The 2024 NFL season will once again begin in the middle of America with the Kansas City Chiefs defending their Super Bowl crown.
GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium will host the season-opening game between the Chiefs and one of the eight teams they’re set to play at home. The Cincinnati Bengals are one of the eight the league could choose to play in that game.
Playing in Arrowhead is nothing new to the Bengals at this point. They’ve played against the Chiefs on the road in each of the last three seasons, including two AFC title games. Their most recent matchup was in Week 17 of this past season.
Going from playing in the winter to the tail end of Summer in Week 1 would be quite the shift for Cincy, but the spotlight would be just as great. The season-opener is famously a primetime game on Thursday night.
The NFL will want the matchup to be enticing for this reason, which only increases the Bengals’ chances of being picked. Cincinnati is 3-1 against Kansas City when quarterback Joe Burrow plays. Those three wins are tied for the most any team has against the Chiefs since 2021. Only the Buffalo Bills have as many in that timeframe.
Burrow vs. Patrick Mahomes has done the league well over the last few years, but the potential matchup that really sticks out is an AFC Championship rematch between the Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens. Only the Ravens, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Houston Texans made this year’s playoffs out of the list of eight teams.
It’s also worth mentioning the Detroit Lions, who went 9-8 and missed the playoffs in 2022, played the Chiefs last year in the season-opening matchup. 9-8 without a playoff berth is exactly what the Bengals’ 2023 season became.
We won’t find out who gets selected until the league-wide schedule is revealed in the spring. Last year’s schedule release was May 11.
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