At long, long last, the NFL is back. Some seven months after the Philadelphia Eagles topped the Kansas City Chiefs to lift the Lombardi Trophy for the first time in seven years, the Eagles are facing the Dallas Cowboys in the season-opening game. Kansas City will take the field for the first time at 8 p.m. ET tomorrow night, when they travel to face the Los Angeles Chargers at the Corinthians Arena in São Paulo, Brazil.
DraftKings Sportsbook favors the Chiefs by three points, with the point total set to 46.5. Kansas City is -170 on the Moneyline, and the Chargers are +142.
DraftKings is offering a Showdown contest for the big game, so I’ll take you through my two captain’s picks, two FLEX picks, and one fade. Let’s dive in:
Set your DraftKings fantasy football lineups here: NFL Showdown $1.5M Friday Night Showdown [$500K to 1st] (KC vs LAC).
SHOWDOWN STRATEGY
Captain’s Picks
Xavier Worthy ($13,500 CP) – Patrick Mahomes ($15,000 CP) is probably still a top-five quarterback in football, but he had a relatively quiet regular season and got outplayed by Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts in the Super Bowl. His final Super Bowl line — 21-for-32 for 257 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions (25.78 FPTS) — was respectable on paper, but most of those numbers were racked up in garbage time against the Eagles’ backups. I’m going to stay away from him.
Worthy was the only Chiefs receiver to do anything of note in that game, and while most of his yards and both of his touchdowns came in garbage time as well, hauling in all eight of his targets isn’t nothing, especially since some of Mahomes’ throws weren’t great and required Worthy to make adjustments. His game-breaking speed proved challenging for even Philadelphia’s talented secondary, and at the age of 22, he should only be getting better. I like his chances against a Los Angeles secondary that isn’t quite as good as the Eagles’, especially with the Chargers’ best secondary defender, Derwin James, aging.
Kansas City simply doesn’t have any trustworthy options in the wideout room right now. Rashee Rice will miss the first six games of the season after violating the league’s personal conduct policy, and Hollywood Brown ($8,700 CP) was a non-factor in the playoffs. The linchpin of the Chiefs’ offense is the chemistry that Mahomes has with Travis Kelce ($12,900 CP), but the newly-engaged tight end has repeatedly flirted with retirement and had a quiet last few games in the playoff run.
Keenan Allen ($9,600 CP) – Instead of going with one of the quarterbacks, Allen could be an interesting budget captain. He had a rough season in 2024 with the Chicago Bears, amassing only 744 receiving yards and seven scores and tailing off massively before the end of the season, but the 33-year-old should be capable of improving on those lackluster numbers now that he’s back with Los Angeles. He received a pretty poor grade from Pro Football Focus last season, but that was dragged down in part by a poor run-blocking metric, which isn’t relevant to fantasy, and in part by Caleb Williams’ reticence to throw the ball.
Beyond Ladd McConkey ($15,900 CP), the Chargers don’t have much depth at wide receiver. Quentin Johnston ($8,100 CP), despite a huge last game of the regular season, disappeared in the Wild Card Round, pulling in none of his five targets, and he was targeted inconsistently in the second half of the season. Johnston had just a 60.4% catch percentage last season and recorded seven drops; Allen has never recorded worse than a 67.5% catch rate in four seasons playing alongside Justin Herbert ($14,700 CP), and he has never posted a drop rate even close to Johnston’s 7.7% last season.
Plus, while Kansas City has a solid secondary overall, its coverage team drops off significantly after Trent McDuffie, who finished with the fourth-best grade among cornerbacks at Pro Football Focus. While McDuffie received a solid 79.2 coverage grade from PFF, the Chiefs’ other outside cornerback, Kristian Fulton, received just a 66.6 grade. McConkey will have his hands full with McDuffie, leaving Allen to exploit the weaker members of the secondary. Kansas City also had an elite run defense last season, which should incentivize Herbert to throw.
FLEX Plays
Kareem Hunt ($3,600) – Hunt was a non-factor in the Super Bowl, taking just three carries for nine yards and hauling in his sole target for an additional five (2.4 FPTS), but because the Chiefs faced such a huge deficit so early in the game and Philadelphia’s run defense was so dominant, neither was Isiah Pacheco ($7,600). Los Angeles’ run defense is good, but worse than the Eagles’, which should allow Hunt to put up numbers closer to his production in the Divisional Round against the Houston Texans, when he took eight carries for 44 yards and a score (11.6 FPTS). He recorded as many or more carries than Pacheco did in all three playoff games.
I’m not expecting huge things out of Hunt — the last time he shared a backfield with Pacheco against the Chargers, he managed just five carries for 16 yards (5.9 FPTS) — but Pacheco’s inconsistency and Hunt’s solid performances in the first two rounds of the playoffs should’ve earned the veteran a large enough share of the offense to be worth his small DFS salary. Plus, Hunt tends to run around the edges while Pacheco more frequently dives up the middle, and Los Angeles’ best run defenders tend to play in the middle of the defense.
Tyler Conklin ($2,800) – Conklin is another budget option, this time from the Chargers’ side. The 30-year-old signed in the offseason after three seasons with the New York Jets in which he amassed 170 catches for 1,622 yards and seven scores while playing with a rotating cast of signal-callers, most of whom weren’t very good. Herbert is an upgrade over even old Aaron Rodgers, so Conklin’s ceiling should be higher in Los Angeles than it was with the Jets. He’s more likely to be out there on passing downs than Will Dissly ($2,400) because of his superior pass blocking, which could allow him to take advantage of late-breaking dump-offs.
Plus, guarding tight ends is arguably Kansas City’s biggest defensive weakness. Last season, the Chiefs allowed the seventh-most fantasy points to opposing tight ends, conceding a league-leading 1,191 yards to the position despite only being targeted the seventh-most times. In large part, that’s a question of personnel; Kansas City’s best linebacker, Leo Chenal, is more of a pass-rushing specialist, and there’s a big drop-off in overall talent from Chenal to any other Chiefs linebacker. On deeper targets, free safety Bryan Cook and strong safety Chamarri Conner both received among the worst coverage grades at their respective positions.
Fades
Najee Harris ($7,000) – I started to get in the habit of fading Harris last season when he was a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and his relatively high DFS salary is incentivizing me to do so again here, though I don’t think rookie Omarion Hampton ($8,000) is great value either. Harris limped to the finish line last season after losing some of his playing time to Jaylen Warren, recording 10.1 or fewer FPTS in four of his last five games. Then, he suffered an eye injury in a fireworks accident and only returned to practice last week. He’s unlikely to be in game shape and will have to develop chemistry with Herbert.
Plus, Kansas City’s run defense is elite. Last season, the Chiefs finished as the second-best defense against opposing running backs and ranked seventh in rush defense grades by PFF’s metrics. They limited Saquon Barkley, coming off of a historic season, to just 57 yards on 25 carries in the Super Bowl. Opponents only attempted 316 rushes with running backs against Kansas City last season, the fourth-fewest in the league. Harris could hardly ask for a harder matchup to open the season, especially on a short ramp-up.
THE OUTCOME
In the big picture, it looks like the Chiefs’ nine-season hold on the AFC West may come to an end some time soon, with both Los Angeles and the Denver Broncos making moves to strengthen their playoff cores. The Chargers’ and Broncos’ lopsided defeats in the Wild Card Round demonstrated that both squads still have work to do, but Kansas City’s Super Bowl loss was similarly dispiriting. The Chiefs have lots of questions on offense, with neither running back reliable and Kelce aging.
Still, I expect Mahomes to produce a bounce-back season now that his intimidation factor is at an all-time low. Rice’s suspension will hurt, but the Chiefs played most of last season without him anyway after he tore his LCL in Week 4. Kansas City produced a pair of ugly wins against Los Angeles last season, including the game in which Rice got hurt, and I think it’ll do so again in São Paulo.
