The highly anticipated 2024 NFL season kicked off Thursday night as Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens traveled to Arrowhead to take on Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
With a 4-1 regular season record and a 1-0 post season record against Jackson, Mahomes has gotten the better of this matchup throughout their careers thus far. Last year, the Chiefs defeated the Ravens 17-10 in the AFC Championship game, advancing to the Super Bowl where the Chiefs ultimately beat the highly talented San Francisco 49ers. Mahomes is, without question, the best quarterback in the NFL and the 3 Super Bowl rings to his name prove that.
Lamar Jackson hopes to achieve a Super Bowl victory this season, but Mahomes continues to stand in his way. This matchup is one fans will get to enjoy many times over the coming years. And Thursday night was yet another chapter in this story.
Illegal Formation Penalties
The NFL is cracking down on illegal formations this year. They made an example out of the Ravens on Thursday Night.
The Ravens were flagged for three illegal formation penalties on their very first drive of the season. And they ended the game with a total of five illegal formation penalties called against them.
If the other NFL teams didn’t know the league was going to make a stand on illegal formations, they do now. There is potential to see this a lot this season, and not only do the 32 teams in the NFL need to realize this, but so do fans.
The penalties taken on the Ravens did not stop them from scoring on their first drive, though, as Derrick Henry found the end zone for his first touchdown as a Raven.
Standout Performances
For the Ravens, QB Lamar Jackson and TE Isaiah Likely were the two best players on Thursday Night. Jackson ran for an incredible 122 yards on 16 carries while Likely had 9 receptions for 111 yards and a touchdown.
While Isaiah Likely’s performance did surprise fans, the lack of targets for top tight end Mark Andrews might have been more surprising. Andrews has been one of the best tight ends in the NFL over the last couple of years, so his lack of targets and production was not expected. Fantasy managers who drafted Andrews have reason to be concerned.
Likely was able to find the end zone with a 49 yard touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson.
For the Chiefs, rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy found the end zone twice. His first touchdown was a 21 yard run. His second came from a 35 yard reception to make the score 27-20 with a little over 10 minutes to go in the game.
Rashee Rice also had a productive night, totaling 7 receptions for 103 yards. Patrick Mahomes finished the game with 20 completions for 291 yards and 1 touchdown. He yet again proved that the road to the Super Bowl in the AFC goes through Arrowhead and this dangerous Kansas City offense.
Final Score: 27-20 Chiefs Victory
This game went back and forth and the NFL could not have asked for a better opening night to the 2024 season.
Down 27-17 in the 4th quarter, the Ravens converted a HUGE 4th and 1 with a Derrick Henry rush. But they could not finish the drive with a touchdown and settled for a field goal. The Chiefs got the ball back, but failed to get into field goal range and ultimately had to punt, giving the Ravens another chance to tie or win the game with 1:50 left in the game. Jackson went on to complete a huge 38 yard pass to Rashod Bateman to put the Ravens on the Kansas City 10 yard line.
1st and Goal for the Ravens and Lamar Jackson overthrew a fairly open Isaiah Likely in the back corner of the end zone. Likely got hurt on this play and there was an injury timeout called. Thankfully, he was able to return.
2nd and Goal with 10 seconds left and Lamar Jackson missed a wide open Zay Flowers in the end zone. Two straight bad passes. Not good.
3rd and Goal with 4 seconds left in the game, this would be the last play of the game. Jackson went on to throw a strike to Isaiah Likely for what was originally called a touchdown. However, after further review from the officials, it was declared Likely was out of bounds by a margin of a toe. This game would end with a 27-20 Kansas City victory.
With John Harbaugh signaling to go for two after Likely’s overturned touchdown, NFL fans can only imagine the final outcome had he been one shoe size smaller.
