KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just about the only thing that looked famil­iar about the NFL’s long-await­ed return Thurs­day night was the sight of Patrick Mahomes effort­less­ly lead­ing the Kansas City Chiefs up and down the field.

The Super Bowl MVP threw for 211 yards and three touch­downs, Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran through the rain for 138 yards and anoth­er score, and the Chiefs began defense of their first cham­pi­onship in 50 years by beat­ing the Hous­ton Tex­ans 34–20 on Thurs­day night before a social­ly dis­tanced crowd of about 17,000 due to the coro­n­avirus pandemic.

Travis Kelce, Sam­my Watkins and Tyreek Hill each caught TD pass­es for the Chiefs. They have won 10 straight dat­ing to last sea­son. That run includes a come-from-behind 51–31 vic­to­ry over the Tex­ans in the divi­sion­al round of the playoffs.

“I’m proud of our play­ers but I’m also proud of our fans. They came out there. They were loud,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, who claimed he didn’t notice some boo­ing from fans dur­ing a pregame moment of uni­ty involv­ing both teams.

“Obvi­ous­ly, our play­ers, both sides of the ball and spe­cial teams , I thought they were sol­id,” Reid con­tin­ued. “For the first game there were some good things that were done, some great indi­vid­ual performances.”

The Tex­ans’ Deshaun Wat­son threw a touch­down pass and ran for anoth­er score, but he also was under relent­less pres­sure and was inter­cept­ed once. David John­son pro­vid­ed the biggest bright spot for Hous­ton, run­ning for 77 yards and a score.

“There’s a lot to fix,” Tex­ans coach Bill O’Brien said. “It’s only one game. We have to improve pret­ty quick­ly. But it’s only one game . We have to get back to work pret­ty soon and fix these things.”

The world has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the sev­en months since the Chiefs hoist­ed the Lom­bar­di Tro­phy in Miami.

With­in six weeks, the term COVID-19 had become a part of every­day life, the dis­ease killing more than 900,000 peo­ple around the globe. The death of George Floyd at the knee of a white Min­neapo­lis police offi­cer in May touched off the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment, which in turn has led to a sum­mer of social unrest that has gripped the country.

Against that back­drop came an NFL open­er unlike any oth­er: masks worn by every­one from fans to the coach­ing staffs; a series of videos rais­ing aware­ness of social jus­tice ini­tia­tives and encour­ag­ing the pub­lic to vote; and ulti­mate­ly both teams lock­ing arms in a dis­play of uni­ty pri­or to the coin toss.

To the relief of many, kick­off final­ly brought 4 hours of normalcy.

The Tex­ans, who blew a 24-point lead against Kansas City in the the play­offs, struck first when they marched 80 yards for a touch­down. The elu­sive John­son fin­ished it off by scam­per­ing 19 yards to the end zone for a 7–0 lead.

But just like that cold Jan­u­ary day, the red-hot Chiefs quick­ly over­came their slow start.

They tied it moments lat­er when Mahomes threw a short touch­down pass to Kelce, then took the lead when they forced a quick punt and Mahomes found Watkins in the end zone. Har­ri­son Butk­er capped the first half by kick­ing a chip-shot field goal that sent the Chiefs to the lock­er room with a 17–7 lead.

Edwards-Helaire, their first-round pick, padded the lead in the third quar­ter. After rip­ping off an 11-yard gain ear­ly in the dri­ve, the pint-sized dynamo out of LSU unleashed a wicked stut­ter-step before run­ning 27 yards for anoth­er score.

“H’es just anoth­er weapon I have in this offense,” Mahomes said.

The Chiefs put the game away when rook­ie L’Jarius Sneed picked off Watson’s jump ball in the clos­ing sec­onds of the third quar­ter. Mahomes was bailed out of a fourth-down inter­cep­tion by pass inter­fer­ence in the end zone, then he zipped a dart to Hill streak­ing across the field for a 31–7 lead ear­ly in the fourth quarter.

“We just trust what­ev­er Coach Reid is dial­ing up,” said Kelce, who fin­ished with six catch­es for 50 yards. “They do an unbe­liev­able job prepar­ing us and schem­ing up defens­es and we just trust what they’re doing.”

Wat­son threw a touch­down pass and ran for a TD lat­er in the quar­ter to make the final score a bit more respectable.

“It was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent but the fans did what they did for their home team and that was pret­ty much it,” Wat­son said. “We just got to con­tin­ue to do our job, find the rhythm, get guys on the same page and that’s pret­ty much it.”

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

The Chiefs had a touch­down on their open­ing series brought back when the offi­cials deter­mined Demar­cus Robin­son failed to con­trol a 36-yard pass from Mahomes in the end zone. They had anoth­er over­turned when Watkins caught a 9‑yard pass in the sec­ond quar­ter, though he wound up catch­ing a screen pass for a TD two plays later.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Chiefs lined up along the goal line about 30 min­utes before kick­off and ed Ali­cia Keyes per­form “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is often con­sid­ered the Black nation­al anthem, in a video designed to address racial inequality.

The Tex­ans had already left the field when the demon­stra­tion occurred. They remained there until R&B duo Chloe x Halle fin­ished a vir­tu­al per­for­mance of “The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner,” then ran onto the field to a cho­rus of boos from fans.

Some fans were still boo­ing when the teams met at mid­field and shook hands. The teams then stood togeth­er in a line that stretched from one end zone to the oth­er for a moment of silence before the coin toss.

“Lis­ten, I didn’t real­ly notice it,” Reid said of the boo­ing. “I thought that was kind of a neat deal, both sides com­ing togeth­er for a cause. The sto­ry was told there. Whether it was the nation­al anthems and how those were pre­sent­ed, the singers — Ali­cia Keyes was phe­nom­e­nal — and then guys join­ing hands togeth­er for a cause. Real­ly just to make us all bet­ter and a stronger coun­try than we all are. We have a chance to be unstop­pable when we all come together.”

SUPER CELEBRATION

In a rel­a­tive­ly mut­ed cel­e­bra­tion, the Chiefs unveiled their Super Bowl ban­ner and pre­sent­ed the Lom­bar­di Tro­phy to their fans — along with a 20-foot repli­ca that was wheeled onto the field — about 15 min­utes before the game began.

INJURIES

Chiefs: DT Khalen Saun­ders (elbow) left in the first quar­ter with an elbow injury. DE Alex Okafor hurt his ham­string in the third and did not return. CB Char­var­ius Ward left in the fourth quar­ter with a hand injury.

Tex­ans: RB Duke John­son left in the fourth quar­ter with a leg injury. He did not return.

UP NEXT

The Tex­ans play their home open­er against the Ravens on Sept. 20. The Chiefs vis­it the Charg­ers the same day.