NFL announces Rams will face Bills in season opener to begin Super Bowl title defense

The 2022 NFL regular season will start where last season ended. And it could be a Super Bowl LVII preview.

The Los Angeles Rams will host the traditional Thursday night opener on Sept. 8 at SoFi Stadium, the site of their Super Bowl LVI victory over the Cincinnati Bengals last February. The Rams will face the Buffalo Bills the NFL announced Thursday, a couple hours before its full schedule release.

The opening game of the 2022 season is a great matchup. The Rams are coming off their first Super Bowl win since moving back to Los Angeles. The Bills are a Super Bowl contender, having lost a heartbreaking overtime thriller in the divisional round against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Both teams have loaded rosters with explosive offenses led by star quarterbacks in Josh Allen and Matthew Stafford, as well as strong defenses and championship goals. That's a great way to get the season going.

The NFL was set to announce its full schedule on Thursday evening but released some games during the week. It decided to announce all 32 teams' home openers on Thursday about two hours before the full schedule came out. That included the entire Week 1 schedule:

There are plenty of intriguing matchups in that group. But the best game of the lot is probably the first one of the entire regular season.