The Arizona Cardinals kick the 2022 NFL season off with a bang.
The Cardinals will host the Kansas City Chiefs at 1:25 p.m. local time on September 11, 2022 for the first game of the regular season.
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Notes on the game from the team:
Arizona will open the season at home for the 10th time since beginning play at State Farm Stadium in 2006. In 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium the Cardinals never played at home in Week 1.
The Cardinals will enter the game against the Chiefs with an 11-5 record in home-openers at State Farm Stadium.
Arizona has never lost a regular season opener under head coach Kliff Kingsbury, posting a 2-0-1 record in his first three seasons. The Cardinals have won each of their last two season openers, downing the defending NFC champion 49ers 24-20 in 2020 and defeating the defending AFC South champion Titans 38-13 last season.
Combined with their Week 1 victory at Tennessee in 2021, this will mark the first time since 1996-97 (Colts and Bengals) the Cardinals open consecutive seasons against opponents from the AFC.
The game will mark the 15th all-time meeting between the Cardinals and Chiefs, with Kansas City making its fourth-ever visit to Arizona and third visit to State Farm Stadium.
The Cardinals have won two of the last three at home vs. the Chiefs, including a 17-14 win in Kansas City’s last visit (Week 14 of the 2014 season).
The Week 1 matchup will mark the first time Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury will face off against Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes in the regular season, his star pupil at Texas Tech. With Kingsbury as his head coach, Mahomes started two seasons (2015-16) for the Red Raiders and became just the third QB ever to record 5,000+ yards of total offense in back-to-back seasons. After becoming the youngest QB in NCAA history to amass 5,000+ yards of total offense in 2015, Mahomes led the nation with 5,052 passing yards in 2016.
The game will also mark the first matchup between Cardinals QB Kyler Murray and Mahomes, two of the four NFL QBs who have been named to the Pro Bowl each of the last two seasons (Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are the others). Murray and Mahomes combined for 9,430 total yards and 68 TDs last season.
The Cardinals-Chiefs Week 1 matchup will also feature two of the NFL’s top TEs in Zach Ertz and Travis Kelce, both of whom rank in the top-10 all-time in receptions by a TE (Ertz ranks 9th with 635 and Kelce ranks 7th with 704). Ertz (116 in 2018) owns NFL single-season record for receptions by a TE while Kelce (1,416 in 2020) owns the single-season record for receiving yards by a TE.
What an exciting way to open the 2022 NFL season.
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