NFL reveals Chiefs will play Chargers in Week 2

A week ago, the NFL announced that during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, it would reveal the first game of this year’s regular-season schedule: the Week 2 Thursday Night Football matchup, which will be the first TNF game streamed on Amazon Prime Video under the league’s new 11-year contract with the online retailer.

True to its word, the league did just that on Thursday night — and as we expected, the game will feature the Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City will host the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday, September 15 — just four days after the Chiefs open their 2022 campaign against an as-yet-unnamed opponent.

While Amazon’s TNF deal is described as giving it exclusive rights to carry TNF games, it’s important to note that in each of them, a local television station in each team’s market will be allowed to carry the game live.

This news was expected because NBC Sports commentator Peter King reported in two of his recent “Football Morning in America” columns that Amazon was counting on star power for its debut TNF telecast — and that the company wanted Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes to provide it.

In early April, King speculated that Kansas City’s opponent would be either the Broncos or Chargers — two division opponents that now both feature top-flight quarterbacks. On Monday, King went even further, saying that he was hearing the Chargers would, in fact, be the Chiefs’ Week 2 opponent.

Of course, this is just one of the 272 games the league will have on 2022’s regular-season schedule. A few more of the high-profile games will be revealed in the coming days, leading up to the complete schedule reveal at 7 p.m. Arrowhead Time on Thursday, May 12.

We do, however, already know the Chiefs’ opponents for 2022. It will be one of the NFL’s toughest schedules:

Home games: Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, Chargers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks and Buffalo Bills.

Road games: Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, San Francisco 49ers, Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.