Every week, NFL games come down to matchups.
Unlike baseball, where 162 games are played and the main reason for winning and losing—the starting pitcher—changes every night, football is a sprint where the players are repeated in the lineups time and again.
For those reasons, stats are both important and hard to judge.
Sure, numbers can give clues about the best games of the upcoming week, but often the sample size is small. So in this weekly piece, we won’t be looking at overarching figures often but more an important pivot on which games can and will turn. Football is about yardage and points, but games are won in red zones and on third downs, in turnover ratios and pressure rates.
Here then are the most important matchups for Week 1, starting with the NFL’s opening game of the season in Kansas City.
ThursdayDetroit Lions at Kansas City Chiefs
Key matchup: Lions’ new secondary vs. Patrick Mahomes
Last season, the Lions allowed 7.0 net yards per pass attempt, better than only the Bears. In Kansas City, Mahomes led the best attack for that metric at 7.5 net yards per pass. For Detroit to win, Mahomes can’t go off all night.
