The 104th season of the NFL kicked off Thursday night with an upset. The Detroit Lions went into Arrowhead Stadium, watched as the Kansas City Chiefs raised another Super Bowl banner, and then knocked off the defending champions, 21-20. Sure, Kansas City was shorthanded, with tight end Travis Kelce out with a knee injury and defensive tackle Chris Jones continuing his contract holdout (but, oddly, watching the game from a luxury suite). But Patrick Mahomes losing in Week 1 still qualifies as spice. This game had plenty to chew on—the Lions ran a fake punt, the Chiefs couldn’t catch anything, and Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson called a third-down screen for Marvin Jones Jr. in the year 2023! Here are five takeaways from the first game of the new season:
The Lions Are Undefeated
Yes, everything that could have gone wrong for Kansas City did, and they lost by a point in a game they had to play without their second- and third-best players. But come on: The Lions beat the Chiefs! On opening night! Those are Super Bowl champion kneecaps! Dan Campbell spoiled Andy Reid’s streak of eight straight Week 1 wins, and Jared Goff is now 2-0 against Patrick Mahomes. It is genuinely thrilling how far these kitty cats have come since hiring a tight ends coach with a coffee addiction and letting the Rams bribe them to take Goff off their hands.
Papi’s home indeed, and the hype for these Lions, who were already a preseason darling, is only going to get more intense.
The Chiefs Have Seven WRs, and None of Them Can Catch
Please turn your attention to the following visualization of Patrick Mahomes’s night:
Yikes!
During the preseason, a major question in Kansas City was which of the team’s receivers would emerge as Mahomes’s top option behind tight end Travis Kelce. The front office kept seven receivers on the initial 53-man roster, and when Kelce hyperextended his knee in practice earlier this week, his temporary absence seemed like an opportunity to get a clear picture of the receiver group and see who might earn the quarterback’s trust.
Instead, Kansas City’s receivers had an awful evening. Mahomes targeted 12 different Chiefs, and it was running back Isiah Pacheco who wound up leading the team with four receptions. The two top candidates for the WR1 role, Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore, combined for a single yard on eight targets and a lengthy blooper reel.
And that may be underselling how bad Toney’s performance was. The first of his three drops bounced directly off his hands and into the mitts of Lions rookie safety Brian Branch, who took it to the end zone for a pick-six. Toney later killed another drive with a drop on third down; and with the Chiefs trailing by one with less than three minutes to go and approaching field goal range, he let another pass bounce off his fingertips.
Kelce should be back soon, which will be huge for the Chiefs offense. But Kansas City saw its worst-case receiver scenario play out Thursday night, and after back-to-back offseasons in which the Chiefs said goodbye to their leading receiver, the worries about that position group aren’t going away.
A Great Start for the Lion Cubs
The Lions took some barbs (hello!) for not prioritizing positional value in their draft this past April, but let’s give them credit where it’s due now: Some of their rookies got off to great starts against the Chiefs. Branch had the play of the night with the pick-six, but don’t sleep on first-round linebacker Jack Campbell, who showed some fluidity on a diving pass breakup.
On the offensive side, first-round running back Jahmyr Gibbs (42 rushing yards, 18 receiving) and tight end Sam LaPorta (39 receiving yards) look like they could be fixtures—especially as the Lions find ways to give Gibbs more touches. He had just seven carries (starting running back David Montgomery had 21) and caught both of his pass targets. It’s very early, but the returns on this class look good.
No One Knows What a False Start Is
It’s not a new season until there’s an officiating issue to complain about, and the missed calls du jour were a series of what certainly looked like false starts by Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor, who was often lined up well off the line of scrimmage. Referee John Hussey’s crew didn’t call the game tight in general (the first flag didn’t come until late in the second quarter), and sure, plenty of tackles get away with early movement if they can time the snap correctly, but the leniency granted to Taylor was noticeable.
The Lions won, though, so there’s no need to get too worked up about this. Taylor didn’t quite get away with it all game, either. He was finally called pre-snap on the Chiefs’ final drive, leading to this Cris Collinsworth crack.
Happy football!
Don’t Mic Up the Dads
“Yeah!!!!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!! Fake punt!!!!!”
—Chris Hutchinson, September 7, 2023
If you lived through Thursday’s “Aidan Hutchinson’s Parents Are Mic’d Up” segment during the NBC broadcast, you know it was mildly awkward and deeply unnecessary and that Collinsworth somehow made it weird.
Let’s never do this again!
