It's been more than 250 days since we last watched the Baltimore Ravens play an NFL game. Fear nothing, though, as the 2023 NFL regular season is already ongoing.
TNF saw the reigning champs fall to the up-and-coming Detroit Lions with the Flock scheduled to take the field on Sunday when they'll host the Hoston Texans at the home confines of M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
And things cannot look better for our superheroes judging by what they have done in their last seven season openers.
This season, the Ravens will be playing against a rookie QB and a rookie head coach for the first time in years, and there are many other things worth knowing about the matchup before Sunday arrives in a couple of days.
Here's every fun and interesting fact that you need to know ahead of the Week 1 game between the Ravens and the Texans on Sept. 10 if you don't want to fall behind your fans in your bar talk this weekend.
1. The Ravens have won six of their last seven Week 1 games
The dominance of the Ravens in season-opener games has been astonishing. From 2016 through 2022, Baltimore has beaten six of their opponents while only losing one game (two years ago) in overtime in that span.
Only the Kansas City Chiefs have won more openers (all of them) in that span, although the reigning champs are coming off dropping their season-opening matchup on TNF after they lost by one point to the Lions.
If the Ravens can win their opener on Sunday, they would have won seven of eight and they'd match Kansas City's record. Only the Eagles can match it this weekend if they also get a win over the New England Patriots.
2. The Ravens have outscored opponents 228-68 in their last seven Week 1 games
The only time the Ravens allowed more than 10 points was in their lone loss through the last seven seasons when the Raiders scored 33 points on them and needed overtime to do that.
Outside of that game, the Ravens have only allowed more than nine points to an opponent exactly one time when the Dolphins scored 10 on them in 2019... on their way to getting trounced 59-10 by the Flock.
In the NFL, nobody is even close to the Ravens in point differential in Week 1 games in the 2016-22 span. Baltimore has outscored opponents by 166 points while the second-best team, the Kansas City Chiefs, have a meager 86 point differential in comparison even though they have one more victory than Baltimore.
3. Lamar Jackson has passed for 12 TDs in four Week 1 games
I don't think I need to remind you about it, but Lamar is in love with season-opener games and he's been an absolute game-wrecker, one-man-demolition-crew all by himself since he first started a Week 1 game in 2019.
As a starter that season, he destroyed Miami in the infamous "not bad for a running back game" leading a 59-point victory by a 49-point margin over Miami, passing for five touchdowns on that day alone.
Lamar has finished every opener completing at least one pass for a touchdown and he's been intercepted just once in four starts and through 105 pass attempts.
4. Baltimore is 3-0 against Houston in their last three meetings
The last three matchups between Ravens and Texans happened in the regular season and all three ended with Baltimore on the winning end.
Back in 2017 the Ravens beat the Texans 23-16, then they won a 41-7 game in 2019, and one year later the Flock visited Houston to win 33-16 on the road.
You have to go all the way back to Dec. 2014, nearly 10 years ago, to find the last win by Houston over Baltimore. Back then, the Texans had a young Case Keenum as their starting quarterback opposite an in-his-prime Joe Flacco on the Ravens side.
5. In their last three H2H games, the Ravens have scored 23+ points each time and the Texans fewer than 17
That's the cherry on top, folks. The Ravens have beaten the Texans in their last three regular-season meetings (2017, 2019, 2020) and all three times they did it by scoring at least 23 points.
They put up 23 in their first matchup, then the Ravens scored 41, and finally, they blasted 33 pops past Houston's defense.
The Texans, on the other hand, have only scored as many as 16 points twice against the Ravens but never more than that. In fact, in the other game in which they faced Baltimore, the Flock limited Houston to a measly seven-point outing.
6. Houston has been better at passing, but much worse when rushing the ball
The Texans have a small edge over the Ravens in pass plays, as Houston has completed 86 of their passes in their last four games against Baltimore to the Ravens' 80. However, as they say, the devil is in the details.
Simply put, the Ravens have not really needed to pass the ball that much nor to chase the Texans in those matchups. Thus, the running advantage in favor of Baltimore.
The Flock has rushed the rock 121 times to Houston's 100 carries in their last four meetings. The Ravens rushed for a monster 658 yards and 4 TDs compared to the mediocre numbers racked up by their foes in that span: 362 yards and 2 TDs.
7. The Texans are usinga rookie QB in Week 1 for the second time in franchise history
Houston spend their no. 2 overall pick in Ohio State's standout quarterback C.J. Stroud this past spring, and then named him both the starter and the captain of the team just mere days away from his regular-season debut in a rather odd fashion.
Good for Baltimore, they don't feel they need to name team captains. Even better? Stroud is the second rookie QB to ever start the season on the pocket for the Texans, and the first one since David Carr did it in 2002. Back then, the Texans defeated the Cowboys 19-10 before losing their next five games in a row.
8. The Ravens are 21-7 against rookie QBs since John Harbaugh was hired
The Baltimore Ravens have a strong historical track record against rookie quarterbacks, boasting a 21-7 record when facing them since John Harbaugh took over as head coach in 2008.
This season, Baltimore has all of the reasons to be very, very happy.
The Ravens start the season against a freshman QB in Texans' starter C.J. Stroud. They will then face Indianapolis in Week 3 who is going to be led by Anthony Richardson.
Finally, in Week 8, they could also face another rookie QB in Clayton Tune if Arizona has moved on from current starter Joshua Dobbs by then.