BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last, what has felt like the longest NFL offseason in history has come to an end. Week One of the NFL Regular season is upon us and the league has seen fit to open with the week\u2019s best match-up in its Thursday showcase. The defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs host the Houston Texans in a game that could have lasting playoff implications all season long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But probably won\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HOUSTON TEXANS AT KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (-9, O\/U: 54.5)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Location:<\/strong> Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Mo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kickoff:<\/strong> Sept 10, 8:20 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broadcast:<\/strong> NBC<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE HISTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kansas City leads the all-time match up 7-5, but head coach Andy Ried, since taking over the Chiefs in 2013, is 5-2 against the Texans including a 2-0 mark in the postseason. The teams met twice last year, with Houston taking the first match up 31-24 on Oct 24. The Chiefs won the one that counted, coming back from a 24-0 deficit in the AFC Divisional Round for a 51-31 victory that Texans head coach Bill O\u2019Brien should be forced to wear around his neck like a dead albatross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HOUSTON<\/strong> TEXANS (0-0)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Texans have spent the offseason, once again, decimating their team. This time they traded their second best offensive player, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, to the Arizona Cardinals for a handful of magic beans and the desiccated corpse of running back David Johnson. To replace Hopkins, a guy who has caught more than 100 passes in consecutive seasons and has just two non-1,000- yard seasons in his seven-year NFL career, Houston forked over a second rounder for the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 vestigial thumb Brandin Cooks. Cooks battled concussions and injuries last year and caught 42 passes for 583 yards and two touchdowns. And while Cooks is a good player, the Rams had a wide receiver room filled with guys as good or better and the Texans, you know, had one of the five best guys in the league and they tossed him out the door. This is a net loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defensively, this is a strong group led by J.J. Watt, who himself has struggled to stay healthy in the last few seasons. Their best player is Deshaun Watson, for my money the third best QB in the NFL and, for Houston\u2019s money as of this past week, a very rich man<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n KANSAS CITY<\/strong> CHIEFS (0-0)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chiefs too have a guy that could buy a few small countries with their own newly minted quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who signed the richest contract in NFL history this offseason and is worth every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Texans will be arguably worse, line-up wise, from the team that took the field in last year\u2019s divisional round, Kansas City is pretty much the same, minus guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who took the NFL\u2019s COVID-19 opt out deal. The rest of the guys are all back, with an upgrade at running back in Clyde Edwards-Helaire. The last time the Chiefs went with a rookie at RB, he led the league in rushing in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n KC has playmakers on defense, but this is a unit that just has to show up and play decent for the team to win by double digits each week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE PICK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The match up between Bill O\u2019Brien and Andy Reid is no match up at all. O\u2019Brien is one of the worst coaches in the league and has survived only by coaching in a weak, injury-riddled division and the talent of the team he continually tries to dismantle. The problem for Kansas City, that Texans talent is the real deal and guys like Watson and Watt can single-handedly turn the tide of a game. It\u2019s why, even though I like Kansas City, I don\u2019t like spread. Especially with a shortened preseason and no preseason games or scrimmages. Chiefs 27, Texans 23<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE At last, what has felt like the longest NFL offseason in history has come to an end….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13346,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13341\/revisions\/13346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}