Ravens 2023 schedule: 4 prime-time games, including Christmas at 49ers, 25,442 travel miles and trip to London

Prime-time audiences will get a healthy dose of star quarterback Lamar Jackson down the stretch of this year’s NFL season.

The Ravens will play four nationally televised night games in a six-week span between Weeks 11 and 16, including a Christmas night blockbuster against the 49ers in San Francisco. Last season, the 49ers were 13-4 in the regular season and reached the NFC championship before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles. They’re expected to contend for the NFC title again.

Other night games for the Ravens include a Thursday showdown against the division rival Cincinnati Bengals at M&T Bank Stadium on Nov. 16 and two Sunday night games — against the Chargers in Los Angeles on Nov. 26 and at the Jacksonville Jaguars on Dec. 17.

The Ravens will also play in London for just the second time in franchise history when they take on the host Tennessee Titans on Oct. 15 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Ravens last played overseas in 2017, getting blown out by the Jaguars, 44-7, at Wembley Stadium.

Last season, the Ravens played three prime-time games (Week 5 vs. Cincinnati; Week 8 at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; Week 9 at the New Orleans Saints), their fewest since 2019.

But with the Ravens having re-signed Jackson — the NFL Most Valuable Player in 2019 — and added two-time All-Pro wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., among other moves, they’ve emerged as a potential Super Bowl contender after going 10-7 last season and losing to the Bengals in the AFC wild-card round.

This marks just the third time the Ravens will play on Christmas and first since 2016, when Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger connected with wide receiver Antonio Brown for a 4-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds remaining to rally Pittsburgh to a 31-27 home victory that clinched the AFC North title. The other was in 2005 against the Vikings in Baltimore when Kyle Boller went 24-for-34 for 289 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Ravens to a 30-23 win that eliminated Minnesota from the playoff hunt.

It will also be the first time the Ravens have played the 49ers since 2019, when Jackson converted a pair of keepers on fourth-and-1 and third-and-1 late in the game to set up a 49-yard game-winning field goal by Justin Tucker as time expired to give the Ravens a 20-17 victory. Jimmy Garoppolo was the 49ers’ quarterback then but has since moved on to the Las Vegas Raiders. Brock Purdy, one of the league’s most surprising players last season, is now under center for San Francisco, though the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft is recovering from elbow surgery.

As taxing as the Ravens’ back half of the schedule is, the first 10 weeks are largely favorable.

The Ravens will open the season at home on Sept. 10 at 1 p.m. against the Texans and rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud, who was selected second overall by Houston in last month’s draft. With Baltimore again featuring one of the league’s best defenses and the Texans coming off a 3-13-1 season, the Ravens will be heavy favorites.

From there, they’ll travel to Cincinnati to take on the Bengals, who reached last year’s AFC championship. The last time the Ravens saw them at Paycor Stadium was in last year’s wild-card game when Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard returned a fumble by backup quarterback Tyler Huntley 98 yards for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter for the tie-breaking score.

Jackson did not play in the game. Over the past two years, he has missed 11 games because of injury, including the final six last season.

In Week 3, the Ravens could face another rookie quarterback in Anthony Richardson, whom Indianapolis drafted fourth overall, when the Colts travel to M&T Bank Stadium on Sept. 24. The Ravens then travel to Cleveland to take on the Browns, followed by a trip to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers. Collectively, those three teams were 20-31-1 last season, with the Colts going just 4-12-1.

While teams often have the option to take a bye week after an international game, the Ravens will not do so after playing in London and will instead play the Detroit Lions in Baltimore on Oct. 22. The following week, the Ravens will embark on the first of what will be three West Coast trips with a visit to Arizona to take on the Cardinals before returning home to play the Seattle Seahawks on Nov. 5 and then hosting the Browns the week after that. That will be the first home game against an AFC North opponent, tying 1996 and 2007 for the latest point of a season in which Baltimore first hosts a divisional foe.

Another quirk of the schedule: The Ravens will play just three home games in the first two months of the season, but will host three consecutive games to begin November.

After traveling the third-fewest air miles (9,500) in the NFL and just two time zones last season, the Ravens this year will have the sixth-most air miles at 25,442 and travel 28 time zones in all.

Following their Sunday night game at the Chargers on Nov. 26, the Ravens will have a bye in Week 13 — the second-latest break in franchise history, trailing only its Week 14 bye in 2000 — before the Los Angeles Rams come to Baltimore on Dec. 10. The Ravens will wrap up their regular season with a pair of home games, on Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. against the Miami Dolphins and against the Pittsburgh Steelers, with the date and time still to be determined.

For the Dolphins, it will be their second of three straight trips to M&T Bank Stadium. Last year, they rallied to an improbable 42-38 victory after trailing 35-14 entering the fourth quarter.

In all, the Ravens will face six teams that made the playoffs last season — the Bengals, Seahawks, Chargers, Jaguars, 49ers and Dolphins. But they also have one of the league’s more modest schedules in terms of difficulty. Among all 32 teams, the Ravens have the 12th-easiest schedule, with their opponents having won 48.4% of games last season.

Ravens 2023 schedule

* – Flexible scheduling games

Week 1 (Sept. 10): vs. Houston Texans, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 2 (Sept. 17): at Cincinnati Bengals, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 3 (Sept. 24): vs. Indianapolis Colts, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 4 (Oct. 1): at Cleveland Browns, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 5 (Oct. 8)*: at Pittsburgh Steelers, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 6 (Oct. 15): at Tennessee Titans (in London), 9:30 a.m., NFL Network

Week 7 (Oct. 22)*: vs. Detroit Lions, 1 p.m., Fox

Week 8 (Oct. 29)*: at Arizona Cardinals, 4:25 p.m., CBS

Week 9 (Nov. 5)*: vs. Seattle Seahawks, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 10 (Nov. 12)*: vs. Cleveland Browns, 1 p.m., Fox

Week 11 (Thursday, Nov. 16): vs. Cincinnati Bengals, 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime

Week 12 (Nov. 26)*: at Los Angeles Chargers, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Week 13: Bye

Week 14 (Dec. 10)*: vs. Los Angeles Rams, 1 p.m., Fox

Week 15 (Dec. 17)*: at Jacksonville Jaguars, 8:20 p.m., NBC

Week 16 (Monday, Dec. 25): at San Francisco 49ers, 8:15 p.m., ABC

Week 17 (Dec. 31)*: vs. Miami Dolphins, 1 p.m., CBS

Week 18: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers, TBD

PRESEASON

Week 1 (Friday, Aug. 12): vs. Philadelphia Eagles, 7 p.m.

Week 2 (Monday, Aug. 21): at Washington Commanders, 8:15 p.m., ESPN

Week 3 (Saturday, Aug. 26): at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, TBD

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from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/AF1QdYv