The Ravens will open the 2024 season against the team that broke their hearts last January.
In a rematch of last year’s AFC championship game played at M&T Bank Stadium, Lamar Jackson and Baltimore will travel to Kansas City to take on Patrick Mahomes and the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs on Sept. 5. This marks the first time since 2013 that the Ravens will take part in the NFL’s season kickoff game, which is played on the Thursday following Labor Day and will once again be televised on NBC.
There will be no shortage of storylines for this marquee matchup after Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the Chiefs punched the Super Bowl favorite Ravens in the mouth in the first AFC title game Baltimore had hosted in 53 years. Kansas City jumped out to an early lead and held on for a 17-10 victory to advance to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years. Meanwhile, the heartbreaking loss marked the second time in five years that John Harbaugh’s team failed to advance to the Super Bowl after finishing the regular season with the NFL’s best record.
This will also mark the first regular-season clash between these AFC heavyweights since Week 2 of the 2021 season, which resulted in a 36-35 home win for the Ravens on Sunday Night Football. At the time, Baltimore hoped that dramatic victory would bring a sea change in terms of conference supremacy, but the Chiefs have remained the class of the AFC while Jackson, a two-time league MVP, and the Ravens are still looking to take the next step after finally advancing to the conference championship game last January.
Dating back to 2018 and including the postseason, the Chiefs are 4-1 against the Ravens in games featuring the two superstar quarterbacks who’ve accounted for four of the last six NFL MVP awards. Of course, Jackson and the rest of the NFL are chasing Mahomes’ three Super Bowl rings through his age-28 season.
With the entire NFL schedule being announced on Wednesday night, this wouldn’t figure to be the Ravens’ only prime-time game after they played four nationally-televised night games in 2023. According to NFL Research, the Ravens will have the league’s second-most difficult schedule based on opponent winning percentage last season, and their schedule includes an NFL-high 10 games against 2023 playoff teams.
Now that we know when the Ravens will be traveling to Kansas City, below are the 16 other games on the pending schedule for the 2024 season:
HOME: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Denver, Buffalo, Washington, Philadelphia
AWAY: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Houston, Los Angeles Chargers, Dallas, New York Giants, Tampa Bay
