The Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers are playing live on Thursday night football on the CBS TV Channel from M&T Bank Stadium at the start time is at 8:25 pm ET for the first real TNF game of the season and naturally with the Ray Rice situation, it's the Ravens in the game and they will try and put this all behind them as they play to start Week 2 of the season.
The Ravens opened the season with a loss against the Bengals and now they will play their second straight division game. The team was expecting to have Ray Rice after this game and they were fine with him knocking his wife out cold in an elevator before they actually saw the video and now they will have to get by without him. The team has three straight divisional games to open the season and the first two were at home before they go on the road and play the Browns.
The team lost 23-16 against the Bengals at home and they did that despite 345 yards passing from Joe Flacco. The team has been in the news for their horrible response to the Rice situation, including multiple figureheads at the Ravens blaming Janay Palmer for what she did that night and also the horrible press conference they had back in the spring making her apologize for her actions. John Harbaugh has been terrible throughout this as well and now the Ravens will be in the spotlight on Thursday night because of course they are on the schedule.
The NFL is in a tough spot and that should bring even more attention to this game on Thursday. The team has the Steelers and then will have a long week until Week 3 against the Browns and that was the game that Rice would have been able to come back from his suspension for and clearly that is now over. The team has a bye in Week 11 and they have a tough slate of games over the first half following the three in their division.
The team has the Carolina Panthers next after the Browns and that is a home game and comes ahead of a major stretch with four road games in five weeks. The team has the Colts and the Buccaneers on the road back to back and those are tough games and then the team returns home and plays against the Atlanta Falcons. The team then plays two more divisional games on the road with the Steelers and the Bengals and that leaves just one against the Browns in the second half of the season. The team plays Tennessee at home before heading into the bye week.
The back end of the schedule has the New Orleans Saints on Monday night football and that will be interesting with all that's going on. Goodell came down hard on the Saints for bountygate and he said ignorance was not an excuse, which was the excuse he gave about the Ray Rice situation. The team plays against the Chargers next and then a decent stretch with the Miami Dolphins and Jaguars. The team ends the season with the Texans and then ends with the Browns.
Check here for the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers schedule.
