The Kansas City Chiefs have announced that they will face the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season. The game will take place on Sunday, Sept. 11 at 3:25 p.m. CT on CBS.
Kansas City holds a 9-3-1 career record over Arizona with their lone game during the Patrick Mahomes era coming at Arrowhead Stadium in 2018. The Chiefs won that game 26-14, but that was a season before both Kyler Murray and Kliff Kingsbury were with the team.
Bringing the heat 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8paUn9dDEl
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) May 12, 2022
Kingsbury, of course, is Patrick Mahomes’ former college coach at Texas Tech. The two faced off during the preseason last year, but this is the first time they’ll meet on the gridiron in the NFL. It’ll be a big moment for Kingsbury, who in part landed his job in Arizona due to his success developing Mahomes at the collegiate level.
Week 1 is great timing for Kansas City to be facing the Cardinals. They’ll be without five-time All-Pro WR Deandre Hopkins, who was suspended for six games to start the 2022 NFL season due to a violation of the league’s performance-enhancing substances policy. They did trade with the Baltimore Ravens during the 2022 NFL draft to acquire Murray’s former teammate at Oklahoma, Marquise Brown. That should help offset the loss of Hopkins, but it’s still a huge hit to the Cardinals’ offense.
Another benefit for the Chiefs is that there won’t be much tape of the team’s new-look offense sans Tyreek Hill. Teams just won’t have much to go off of for Kansas City, likely defaulting to paying a ton of attention to Travis Kelce. That could play right into the Chiefs’ hands when it comes to their offensive game-planning.
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