Kansas City Chiefs Vs. Houston Texans Scheduled To Kick Off 2020 NFL Season

To commemorate their first Super Bowl win in 50 years, the Kansas City Chiefs will face the team against whom they completed a historic comeback.

“We look forward to raising last year’s Super Bowl championship banner,” Andy Reid told the team’s website, “and all that comes with defending our title in the 2020 season.”

The Chiefs are scheduled to host the Houston Texans in the NFL opener, representing a rematch of the divisional playoff game. Kansas City won 51-31 — but only after trailing 24-0.

The Chiefs then scored a touchdown on their next seven possessions and kicked a field goal on the eighth. It was the first time in NFL first postseason that a team trailed by at least 20 points and wound up winning by at least 20.

“It was an amazing thing,” Patrick Mahomes said.

The season opener will feature Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, two of the best quarterbacks in the game. They are both part of the 2017 draft class.

Despite that intriguing quarterback matchup, the Sept. 10 game looks like a mismatch on paper.

Watson lost his best weapon, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who was traded to the Arizona Cardinals. Hopkins not only caught 104 passes for 1,165 yards last year, but his conversion on 4th and 3 sealed the Texans’ regular-season 31-24 win against the Chiefs in Week Six.

On the other side of the ball, a Texans defense, which ranked 28th last season, could be even worse after losing one of their best defensive linemen. D.J. Reader signed a four-year, $53 milion contract with the Cincinnati Bengals, including a $16,25 million signing bonus and $20.25 million guaranteed.

Meanwhile, the defending Super Bowl champions return 20 of 22 starters.

“Clearly when you have a Super Bowl team you want to keep as much of that group together,” team owner Clark Hunt said. “We have almost the entire nucleus from the players’ standpoint. And those players are generally on the young side of their careers.”

Of course, the 2020 schedule is a bit tentative. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, no one knows for certain if the NFL season will be played without fans, delayed, shortened or even scuttled altogether.

In case any of those scenarios happen, though, the Chiefs will offer full refunds to anyone who has bought a ticket on the primary market.

In addition to the opening Thursday night game, the Chiefs are scheduled to play four other night games in primetime: Week Three at the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football, Week Six at the Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football, Week 11 at the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday Night Football and Week 13 at home vs. the Denver Broncos on Sunday Night Football.

It will be a high-profile and difficult schedule for a team that has stated their objective to “run it back” for another title.

“Our goal every year is to win the Super Bowl,” Hunt said. “But I think clearly Andy has stated already that he wants to be back there on that stage at Union Station in February.”