KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs will spend a few minutes before their season opener against the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night celebrating their latest Super Bowl triumph.

Former players will return to Arrowhead Stadium, and team owner Clark Hunt will help raise their latest championship banner high above the west end zone.

You can bet the Ravens won’t enjoy the show.

The Chiefs beat them in the AFC championship game just over seven months ago, denying Lamar Jackson and Co. their chance to play for the title. Instead, the Chiefs went on to beat San Francisco for their second straight championship and third in a five-year span.

The rematch between the AFC titans on Thursday night will lift the lid on the NFL regular season.

“Any game I play in, I feel like it’s a revenge game,” said Jackson, who earned his second NFL MVP award last season. “Anybody we’ve played, no matter if we’ve beat them or lost to them in previous years, I just want to win.”

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When it comes to the Chiefs, he’s mostly been losing. The Ravens’ quarterback is 1-4 against counterpart Patrick Mahomes. That includes the 17-10 loss in January, when Kansas City held them to a lowly field goal over the final three quarters.

“We’re not aiming for anybody, and I’m pretty sure they’re not aiming for us,” Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman said. “I mean, they beat us fair and square last year, and I feel like we’re just going to play football again Thursday night.”

Whatever the inspiration for Baltimore — a bit of revenge against the Chiefs, a trip to the Super Bowl at the end of the season, merely silencing one of the toughest crowds in the NFL on Thursday night — the driving force for the Chiefs is quite clear: They want to make history. No team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls.

There are reasons to believe they can do it, too.

Kansas City returned almost its entire defense intact, one that finished second only to the Ravens in scoring last season, and its offense could be better than ever. The Chiefs drafted wide receiver Xavier Worthy for some big-play pop that was sorely missing, and Travis Kelce and the rest of the crew are back alongside Mahomes for another go-around.

They even figure to have Kelce’s girlfriend, pop superstar Taylor Swift, cheering from a suite once again.

BILLS: A year after making the cut to successfully resume his football career following a near-death experience, safety Damar Hamlin reached a new plateau in his comeback in being selected a season-opening starter.

Coach Sean McDermott announced the news by saying Hamlin will be paired with Taylor Rapp when the Bills take the field in hosting the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
The promotion for the 26-year-old Hamlin comes some 20 months since he went into cardiac arrest, after making what appeared to be a routine tackle, and needed to be resuscitated on the field during a game at Cincinnati. He then spent two days in the hospital in a medically induced coma before finally being awakened while surrounded by his family.
Doctors diagnosed the cause of Hamlin’s heart stopping as a result of commotio cordis, which happens when a direct blow at a specific point in a heartbeat causes cardiac arrest. Cleared for practice and assured by specialists the chances of a recurrence being slim, Hamlin was gradually eased back into football.
He was limited to appearing in just five games in a backup and special teams role last season. In 2022, Hamlin enjoyed his most playing time in starting 13 games in place of Hyde, who was sidelined by a neck injury.
BROWNS: The Browns are heading into their opener against the Dallas Cowboys as healthy as they’ve been in months.
The team said all 53 players on the active roster practiced, including starting left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr., who has been sidelined since undergoing season-ending knee surgery in December.
Wills’ absence has been a concern for the Browns, who will have to deal with Dallas’ tough defense led by All-Pro rusher Micah Parsons.
COMMANDERS: The Washington Commanders said they have suspended an employee pending an internal investigation after he was shown making derogatory comments about players and fans in undercover video posted on social media.
Vice president of content Rael Enteen said in the video posted by O’Keefe Media Group that some players were dumb and homophobic and called fans “high school-educated alcoholics” and “mouth breathers.”
A team spokesperson said, “The language used in the video runs counter to our values at the Commanders organization” and that further comment will be reserved at this time.
• The Washington Commanders signed starting right guard Sam Cosmi to a four-year extension, getting the deal done just before the start of the NFL season.
BRONCOS: Cornerback Patrick Surtain II agreed to a four-year contract extension worth $96 million with $77.5 million guaranteed, a person with knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press.
The $24 million-per-year average vaults Surtain past Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Antoine Winfield Jr. ($21.025 million) and Green Bay Packers cornerback Jaire Alexander ($21 million) as the highest-paid defensive back in the NFL.
JAGUARS: A circuit court judge in Florida has dismissed a lawsuit two women filed against former NFL kicker Brandon McManus and the Jacksonville Jaguars that accused McManus of sexually assaulting them on the team’s overseas flight to London in 2023.
Judge Michael S. Sharrit granted a motion to dismiss and wrote in his order that the case does not meet “exceptional” criteria required for the women to have anonymity. The women used pseudonyms “Jane Doe I” and “Jane Doe II” in the lawsuit.

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