The NFL Season Will Kick Off With A Chiefs-Ravens AFC Championship Rematch In Kansas City On Sept 5th
Vomit.
This was such a predictable game that anyone could see coming. More years than not the defending NFL champion will find their conference championship rival on their schedule by virtue of the scheduling criteria that pits division champions against each other. That presents an easy opportunity for the league to simply make that game the traditional season kick-off game, and that's what they're doing here.
It only helps that this features 2 of the league's most exciting and marketable players in what honestly still might be in the early stages of a budding rivalry. The league was always going to get the cauldron that is the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce nonsense but all of that added together makes this a helluva night for the shield. They'd be stupid not to make it this game.
But that doesn't mean I (or anyone in Baltimore) has to like it. Of course, it always blows to see the other team hang their banner and do their victory lap (which we didn't even get to do back in 2013 but that's a whole nother can of worms) but it stings that much more in the sense that we LET this happen. I'll think about that fateful night in January for a very long time and I won't relent that the Chiefs really didn't do all that much to win that game, where as the Ravens straight up laid an egg and fumbled the bag... in some ways quite literally. The entire country has to suffer through another Chiefs victory lap because of us.
The narrative on Sept 5th on the Ravens side of things will be that that will serve as a revenge game. It always makes me laugh when it's laid out that way for regular season games the year after a team knocks them out of the playoffs. As if a regular season loss will somehow undo the damage of what was done before. It's comically stupid. There is obviously serious implications for the 2024 regular season for both teams on the line that night, but will I be doing backflips if we go beat the Chiefs by 3 TD's? Fuck no. I'll be a salty bitch that will be pleased to get the W but will still roll my eyes and think about what should've been.
I wish that wasn't the mentality I have and maybe it'll be a little bit different come September, but that's what happens when you blow a legacy game in the first conference championship game your stadium ever hosts. Happy for the league for getting a great game, but fuck this game.