Every game counts in the NFL's 17-week regular season, and that's especially true when it comes to divisional matchups.

It might be even more true in the AFC West, where the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs will meet to kick off 2018. While the Chargers appear to be the consensus favorite to finish first, there's really no telling just how much we'll get from the Chiefs and Denver Broncos and even the Oakland Raiders (no matter how poorly you think of Jon Gruden's trade skills).

Los Angeles has the firepower to make a run, but it also seems like we say that every year. As long as Philip Rivers is upright, Melvin Gordon is healthy and the receiving corps, now headlined by Keenan Allen, stays intact, the offense should be explosive. And as long as the defense's star players, Joey Bosa among them, live up to their reputation, other teams should have trouble thrashing them as well. Yet the secondary was hit with a barrage of injuries this preseason, and there's there the fact that the Chargers just tend to fold when they need to come up big -- a problem that can't really be predicted on a weekly basis.

In Kansas City, meanwhile, the expectations seem to be lowered from an outside perspective, if only because Andy Reid will be entering Year 1 with youngster Patrick Mahomes as a full-time starter. But who's really to say that the Chiefs, even with a boom-or-bust kind of passer like Mahomes, can't challenge the Chargers for a playoff spot?

We'll find out for the first time on Sunday.

Here's how to catch this week's Week 1 AFC West battle:

How to watch, stream

  • Kickoff: Sunday, Sept. 9, 4:05 p.m. ET
  • TV: CBS (Check local listings)
  • Streaming: CBS All Access (Try for free), fuboTV (Try for free)

CBS All Access offers streaming on the following connected devices: Apple TV, Android, iPad, Roku, Google Chromecast, Playstation 4, Xbox, Windows 10 and Amazon Fire TV. You can also download the CBS app to use All Access, or watch the games on CBS.com in more than 150 markets across the U.S.

Who will win?

The Chiefs should be plenty explosive with Mahomes at the helm in place of the more conservative Alex Smith, and you can never bet against Reid when it comes to racking up wins in the regular season. But from top to bottom, it's pretty apparent that Los Angeles is better positioned to win now, and that's reflected in the predictions of our CBS NFL experts, all but one of whom like the Chargers to take this one. Pete Prisco even says L.A. should expect to win by 10, projecting "a couple of turnovers that Philip Rivers will turn into points."

You can catch all of CBS's expert NFL picks right here.