Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is looking to lead his team back to the postseason for the first time since 2022 this coming season. But if he is going to do so, he will need to overcome a schedule that he believes wasn’t particularly favorable for his team.
The Bengals, of course, have the displeasure of playing in the same division as the Baltimore Ravens, a team that has been the model of consistency in the NFL, making it to the postseason six of the last seven years.
This means that the Bengals are set to face the Ravens two times, one coming at home and one coming on the road. But over the last four years, the Bengals have faced some significant difficulties in their road matchups in Baltimore because of when the games are played, a trend that is continuing in 2025.
Each of the last three years, the Bengals have played in Baltimore in the primetime window. They will do so yet again this season on Thanksgiving Day in their Week 13 matchup in Baltimore.
Upon seeing the schedule earlier this week, Burrow took issue with playing another primetime game in Baltimore, questioning why the Bengals haven’t gotten a home primetime game against the Ravens in any of the last four seasons.
“Playing in Baltimore for the fourth straight year in prime time isn’t ideal,” Burrow said, via the team’s website earlier this week. “Maybe we can get one of those in Cincinnati. Please.”
Given the fact that the Bengals have lost each of their last three games at Baltimore in each of the last three seasons, Burrow’s gripes are certainly reasonable. Even NFL V.P. of broadcast planning & scheduling, Mike North, believes that Burrow has a “fair” gripe.
“It’s fair,” North told Geoff Hobson of the Bengals team’s website. “It’s not a one-or-two years sort of a league where you fix every problem every other year or every two years. Once you start getting to the same thing three years in a row, four, or five years in a row, whether it’s a short week Thursday on the road or opening on the road.”
The obvious question here for North is that if he knows that Burrow has a reasonable complaint, why didn’t he do something to avoid scheduling another primetime game in Baltimore?
Maybe North simply overlooked this trend when he and the rest of the minds behind the NFL schedule made it this season. Or, maybe he is simply trying to get as many eyeballs on this high-profile matchup by putting it on Thanksgiving Day.
Either way, perhaps Burrow will use this obvious injustice as some kind of motivation when he does again play in Baltimore this coming season.