The Baltimore Ravens will kick their 2023 regular season off on Sunday, Sept. 10, when they'll host the Houston Texans at the M&T Bank Stadium.
The campaign will start on Thursday with the reigning champions Kansas City Chiefs facing an up-and-coming Detroit Lions franchise that will aim to pull off an upset. That is hard to envision happening next Sunday when the Texans go against our beloved Ravens.
With just mere days (hours!) left before the ball gets rolling (and this season more than ever, flying) in the confines of The Bank, here is a review of the last seven openers played by the Ravens from the 2016 victory against the Buffalo Bills to last season's trouncing of the lowly New York Jets.
2016: Ravens vs. Bills, W 13-7
Baltimore entered the 2016 season led by veteran quarterback Joe Flacco and coming off their first losing season since 2007, as they wrapped up 2015 with a dreadful 5-11 record.
That wasn't too much of a problem for the Ravens in dealing with the visiting Bills, as they outscored them by six points in a low-scoring affair.
As many as 17 of the total 20 points scored by both teams came in the first two-quarters of play, with the Ravens adding three late points thanks to a field-goal kick converted by Justin Tucker with 5:39 minutes remaining.
Flacco completed 22-of-33 passes for 258 yards and his lone touchdown throw found the hands of Mike Wallace, who led all Ravens receivers with 91 yards on three receptions.
Steve Smith Sr. caught five passes for 19 yards, while Justin Forsett and Terrance West combined to rush the rock for 73 yards and no touchdowns on 22 totes, both racking up at least 10 carries each.
2017: Ravens at Bengals, W 20-0
After finishing the 2016 season with an even 8-8 record and missing the playoffs for the second season in a row, the Ravens hit the ground running on the 2017 season opener at Cincinnati.
Baltimore blanked the Bengals while scoring 20 points in a Week 1 game for the first time since they had last done that in 2014 when, coincidentally, they lost to the Bengals.
Flacco led the Flock once more and once again he only completed one pass for a touchdown, this time to Jeremy Maclin in one of his two receptions. Maclin, however, racked up the most receiving yards among all Ravens skill-position players with 56 and a 48-yard grab.
It was a rather mediocre game by Flacco, but it's not that the Ravens needed him to do much more than he did on the spot. Flacco completed nine passes out of 17 attempts for 121 yards, a touchdown, and one interception.
On the ground, Terrance West rushed the rock 19 times and Javorius Allen got 21 totes himself for a combined 40 carries between the two leaders of Baltimore's backfield. You get an idea of how the game developed... The two rushers combined for 151 yards rushing, 80 on West's bag and 71 going Allen's way.
2018: Ravens vs. Bills, W 47-3
The 2018 season was the one in which the Ravens finally flipped their no-postseason page and turned it into the start of a three-year run reaching the playoffs from that year through 2020.
Things couldn't have started better for Flacco in his last year as the starting quarterback of the Ravens before opening the door to a young Lamar Jackson later in the season.
The Ravens cooked Buffalo and Flacco was the main perpetrator of the crime throwing three touchdown passes to John Brown, Michael Crabtree, and Willie Snead before the clock hit 12:00 into the third quarter to put the Ravens up 33-0 there.
The team later scored 14 more points thanks to a couple of rushing touchdowns (one by Javorius Allen, one by Kenneth Dixon) near the goal line, with Stephen Hauschka kicking a 35 field goal in because Justin Tucker wasn't even needed anymore. So dominant was the Flock.
2019: Ravens at Dolphins, W 59-10
The start of the Lamar Jackson Era and the "Not bad for a running back" game.
Lamar already started a good number of games in the year before from Week 10 on, but this was the true birth of a superstar. Jackson destroyed Miami on their own turf throwing five touchdowns and completing a ridiculous 17-of-20 passes for 324 yards while entirely avoiding getting picked off.
Not happy enough with that performance, the Ravens stepped up their game and Mark Ingram added 107 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 14 carries. Gus Edwards added 56 yards on 17 totes. Anthony Levine had one single 60-yard carry. Even Justice Hill rushed for 27 yards on seven attempts.
And on the receiving end, two pass-catchers racked up 100+ yards with Mark Andrews getting 108 and a TD on an 8-for-8 receiving outing with Marquise "Hollywood" Brown grabbing 4-of-5 targets for 147 yards and two scores.
Patrick Ricard and Miles Boykin scored the other two receiving touchdowns on sweet 1-for-1 target days. See it to believe it.
2020: Ravens vs. Browns, W 38-6
Baltimore hosted divisional rival Cleveland in 2020 at The Bank and gave the Browns no option. After Cleveland cut down a 10-0 early lead to 6-10 thanks to a touchdown in the final two minutes of the first quarter, the Ravens never again allowed their foes to score even one more single point.
Lamar tossed three touchdowns starting with two to Mark Andrews and adding another one in the third quarter completing a 19-yarder with Willie Snead as his target.
Jackson was his usual perfect self completing 20-of-25 pass attempts for 275 yards and 3 TDs while throwing no picks. He rushed the rock for 45 yards on seven scrambles, the highest rushing yardage among all Ravens involved in the game, running backs included.
Speaking of the backfield, Mark Ingram led the way with 29 yards on 10 carries but it was J.K. Dobbins who had a staggering debut rushing the rock seven times for 22 yards and his first two touchdowns as a pro.
Marquise Brown kept piling up numbers for another opener, reaching 101 receiving yards on just five receptions while Willie Snead (64 yards) and Mark Andrews (58) both scored at least one touchdown and topped 50 yards receiving on the day.
2021: Ravens at Raiders, L 27-33 (OT)
Sad day in Las Vegas, but I guess what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so there's that.
The Ravens were in the lead with a freaking couple of seconds on the clock following a field goal by GOAT kicker Justin Tucker with 37 seconds left. Then, Daniel Carson ruined the day, tied the game, and sent it all to overtime where the Flock would end up losing on a Derek Carr pass to Zay Jones. Ugh.
Lamar was great, passing for 235 yards on 19 completions out of 30 attempts. That said, he could only connect for a touchdown once through the game, and that hurt his men. However, Jackson put up numbers on the ground, rushing the ball for a silly 86 yards on 12 carries.
Latavius Murray led the Ravens backfield with 10 totes, two fewer than Lamar, and also fell short on yardage with 28 to his name. Ty'Son Williams was more effective rushing the ball for 65 yards on nine carries. Both Murray and Williams scored rushing touchdowns.
On the receiving end, veteran Sammy Watkins racked up 96 yards on just four grabs, while Marquise Brown got himself 69 yards on a perfect 6-for-6 day catching rocks and scoring the lone touchdown thrown by the Flock.
2022: Ravens at Jets, W 24-9
The Jets from a year ago are very different from the years that everybody expects to watch this season. Keyword: expect.
Last year, Baltimore trounced New York on the road and under the bright lights of Manhattan on their way to bouncing back from a postseason miss in 2021.
A healthy Lamar led the way once more for the Ravens and he connected thrice through the game for two touchdowns scored by Devin Duvernay and one more by Rashod Bateman in the third frame.
Jackson finished with 213 passing yards on 17 completions and he limited his rushing to just six carries gaining 17 yards. It was a day of steady work for Kenyan Drake, who led the backfield with 11 totes for 31 carries as no other rusher logged more than two carries.
Three receivers of the Flock racked up more than fifty yards with Mark Andrews getting to 52 on five receptions, Duvernay to 54 on a 4-for-4, and Bateman to 59 and a 55-yard score on two grabs.