Monday Night Football will kick off with the Houston Texans battling the New Orleans Saints and the Denver Broncos taking on the Oakland Raiders in Week 1, according to Nick Underhill of The Athletic and Mike Klis of 9 News.

Both of these matchups are intriguing for various reasons.

Let's start with the Texans and Saints, both of whom won their respective divisions (AFC South and NFC South) this past season.

While many feel that the Indianapolis Colts will be the favorites to take the AFC South this coming year, Houston is the defending champ and is coming off of a 2018 campaign in which it won 11 games.

Meanwhile, New Orleans is the clear frontrunner in an otherwise weak NFC South division and is looking to avenge a devastating and controversial NFC Championship Game loss to the Los Angeles Rams following a magnificent 13-win season.

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Could this be a potential Super Bowl preview? It remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that both clubs should be among the best in their conferences heading into 2019.

As for the Broncos and Raiders? What else is there to say?

This is a classic AFC West clash featuring a Denver team that now has a new head coach in Vic Fangio and a revamped Oakland squad that now has the likes of Antonio Brown, Trent Brown, Lamarcus Joyner and Vontaze Burfict after a very busy offseason.

While the Broncos and Raiders are probably not going to win their division (the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers are clearly the best teams), they both should be better than this past year.