Game: Kansas City Chiefs @ Arizona Cardinals
Date / Time: Sunday, September 11, 2022, at 3:25 P.M. CT
Place: State Farm Stadium
TV: CBS
Listen: 106.5 The Wolf (Kansas City residences only)
Betting Lines: Chiefs -6.5 | Under/Over: 53.5 (BetUS)
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes will face his former head coach in Week 1 when the Kansas City Chiefs play the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon at State Farm Stadium. Former Red Raiders-turned-Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury coached Mahomes while the two were both at Texas Tech from 2014-2016.
Since then, the two have built their own paths at the professional level. Mahomes has become one of the elite passers in today’s NFL, setting many records within the Chiefs franchise and the entire league. The Super Bowl and League MVP has made it to at least the AFC Conference Championship in all four seasons since taking over as the Chiefs’ signal caller. He’s even brought Kansas City its first Super Bowl championship since Lenny Dawson led his AFL squad in triumph over Minnesota five decades earlier.
Meanwhile, Kingsbury has slowly taken a struggling Cardinals locker room and transformed them into a playoff contender. Despite competing in arguably the toughest division in football, Arizona finished the 2021 season with an 11-6 record, the first winning record the franchise had seen in six seasons and the first under Kingsbury.
Both teams finished their ’21 campaigns disappointingly a season ago. Kansas City suffered an unforeseen second-half meltdown against a red-hot Cincinnati Bengals squad, led by Joe Burrow, to lose in the AFC Championship. While Arizona ultimately laid an egg in a 34-11 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion L.A. Rams in the NFC Wildcard round.
Over the offseason, both rosters underwent some changes. Kansas City wound up trading star widow Tyreek Hill to Miami, replacing him with former Pittsburgh Steelers WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, former Green Bay WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and rookie Skyy Moore from Western Michigan. The Chiefs also added safety Justin Reid and running back Ronald Jones in free agency and drafted defensive back Trent McDuffie and defensive end George Karlaftis in the first round of the 2022 draft.
Notable losses for the Chiefs include linebacker Anthony Hitchens, cornerback Charvarious Ward, safety Tyrann Mathieu, and wide receiver Byron Pringle.
Arizona also lost a few starters in free agency but was the beneficiary of a blockbuster trade over the spring. The Cardinals will be without pass rusher Chandler Jones, who signed a three deal worth $51 million with the Las Vegas Raiders, after a marvelous 2021 where he accounted for 41 tackles and 10.5 sacks. Other former Cardinal players that signed with other teams include defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, linebacker Jordan Hicks, running back Chase Edmunds, and guard Max Garcia.
But the Cardinals added a big-name receiver that will compliment DeAndre Hopkins on the other side of the field, sending their first-round selection for the ’22 draft to Baltimore for Marquise Brown. Thus, creating a reunion with quarterback Kyler Murray, who is familiar with Brown from their time together at the collegiate level when the two played at Oklahoma.
Injuries will hamper the Cardinals for the first game of the season. According to Friday’s injury report, Arizona will suit up without cornerback Trayvon Mullen and starting wide receiver Ronald Moore. The Cards may also be without team leader J.J. Watt and star tight end Zach Ertz on Sunday. Both are recovering from calf injuries.
Arizona also won’t have wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who is suspended for the first six games of the season for violating the league’s PED policy.
Kansas City, however, had a healthy week of practice, and everyone will be available to play.
Things to watch
How Arizona decides to defend against Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense will be interesting to see. As I mentioned earlier, Kingsbury used to coach Mahomes in college and knows what the sixth-year vet can do when he has the ball in his hands.
But Kansas City won’t be the same offense from years past. So putting two safeties over the top to take away the deep pass plays and jamming tight end Travis Kelce at the line, like teams were doing last year, isn’t going to work because Tyreek Hill isn’t there anymore. As Mahomes has said multiple times, the Chiefs aren’t going to rely on just two players to get down the field this year. They are going to include everybody.
If this game turns into a Big 12-like shootout, Arizona will need to give Kyler Murray the time he needs to throw the ball. The Cardinals struggled heavily against the Rams’ pass rush in the playoffs last year, and that was the determining factor that led to the red birds getting run out of the building that day. The Rams pressured Murray eleven times, resulting in the fourth-year vet making ten poor throws, two interceptions, and getting sacked twice.
The Chiefs will need their pass rush to set the tone early to make Murray uncomfortable and prevent him from establishing any momentum early or making big plays down the field. Arizona has a burner in Marquise Brown, and the Cardinals will be looking to come at Kansas City’s young secondary with several deep passes. But if guys like Frank Clark, Chris Jones, and George Karlaftis can carol Murray, preventing him from making a read downfield or using his legs to escape the pocket, it shouldn’t take much for the Chiefs to take control of this game.
History
- Sunday’s matchup will be the fourteenth meeting between the Chiefs and Cardinals. Kansas City is 9-3-1 all-time against Arizona.
- The last time these two teams met was in Week 10 of the 2018 season when Patrick Mahomes completed 21 of 28 passes and 249 yards and two scores to lead the Chiefs to a 26-14 victory.
- The last time the Chiefs played Arizona on the road was in 2014, when the Cardinals defeated Kansas City 17-14.
- The first-ever meeting between the two franchises was on November 22, 1970. Both offenses struggled to move up the field as Cardinals QB Jim Hart threw for 119 yards and an interception while Lenny Dawson completed just four passes all game long. The game ended in a 6-6 tie.
