the mouth.”

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