{"id":670889,"date":"2026-05-14T18:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670889\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T18:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:07:14","slug":"bengals-to-open-nfl-season-vs-bucs-host-ravens-on-thursday-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670889\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals to open NFL season vs. Bucs, host Ravens on Thursday night"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since their Super Bowl season of 2021, the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> will not play a Thursday night game in Baltimore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the NFL<\/a> prepares to release the full 2026 schedule at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, May 14 (ESPN, NFL Network), NFL reporter Jordan Schultz posted news that the Bengals will host the Ravens<\/a> for a \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d game in Week 17.<\/p>\n

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MORE: AFC\u2019s marquee matchup set for Thanksgiving Night on NBC<\/a><\/p>\n

Schultz posted<\/a> a report about two games for the Bengals. He wrote that Cincinnati will host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> in the season opener at 1 p.m. ET Sept. 13. And the Bengals and Ravens will square off in prime time on Dec. 31 at Paycor Stadium.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the NFL announced<\/a> the Bengals will face the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> at 9:30 a.m. ET Nov. 8 in Madrid, Spain.<\/p>\n

AFC North rivalry<\/p>\n

Though it worked out well, the Bengals pointed out the schedule quirk in May 2025 when the NFL announced a fourth consecutive Thursday night road game against their AFC North foe.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPlaying in Baltimore for the fourth straight prime-time year isn\u2019t ideal,\u201d Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow<\/a> said then, via ESPN<\/a>. \u201cMaybe we can get one of those in Cincinnati next year. Please.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bengals ended up routing the Ravens, 32-14, on Thanksgiving Night. It is Cincinnati\u2019s only victory over Baltimore in the teams\u2019 last six meetings.<\/p>\n

Still, Mike North, the NFL\u2019s vice president for broadcast planning, said last month that it was \u201cprobably time\u201d to end the Ravens\u2019 Thursday night streak against Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fair question, and we don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to go this year yet, but we are certainly aware of the recent history, and if we\u2019re doing our jobs, we\u2019re trying to avoid the same things over and over again,\u201d North said, per the Bengals website<\/a>. \u201cI would be shocked beyond belief if we had another Bengals at Ravens on a short week this year. That would be very surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Bengals-Ravens rivalry features top-flight quarterbacks in Burrow and Lamar Jackson<\/a>. Both teams are trying to rebound after missing the postseason in 2025. Baltimore welcomes a new head coach in Jesse Minter, a former Ravens defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since their Super Bowl season of 2021, the Cincinnati Bengals will not play a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[1276,64,63,613,1252,629,71766,628,593,2361,614,85,1247,323769,270871],"class_list":["post-670889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baltimore","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-joe-burrow","tag-jordan-schultz","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-network","tag-ravens","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-thanksgiving-night","tag-thursday-night-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}