The Kansas City Chiefs open their 2025 campaign against the Los Angeles Chargers on Friday in São Paulo, Brazil.
Kansas City failed in its quest to capture the NFL’s first three-peat last season, losing 40-22 in Super Bowl 59 to the Philadelphia Eagles. The Chargers had a good season, making the playoffs but losing in the first round to the Houston Texans.
Lets break this game down from a bunch of angles and derive three best bets worth considering.
Odds courtesy of BetMGM.
While this is technically a Chiefs road game at the Chargers, the game is being played in Brazil, so for betting purposes we will treat this game as a neutral site field, with neither team garnering a home-field advantage.
This is the second NFL game ever played at Corinthians Arena, after last season’s Week 1 game between the Eagles and Packers. The major takeaway from last season was that field conditions were challenging and slippery. Saquon Barkley slipped on one of the first plays of the game, while Jordan Love slipped on a key passing down and nearly threw an interception.
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The NFL has addressed the concerns about the field issues last season, including an 11-day field reseeding process designed to make the playing surface more resistant. There has also been an upgrade to the field surface cooling system, designed to help maintain the field condition throughout the game.
Still, it’s hard to know what to expect.
A slippery surface likely helps the offense and boosts the chances of big plays, as defenses are always reacting to offensive movements. Last season, the score ended up a 34-29 Eagles win. If you notice slipping early, look to back a live over, perhaps player props of longest completion, longest reception and longest rush.
Last year we saw a 70-yard Jordan Love to Jayden Reed touchdown, a 67-yard Jalen Hurts to AJ Brown TD and a 34-yard run by Saquon Barkley.
The Chargers offseason has been marred by bad injury news yes, stop me if you’ve heard that before.
Star left tackle Rashawn Slater signed a record breaking 4-year, $114 million contract this offseason, and just 11 days later he tore his left patellar tendon and is now on season-ending IR. Wide receiver Quentin Johnston suffered a training camp concussion, and rookie WRs Luke Grimm and KeAndre Lambert-Smith missed time with injuries as well. The Chargers brought back veteran WR Keenan Allen amidst all the lost pass-catchers.
RB Najee Harris is just getting back to practice this week, after not practicing since his July 4th fireworks-related eye injury.
On the defensive side, LB Junior Colson and DT Josh Fuga are both on the IR as well after training camp injuries. Expect them to lean heavily on second-year WR Ladd McConkey, rookie RB Omarion Hampton and the veteran presence of QB Justin Herbert.
Since this is a divisional matchup in Week 1, we can use the abundance of previous matchups and last season’s priors to help handicap. History also does not bode well for the Chargers, as they have lost seven consecutive games to the Chiefs. The upside and glimmer of hope here is that six of those seven losses were one-score games.
We last saw the Chiefs playing in their third consecutive Super Bowl, but the Eagles were up 24-0 at halftime and 34-6 after three quarters, so the final score misrepresents how close the game was it was a trouncing. Despite all of Kansas City’s recent success, they come into this season with something to prove again.
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Billy Walters, one of the greatest NFL bettors of all time, published a book, Gambler: Secrets From a Life At Risk and explained that the Super Bowl loser should be handicapped with a downgrade of 0.8 points against the spread for the following season’s first four games. The main contributing factors are a shorter offseason and some roster turnover.
The Chiefs lost CB LJarius Sneed, who was traded to the Tennessee Titans, but the main pieces are all still in place, both on the field and on the coaching staff. I predict that the Chiefs will have less of an impact than most Super Bowl losers the following year.
The last time this core Chiefs team lost a Super Bowl, they returned to the AFC Championship Game and lost in overtime to the Bengals.
Chiefs -3 (-118)
Kansas opened -2 when the schedule was released and now is up to -3 with increased vig. Even with the large move, I still think it is worth playing and I think this will close with closing line value (CLV). My power rankings show this to be a 4.25-point differential between the teams on a neutral site. Factor in the Walters 0.8-point downgrade for the Chiefs, and this should still be right around 3.5. The move onto and off of the 3 is the most important line movement in all of sports, worth around 22 cents on the dollar for each half point.
If I make the fair value is about Chiefs -3.5 (-105), Chiefs -3 (-118) is a good bet.
Patrick Mahomes under 250.5 passing yards
I love this prop. All offseason pundits have said Mahomes is going to go back to throwing the deep ball again, and honestly it’s more narrative than anything else. Combine that with the slippery field that bettors remember from last season, and over tickets galore is likely dominating the betting volume.
But if we dive deeper into what’s happening in the market, a lot of the 250.5s are coming down. His prop got as low as 238.5 at some sportsbooks, and most are settling in the mid 240s. This is called reverse line movement when the line moves opposite the direction of the volume of tickets. That generally means sharper bettors and market makers are on the under, and I want to join them in the first game against a division rival with a strong secondary, on a field where the conditions were addressed by the league. The under 250.5 is -115 at BetMGM, and is my favorite play on the Friday NFL card.
Kareem Hunt under 5.5 rush attempts
Hunt rejoined the Chiefs mid season last year when the team was dealing with a lot of injuries at the running back position. Now Isiah Pacheco is back and has been healthy throughout camp, and the addition of Elijah Mitchell has also bolstered the RB depth. I expect Hunt to be used sporadically in passing situations, and his under 5.5 rush attempts is a good look at -115 odds, which is widely available including at BetMGM.
Under 46.5 (lean)
I have bet the top three myself already, and the last one I am considering is the game total under 46.5. The reason to wait is because of the asymmetric value of line movement in each direction; 46 is an uncommon NFL total outcome (17th most frequent outcome) while 47 is a top 10 outcome of NFL games. I will wait to see if there is movement up to 47 to play a stronger number on game day, and I will wait to watch live and assess if the field conditions have indeed improved.
If need be, I will play Under 46 at a worse number but with increased confidence in the situational circumstances of market direction and field conditions.