BALTIMORE — Beginning the 2012 season with a home Monday night game for the first time in five years, the Ravens take on the AFC North rival Cincinnati Bengals at M&T Bank Stadium.
Monday night marks the 33rd meeting between these teams as Baltimore holds an 18-14 advantage. The Ravens are 11-5 against Cincinnati in games played in Baltimore and have won three straight meetings against the Bengals.
The Ravens hope to continue their AFC North dominance and have won eight straight games against division opponents. Their run at M&T Bank Stadium has been even more impressive as they’ve won 10 straight home games and 18 of their last 19.
Much mystery remains about how John Harbaugh and the coaching staff will handle the offensive line as we learned over the weekend that Michael Oher would start at left tackle and rookie Kelechi Osemele will play right tackle. However, an even bigger surprise came early Monday afternoon when Ramon Harewood’s agent Damien Butler tweeted that the third-year lineman would be making his first NFL start. What that means exactly remains to be seen, but it appears Harewood might start at left guard in place of veteran Bobbie Williams.
We’ll learn for sure shortly after the 7 p.m. kickoff, but the state of the offensive line unquestionably remains a fluid situation.
In a surprising move, the Ravens have waived rookie running back Bobby Rainey and have promoted running back Anthony Allen from the practice squad to the 53-man roster. Allen is active for Monday night’s game. It remains unclear why Rainey was let go, but the Ravens have always liked Allen’s special-teams ability.
The Ravens will wear their purple jerseys and white pants while Cincinnati sports their white jerseys with white pants.
Here are tonight’s inactives:
Baltimore
OL Jah Reid
CB Asa Jackson
OL Jah Reid
TE Billy Bajema
DE DeAngelo Tyson
LB Sergio Kindle
DT Bryan Hall
Cincinnati
CB Jason Allen
CB Dre Kirkpatrick
RB Bernard Scott
TE Donald Lee
WR Ryan Whalen
TE Richard Quinn
DE Carlos Dunlap
Follow WNST on Twitter throughout the evening as Drew Forrester, Nestor Aparicio, and I bring live coverge from M&T Bank Stadium throughout the evening.
Luke Jones
Luke Jones is the Ravens and Orioles beat reporter for WNST BaltimorePositive.com and is a PFWA member. His mind is consumed with useless sports knowledge, pro wrestling promos, and movie quotes, but he often forgets where he put his phone. Luke's favorite sports memories include being one of the thousands of kids who waited for Cal Ripken's autograph after Orioles games in the summer of 1995, attending the Super Bowl XXXV victory parade with his dad in the pouring rain, and watching the Terps advance to the Final Four at the Carrier Dome in 2002. Follow him on social media @BaltimoreLuke or email him at Luke@wnst.net.
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