The [Buffalo Bills](https://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/) and Baltimore Ravens won’t face off until Sunday, September 7, but the trash talk is already beginning.
Last year, the Bills avenged a 35-10 regular-season loss to the Ravens by ending Baltimore’s season in the divisional round. Buffalo held on late for a 27-25 win to advance to the AFC Championship Game.
After stewing over the loss for months, Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith is looking for revenge. In an appearance on the NFL Network’s _Schedule Release ’25_, Smith guaranteed “a little payback.”
“Yeah, just how I like it,” Smith said on the show. “Revenge is best served as a cold dish, you know. So, it will be nice to get up to Buffalo and get a little payback for those guys from the end of the year.”
While Smith and the Ravens are looking to unleash their frustration over how their 2024 season ended, the linebacker expects the same from the Bills.
“Misery sets in all offseason and you use that as motivation throughout the offseason,” Smith said. “So, just knowing that we have everything it takes to be the best team in the NFL. You have to show that game in and game out and it’s going to start up there in Buffalo. Just like everything we’ve gone through throughout the offseason and how it ended, it’s just about unleashing it on those guys. And I’m sure they have the same plan.”
The Week 1 Sunday Night Football matchup will be the latest chapter in the blossoming rivalry between the Bills and Ravens. Buffalo and Baltimore both enter the 2025 season among the favorites to win the Super Bowl, thanks in part to their MVP-winning quarterbacks and talented rosters. The winner of the matchup will earn some bragging rights, but it may just be a matter of time before the two sides meet up again in a win-or-go-home matchup in the postseason.