The last time the Ravens were on the field for a game, they had to watch the Chiefs celebrate winning an AFC title on their field in January.
It’s a long wait from that point until September and the Ravens will end their sabbatical against the same team. They will be in Kansas City as the visitors on the first Thursday night of the 2024 season and they’ll have an opportunity to revisit a loss that quarterback Lamar Jackson said resulted in “definitely a little chip on our shoulder.”
Jackson isn’t equating the opening week of the regular season with a game that decided who advances to the Super Bowl, however. At a press conference last week, Jackson said that the loss to the Chiefs motivated the Ravens all offseason but added that getting an immediate chance to face them wasn’t a big deal to him.
“I really don’t care who we play; it really didn’t matter,” Jackson said, via a transcript from the team. “At the end of the day, our goal is to make it to the Super Bowl. We lost to them in the playoffs. Just us beating them in the regular season doesn’t really do anything; it just helps us keep stacking up wins to hopefully make it to the playoffs if anything to try to get in that same position again and hopefully be successful. It really doesn’t matter who we play [in the] first game; obviously it’s the Chiefs, but I really didn’t care.”
The Chiefs opened last season with a loss to the Lions, so Week One’s results don’t offer much of a prediction about who will be the last team standing in February. Winning always beats the alternative, though, and the Ravens would get an early leg up in the conference if they can find a way to get a victory in Kansas City.