The NFL season kicks off Thursday, with the Kansas City Chiefs facing the Baltimore Ravens in an AFC Championship Game rematch to open the 2024 slate on NBC.
It will be 207 days between the Chiefs’ thrilling overtime win over the 49ers in Super Bowl LVII and the start of the 2024 season. Some storylines around the league are picking up where they left off (Christmas football is here to stay, Taylor Swift is still dating Travis Kelce) while others have taken intriguing twists (Jim Harbaugh is back, the Chicago Bears and the Washington Commanders may finally have franchise quarterbacks).
To help you keep track of all the chaos to come, here are the 10 most intriguing games to look for this season.
The Packers and Eagles will square off in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in Week 1, and it will be far from a vacation for either side. These teams could not have ended last season on further ends of the spectrum.
Philly was embarrassed in a playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the final loss in a 1-6 slide to end the year after a 10-1 start. Green Bay lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round, but only after quarterback Jordan Love proved himself to be the team’s future. Love is basically what Jalen Hurts was only a year ago — a rising QB superstar with playoff success. Will these teams continue on their trajectory from the winter?
Aaron Rodgers’ Jets debut lasted all of four plays in 2023, as he missed the rest of the season after tearing his Achilles during the team’s opening drive. The schedule makers are throwing him into the fire in Week 1, almost as if to personally challenge Rodgers to prove he still has it right away.
New York will face not only the defending NFC champions, not only a physical defense, but also one of Rodgers’ personal foes in the 49ers, a team that routinely knocked him out of the playoffs during his Packers tenure. San Francisco, meanwhile, will try to prove that its own offseason drama — namely players who wanted new contracts — won’t get in the way of finally getting over the hump.
Let’s face it, we all love revenge, and that’s why anybody will be tuning into this game. Are the Steelers going to be good? Eh, they’ll probably win 10 games and nobody will be inspired. Will the Broncos be good? There’s probably a reason why new quarterback Bo Nix wanted to spend so many years in college. But this game will be must-see television because it’s a chance for Pittsburgh QB Russell Wilson to exact revenge on Denver coach Sean Payton, who unceremoniously benched Wilson in Denver last season.
The Broncos parted ways with Wilson in the offseason, forfeiting tens of millions dollars against the salary cap to do so. They basically paid him to leave. If Wilson were ever motivated to have a true throwback performance, it would be for this game.
More revenge! The Bills traded away receiver Stefon Diggs this summer despite him putting up four straight seasons with over 1,000 receiving yards in Buffalo. Diggs wears his emotions on his sleeve, and it will be surprising if he hides any disdain for his previous franchise.
In addition, this is also a great quarterback duel. Buffalo’s Josh Allen will be matching up with rising superstar C.J. Stroud, who turned heads last year and now, in his second season, is already nudging his way into the “elite” conversation.
A Super Bowl rematch! The Chiefs are the bogeyman for everyone in the NFL but especially the 49ers, which has lost twice to Patrick Mahomes and Co. in the Super Bowl in the last five years. A regular season win won’t make up for either of San Francisco’s championship losses, but it sure would be nice for them to at least know they could beat Kansas City for the first time since 2014.
No. 1 overall draft pick and new Bears quarterback Caleb Williams will make his first trip to Lambeau Field, and it’s a chance for him to make an early career statement. Not only did the Packers somehow fall into another possibly generational quarterback prospect in Love after moving on from Rodgers, they did so while the Bears — a worthy rival, allegedly — continued to flounder at the position.
Justin Fields had promise, but Williams is even more exciting. And we should be rooting for Williams to be good, if only to bring back some bite to Bears-Packers games. Green Bay has dominated this marquee matchup for too long. Williams is the league’s best chance to restore some competitive fire between these historic franchises.
Remember when we said the Chiefs were everyone’s bogeyman? That’s true for no one as much as the Bills, who’ve lost to Kansas City in three of the last four postseasons. Buffalo has come so close on multiple occasions to knocking out the Chiefs, but couldn’t quite get the job done.
Will this game be another playoff appetizer? It’s not all about looking ahead, though, because even without all the postseason baggage, Mahomes vs. Allen is the best quarterback rivalry in the game today.
Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the schedule makers, and that’s what we have here. This is a coaching matchup between brothers John and Jim Harbaugh — their first since February 2013, when they were on the opposite sidelines of a little game known as Super Bowl XLVII — and it’s happening three days before Thanksgiving.
John, with the Ravens, still has the upper hand in the sibling rivalry, thanks to his win in that aforementioned Super Bowl. Jim now has a new team in Los Angeles and a new quarterback in the talented Justin Herbert, who needs a coach to unlock his potential. This game isn’t only for who gets the first pick of the turkey; it should also reveal whether the Chargers are becoming a threat in the AFC.
Speaking of the Ravens trying to hold off AFC challengers, they will do so again a few weeks later vs. the Texans. This is another playoff rematch that will serve as a measuring stick for Stroud and Houston. The Texans were humbled in a Divisional Round loss in Baltimore last season, 34-10. If they want to prove how far they’ve come, and if Stroud wants to put himself firmly in the conversation of best quarterbacks, then he and the Texans need to go win this game.
This is a rematch of what was arguably not only the best playoff game last season, but maybe the most dramatic game of the season, period. The Lions came achingly close to beating the 49ers in San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game, losing 34-31 after fumbling a 24-7 lead. Detroit went 1-3 on fourth-down attempts, leaving its fans with an offseason filled with “What ifs?” This late in the season, we’ll know for sure if the Lions have rebounded from that devastating defeat. And if so, can they beat the 49ers while sticking to their aggressive style of play?
