Thursday’s MatchupDetroit Lions at Kansas City Chiefs, 8:20 p.m., NBCLine: Chiefs -4.5 | Total: 52.5Kansas City seems to love to play a game within a game: How many players can be taken away before Patrick Mahomes can’t thrive? The speedy receiver Tyreek Hill, as demonstrated last year, was expendable. So were other receivers like Sammy Watkins, DeMarcus Robinson and JuJu Smith-Schuster. The team goes through running backs quickly enough that Mahomes doesn’t need to introduce himself. It was Chicago’s fifth consecutive win against Green Bay in a rivalry that had become decidedly one-sided.

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Persons: Patrick Mahomes, Sammy Watkins, DeMarcus Robinson, JuJu Smith, Schuster, Travis Kelce, Kelce, Mahomes’s, Jared Goff, David Montgomery, Jim Harbaugh, Brett Favre Organizations: Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, NBC Line, Chiefs, Super Bowl, Kansas, Lions, Bears, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Fox Line, Packers, Green Locations: Kansas, Kansas City, Green Bay, Wis