We are all part of a unique and legendary moment in Kansas City football history, Chiefs Kingdom. The freshly-paid prince of this city and this sport in general returns with the vast majority of his Super Bowl-winning supporting cast for another chance to achieve greatness of the grandest scale this sport can provide. You know the hashtags. You've heard the word "dynasty" passed casually around town, with or without the important word "potential" in front of it. We're just moments away from beginning Chapter 2 in the tale of our team working towards historic greatness. Maybe it's Chapter 3 or 4, depending on where you want to start. We can't get ahead of ourselves, though. Do the Houston Texans have any chance of screwing up this early chapter in this amazing story?
It's not easy to predict how successful the 2020 Texans can be. Brandin Cooks will be limited today, or perhaps I should say more limited than the rest of these newly acquired Texans receivers and backs who have negligible experience with this offensive scheme. I'm hesitant to believe that losing DeAndre Hopkins and picking up other, less-talented pieces will make Houston's offense better.
New acquisitions for Houston's defense such as PJ Hall and Ross Blacklock may step up and make themselves an unexpected problem for KC's offensive line, especially with Laurent Duvernay-Tardif away being a real-life hero and medical science polymath. The also-freshly-paid Deshaun Watson may use his new variety of receivers to poke holes in a Chiefs secondary with plenty of room for improvement. A certain legendary playoff comeback for our Chiefs surely gave Houston enough fuel to cook up a whole bag of chips to put on their shoulder tonight, but I don't think that will be enough to overcome KC.
Patrick Mahomes is still the most valuable athlete in this and perhaps all sports, and he's got all his same weapons from a squad that just became champs. I think I'd be confident in KC winning this game even if Mahomes didn't have a first-round pick stud in Clyde Edwards-Helaire to incorporate into this legendary offense. Unless I missed something, Houston didn't do much to improve a secondary that gave up the fourth-most passing yards in the NFL last season.
The absence of Breeland coinciding with the return of impressive second-year safety Juan Thornhill indicates that perhaps the best safety tandem in football will provide support for an otherwise exploitable core of cornerbacks. Houston's points-per-game average ranked 14th in the league last season. They only outscored KC's 28.2-point average six times in the regular season. I think Chiefs Kingdom will enjoy a stylish 34-24 victory tonight. Enjoy the return of your defending champions.
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