The NFL will begin its 106th season on Thursday when the Dallas Cowboys travel to Philadelphia and face the reigning Super Bowl Champion Eagles at 8:20 p.m. Eastern Time.

The NFL is hosting Kickoff Weekend to welcome the season. There will be eight divisional games marking the fifth instance of such since 2002 realignment, according to the NFL.

A high stakes tilt will come early when Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens go on the road against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night, the fifth time the two most recent Most Valuable Players play one another in a Week 1 game according to the NFL.

Here are three storylines I’m following before Week 1.

How does Micah Parsons fit with the Green Bay Packers?

The Cowboys trade of their 2021 first-round draft pick sent a shockwave across the league as Parsons, who’s been named to the Pro Bowl each of his first four seasons, was dealt within the NFC to Green Bay last Thursday.

The Packers will surely have a boost defensively with Parsons, who along with former defensive end Reggie White are the only two players in NFL history to register 12-plus sacks in their first four seasons, according to Green Bay.

I’m curious to see where Parsons is physically and how healthy he is. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Parsons “has a facet joint sprain — L4/L5 — and may be able to play with an epidural.” Parsons passed his physical with the Packers, according to Rapoport.

I like Green Bay’s chances with Parsons healthy and when the offense is in a rhythm under Jordan Love. Romeo Doubs, Matthew Golden, Josh Jacobs, Tucker Kraft and Jayden Reed are five interesting names on the Packers’ first-team offense depth chart who could be there for Love in a tough NFC North.

How do Joe Burow and the Cincinnati Bengals bounce back from missing the playoffs two seasons in a row?

I’ve seen NFL analysts tab Burrow as the preseason MVP heading into the 2025-26 season. I’ve also seen some choose the Bengals as their AFC pick to go to the Super Bowl.

Cincinnati has finished 9-8 in each of the past two seasons. The Bengals ended last year on a five-game winning streak beating teams such as Denver and Pittsburgh and making a run toward a last-minute playoff spot.

The Bengals have paid Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Burrow, and they also paid Trey Hendrickson. They’ve locked down their franchise cornerstones.

So are all the chips in this season? It feels like it, especially for a team that was in the Super Bowl less than four years ago and especially for a team in a division that saw all four teams finish above .500 in 2023.

Cincinnati must pass the test of its first two games of the season, however. The Bengals have started 0-2 each of the past three years, and it just seems to be a big momentum swing that pits the team behind the eight ball early — yet they find a way to battle back into contention.

So the Bengals have the Cleveland Browns to begin the season, and they’ll be on the road. Cleveland’s position is much different than Cincinnati’s, with the Browns going forward with Joe Flacco as their starting quarterback in a room that also has intriguing rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.

Zac Taylor and Cincinnati could be in for a fast start. Their latest challenge will kick off Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

What position is in for a breakout year?

It felt like Saquon Barkley brought a lot of swagger back to running backs as a position group last year in 2024-25. Barkley ran his way to Offensive Player of the Year honors with 2,005 rushing yards standing as eighth-most in a single season in NFL history.

Who can forget Barkley’s backward hurdle during Week 9 last season? So I wonder what position group is poised for the forefront of conversation this year.

Could quarterback talk return to dominating the conversation in 2025? According to the NFL, there are 12 teams expecting to play a new starting quarterback. Among them include teams like Minnesota and Pittsburgh, who will play second-year-player-but-first-year-starter J.J. McCarthy and veteran Aaron Rodgers, respectively, in addition to teams such as the New York Giants, who will roll with Russell Wilson, and Jets, who will play former Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields.

There are new head coaches, too, across the NFL who will make for fascinating matchups during the season.

Pete Carroll will return to the NFL sidelines when he leads the Las Vegas Raiders onto the football field Sunday. He’ll have Geno Smith at quarterback, and the two will reunite after the 2020-23 seasons in Seattle.

Mike Vrabel also returns to the sidelines this time with the New England Patriots, a team that Vrabel played for and with which he won three Super Bowls. New England went 4-13 last season and will be an interesting team to watch in an AFC East spearheaded by Allen and the Bills.

The hires of Kellen Moore in New Orleans and Brian Schottenheimer in Dallas represent two interesting ones to me. Moore is finally getting his head coaching shot with a Saints team that has playmakers such as Alvin Kamara and Chris Olave. Schottenheimer is tasked with keeping Dallas in the conversation amid the team trading arguably its biggest superstar in recent days.

Perhaps the NFL debut for Travis Hunter in Jacksonville could propel the conversation to a two-way madness similar to that in Major League Baseball. Could Hunter be like Shohei Ohtani and play two ways? The Jaguars list Hunter as a starting wide receiver and second-team cornerback on their depth chart ahead of Sunday’s game against Carolina.

I think Hunter is an incredibly talented player. His decorated 2024 season at Colorado resulted in a full trophy case: the Heisman Trophy, Bednarik Award, Walter Camp Award and Biletnikoff Award, to name several.

According to the Jaguars, Hunter led the Football Bowl Subdivision in snaps both in 2023 and 2024, totaling 2,625 snaps. He is prepared for a heavy workload, and the Jaguars could see Hunter play both offense and defense early in his NFL career and ignite a new conversation about two-way NFL players.