KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs will spend a few minutes before their season opener against the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night celebrating their latest Super Bowl triumph.
Former players will return to Arrowhead Stadium, and team owner Clark Hunt will help raise their latest championship banner high above the west end zone.
You can bet the Ravens won't enjoy the show.
The Chiefs beat them in the AFC championship game just over seven months ago, denying Lamar Jackson and Co. their chance to play for the title. Instead, the Chiefs went on to beat San Francisco for their second straight championship and third in a five-year span.
The rematch between the AFC titans on Thursday night will lift the lid on the NFL regular season.
“Any game I play in, I feel like it’s a revenge game,” said Jackson, who earned his second NFL MVP award last season. “Anybody we’ve played, no matter if we’ve beat them or lost to them in previous years, I just want to win.”
When it comes to the Chiefs, he's mostly been losing. The Ravens quarterback is 1-4 against counterpart Patrick Mahomes. That includes the 17-10 loss in January, when Kansas City held them to a lowly field goal over the final three quarters.
“We’re not aiming for anybody, and I’m pretty sure they’re not aiming for us,” Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman said. "I mean, they beat us fair and square last year, and I feel like we’re just going to play football again Thursday night.”
Whatever the inspiration for Baltimore — a bit of revenge against the Chiefs, a trip to the Super Bowl at the end of the season, merely silencing one of the toughest crowds in the NFL on Thursday night — the driving force for the Chiefs is quite clear: They want to make history. No team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls.
There are reasons to believe they can do it, too.
Kansas City returned almost its entire defense intact, one that finished second only to the Ravens in scoring last season, and its offense could be better than ever. The Chiefs drafted wide receiver Xavier Worthy for some big-play pop that was sorely missing, and Travis Kelce and the rest of the crew are back alongside Mahomes for another go-around.
They even figure to have Kelce's girlfriend, pop superstar Taylor Swift, cheering from a suite once again.
They certainly want to get off to a better start, though. The Lions spoiled their banner-raising Week 1 celebration a year ago.
“Obviously, you want to play in the Super Bowl at the end of the year, but this is a big stage as well,” Mahomes said. "To be able to get that experience, play a great football team, I’m excited for these guys to get out there, and for the guys who haven’t been here to see what it’s like to be on that type of stage.”
The Ravens will wear helmet decals honoring offensive line coach Joe D’Alessandris, who died Aug. 25 after being hospitalized with an “acute illness,” and former wide receiver Jacoby Jones, who died suddenly on July 14 in his native New Orleans.
“Hopefully those helmet tags of Jacoby Jones and Joe D’Alessandris help to serve as a reminder to all of us that it’s about the people,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “It’s about the people in your life that you share this time on Earth with. Treat them right, cherish them, celebrate them, love them and remember them.”
The Ravens lost three starters on the offensive line. And while they drafted tackle Roger Rosengarten in the second round, they made no other major additions. The pressure is on internal options such as guard Andrew Vorhees to hold up.
“I feel real good about those guys,” Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken said. “They’ve had a great offseason, great camp, so we’re real comfortable with them playing. Excited to see them play.”
Baltimore lost its defensive coordinator when Mike Macdonald became the head coach of the Seahawks. The Ravens gave the job to inside linebackers coach Zach Orr, who played three seasons in Baltimore before becoming a coach.
“Preseason was pretty smooth, but I know it’s going to be a lot different, just because there’s a lot different personnel groups. It’s more game-plan specific,” Orr said. “In the preseason, we just had our call sheet, and we just ran our plays.”
The Chiefs are keenly aware that longtime Titans running back Derrick Henry is lining up in the Ravens backfield this year. The 250-pound bulldozer has dominated them in the past, averaging more than 111 yards rushing in four previous games.
“You add King Henry to the picture and a team that loves to run the ball is going to love to run the ball even more,” Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill said. “He's a great player and adds a lot to their offense.”
Despite three preseason games to try out the NFL’s new kickoff rules, nobody seems to know quite what to expect when the regular season begins. And that’s saying something given that Harbaugh began his NFL coaching career as a special teams coach under the Chiefs’ Andy Reid, whose own special teams are typically among the best in the league.
“I’m not sure what to anticipate or expect, but we’ll see how it all works out,” Reid said. “You’ve got two good special teams going against each other, plus John’s got a ton of experience there, so we’ll just see how it goes.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL