It's fitting the Baltimore Ravens, who famously coined the phrase "Festivus Maximus" at the start of the 2000 Super Bowl, issued an airing of grievances shortly after their 2024 NFL schedule was released.
If you didn't know better, you would have thought that Frank Costanza himself wrote the Ravens' official announcement of their upcoming schedule. But this isn't a "Seinfeld" episode. It's real life, and the Ravens are legitimately unhappy about more than a few aspects of their schedule.
"They mention that they have a late bye," CBS Sports lead NFL insider Jonathan Jones said of the Ravens' schedule announcement. "They note that they are going to play 22 'Monday Night Football' games in the John Harbaugh era, (with) 18 of them being on the road. They note that three of their four October matchups are going to take place on the road: at Cincinnati, at Tampa and at Cleveland.
"I think probably one my favorites was that for the fourth time in franchise history, the Ravens are going to be playing on Christmas Day, spending its second consecutive year away for the holiday. And then they note it marks the first time in league history that a team has played away on consecutive Christmases."
The Ravens have legitimate reasons to be less than thrilled with their schedule. Both of their "Monday Night Football" games are on the road, and three of their five prime-time games are away from Baltimore. They don't get their bye until Week 14. They have just four days between their Dec. 21 home game against the Steelers and the Christmas Day showdown against the Texans in Houston.
Making Baltimore's schedule (the NFL's second hardest in terms of last year's results) more difficult is the fact it will face a league-high 10 opponents that made the playoffs in 2023. Each of Baltimore's final three opponents (the Steelers, Texans and Browns) qualified for the playoffs last season.
Rest assured that Ravens coach John Harbaugh will use the team's schedule as a rallying cry
