A look at this weekend’s marquee matchups on TSN

With Thursday’s heavyweight season opener between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams in the books, we turn our attention to the first NFL Sunday of the 2022 campaign.

All season long, TSN and CTV have you covered with wall-to-wall NFL programming each Sunday, beginning this weekend in Week 1.

Here is a look at some of the marquee matchups for this weekend, culminating in what could be one of the juicier showdowns of the early part of season on Monday Night Football.

Steelers at Bengals

Cincinnati Bengals

When: Sunday at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT
How to watch: TSN3, TSN4, TSN.ca, the TSN App, CTV (Northern Ontario, Winnipeg), CTV2 (Ottawa, Alberta, Vancouver Island)

The opening NFL Sunday of the season kicks off with an AFC North showdown between the new-look Pittsburgh Steelers and the high-octane Cincinnati Bengals.

Fresh off a trip to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1988, the Bengals are heading into the new season with a target on their backs for the first time in a while. Fresh off five straight losing seasons, Cincinnati rode the electric combination of Joe Burrow and offensive rookie of the year Ja’Marr Chase to become one of the best passing attacks in the league in 2021.

One of the few areas the Bengals struggled last season was protecting Burrow. The former Heisman Trophy winner took 51 sacks last season, the highest total in the league. The Bengals made steps to address that, going out and adding three offensive lineman – centre Ted Karras, right guard Alex Cappa and right tackle La’el Collins -- in free agency.

Burrow is 2-1 against the Steelers in his young career and recorded both of those victories last season. If he were to win a third straight, he’d be the first quarterback in the AFC North to win three straight against the Yellow and Black since Joe Flacco with the Baltimore Ravens in 2011 and 2012.

The Bengals are currently a six and a half-point favourite on FanDuel, but Pittsburgh is no stranger to pulling off the upset in Week 1. The Steelers have won two straight openers and took down the Bills in Buffalo 23-16 to kick things off last season.

It’ll be Mitch Trubisky and not Ben Roethlisberger under centre come Sunday as Big Ben made the decision to finally retire after 18 NFL seasons. Trubisky is 1-2 in his three career openers, all with the Chicago Bears, and carries a 30.9 quarterback rating in openers, fifth lowest of any starting QB with at least three Week 1 starts since the metric was first used in 2006.

Packers at Vikings

Minnesota Vikings Green Bay Packers

When: Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET/1:25 p.m. PT
How to watch: TSN3, TSN4, TSN.ca, the TSN App, CTV (Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg), CTV2 (Atlantic)

The Green Bay Packers have won three straight NFC North Division titles and they are once against the favourites heading into the 2022 season.

Much of that is due to Aaron Rodgers’ utter dominance of other teams in that division, in particular the Minnesota Vikings, who Rodgers and co. will start the 2022 season against Sunday in the Twin Cities.

Rodgers has 56 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his career against Minnesota, which is the best touchdown-to-interception ratio (8.0) of any player against a single opponent in NFL history with a minimum of 500 pass attempts, according to Elias. Next on that list is Rodgers against the Detroit Lions (6.5) and – yup – Rodgers again against the Bears (6.1). Talk about running the table.
The 2021 NFL MVP has four passing touchdowns and zero interceptions in each of his last two road games in Minnesota and has six career games with four or more majors and no picks against the Vikings in his career. So that must mean the Packers have had an easy time with the Vikings, right?

Not so fast. Rodgers is 15-10-1 against Minnesota in his career, nearly as many losses as he’s had against the Bears and Lions combined (11). Green Bay has even lost four games against the Vikings in which Rodgers has thrown for three touchdowns and no interceptions, including one in each of the last two seasons.

Meanwhile, Vikings pivot Kirk Cousins has won each of his last two starts against Rodgers and with a victory on Sunday, would be the first QB to defeat the future Hall-of-Famer in three straight regular season starts.

The Vikings closed out last season at 8-9 but eight of those losses were by one possession – eight points or fewer. Some over at TSN Edge think Minnesota will take a big step forward under new head coach Kevin O’Connell.

Buccaneers at Cowboys

Tom Brady Tampa Bay Buccaneers

When: Sunday at 8:25 p.m. ET/5:25 p.m. PT
How to watch: TSN1, TSN3, TSN4, TSN.ca, the TSN App, CTV2

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys met in Week 1 to open the 2021 NFL season and it was the Bucs who won on a field goal from Ryan Succop in the dying seconds. We have a rematch coming your way on Sunday Night Football.

With 22 NFL seasons under his belt, there are still five teams Tom Brady has never lost to in the regular season. The Dallas Cowboys are one, joining the Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots.

Brady is 6-0 against the Cowboys and no quarterback has more wins against Dallas without a loss. Joe Montana was 5-0 while Philip Rivers and Erik Kramer were each 3-0. Brady is 15-4 as a starter in season openers, the fourth best record of any QB with at least five Week 1 starts in the Super Bowl era.

Cowboys starter Dak Prescott has gone 53-32 during his six-year NFL career but is just 2-4 in the opening week. He set a single-season franchise record with 37 passing touchdowns last season and 22 of those came against the blitz. That could be significant because Tampa Bay recorded the highest blitz percentage (38 per cent) in the NFL in 2021.

On the other side, no team played more man coverage last season than the Cowboys at 62 per cent. But few QBs were better against that scheme than Brady, who tossed 34 touchdowns compared to just five picks. Only Rodgers has thrown more TDs against man coverage (38) in a single season over the past five years.

Broncos at Seahawks

Russell Wilson Denver Broncos

When: Monday at 8:15 p.m. ET/5:15 p.m. PT
How to watch: TSN1, TSN4, TSN5, TSN.ca, the TSN App, CTV2

Russell Wilson sure didn’t have to wait long to get a chance to play his former team.

In one of the bigger moves of the NFL off-season, the Seattle Seahawks dealt their franchise leader in wins (104), passing yards (37,059) and passing touchdowns (292) to the Denver Broncos in exchange for five draft picks, tight end Noah Fant, defensive end Shelby Harris and quarterback Drew Lock.

Not only does Wilson get a chance to stick it to his old team right out of the gate, he gets to do it in Seattle on Monday Night Football. Could the stage be better?

Wilson is the only quarterback to have four passing TDs in back-to-back season openers. He’ll now try to extend that streak for a Broncos team entering Week 1 with a different starting QB for the sixth straight season.

The 33-year-old is 10-3 all-time on Monday Night Football, good for the third-best record among QBs with 10 or more MNF starts behind Roethlisberger (17-5) and Randall Cunningham (8-2). Denver has lost five straight Monday Nighters with their last win coming back in 2017 against the Los Angeles Chargers, who were playing their first season in L.A. since moving from San Diego. So, yeah, it’s been a long time. The Broncos also lost four straight contests to close out last season.

On the slip side, Geno Smith is set to become the first Seahawk not named Russell Wilson to start Week 1 under centre since Tarvaris Jackson in 2011. Seattle was 0-5 in primetime last season, the worst record of any team in the league.