Sports Time Radio

Everyone is gearing up for the first week of professional football. Of course, the season did open on Thursday night like the NFL does and the game ended up being a upset as the Detroit Lions beat the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs 21-20.

There are a lot of people who think that the Lions will win the NFC North me included, but there were very few people picking them to go into Arrowhead stadium and beat the Chiefs.

There nothing that’s going to take away from the Lions winning this game, but you’re going to hear a lot of people mention that the Chiefs played without tight end Travis Kelce who was out injured and defensive tackle Chris Jones who is holding out for a new contract. You can’t honestly say what impact either player would’ve had on this game, so by people mentioning this it’s just an excuse that their pick lost the game.

Let’s take a look at the fantasy football impact this game might have heading into the remainder of Week 1.

Patrick Mahomes didn’t have a great day, but he did throw two touchdown passes to record some fantasy points. Mahomes also threw for 226 yards and did end up running for 46 yards. His only negative was that he threw an interception. It was a solid not spectacular day for Mahomes.

Jared Goff also didn’t score huge fantasy points Thursday night. Goff threw for 253 yards and 1 touchdown. Goff was sacked 1 time and ended up with -1 yard rushing due to the game ending kneel downs.

As you go through the stats from Thursday night’s game there really isn’t anything that jumps off the page at you. It does appear as though the two biggest non-quarterback fantasy players were on the Lions.

David Montgomery carried the football 21 times for a game high 74 yards, but more importantly he scored 1 touchdown. Amon-Ra St. Brown led the Lions in receptions with 6 and while he didn’t rack up a ton of yards 71, he did catch a touchdown pass.

Josh Reynolds and Jahmyr Gibbs put up solid fantasy days. Reynolds had 4 catches and led the Lions in receiving yards with 80 while Gibbs carried the football 7 times for 42 yards and caught 2 passes for 18 yards.

As for the Chiefs there really isn’t a fantasy stand out for them in this game. Rashee Rice and Blake Bell caught the touchdown passes from Mahomes, but unless you’re in a very deep league it’s doubtful that either of these players were starting.

Mahomes was the Chiefs leading rusher, but Isiah Pacheco did rush for 23 yards on 8 carries and also caught 4 passes for 31 yards, so he at least scored some fantasy points for his owners.

Kansas City really spread out the offensive workload. Six different players had rushing attempts and no one player had more than eight while 11 different players caught at least one pass from Mahomes, but no player caught more than four.

It’s just the first week of the season, so there’s no reason to panic if your fantasy team is invested in the Chiefs. Of course, there will be fantasy owners that go a little nuts because their season started off on a low note. You just have to be careful not to overreact and cut or bench a player because of his performance in just one game.

So, there are 28 teams playing tomorrow. Is there one game in particular that you’re more interested in than the rest?

Since I live in the Chicago area the Bears game has been the most talked about, so I’m interested to see how they do. Other than that, there are a couple of games that I have my eye on.

Of the early games I want to see how the Cincinnati Bengals do in Cleveland against the Browns. I believe that the Browns have won the last five matchups in Cleveland, so will Cincinnati be able to break that losing streak?

The later games I’m interested to see how the Las Vegas raiders at the Denver Broncos plays out. Sean Payton has shot his mouth off this off season and finally his team has to take the field and try to back him up. Will also get to see if Russell Wilson is anywhere near the quarterback he used to be in Seattle.

The Sunday night game on NBC has some interest for me as well. The New York Giants are hosting the Dallas Cowboys. New York was a bit of a surprise last season, and it will be of interest to see if that was a fluke or if they’ll be in the mix for a playoff spot against this season. The Cowboys always draw interest from the media no matter if they’re good or bad, so one way or another they’ll be talked about.

Let me know what you’re looking forward to in the NFL tomorrow. I’m also interested to know how your fantasy football season starts off.

Don’t forget to look for me on X, I’m @Burketime.