The last time the Ravens played in London was in 2017 in what was a blowout loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium. Afterward, coach John Harbaugh said he had no interest in going back anytime soon.
Six years later, the Ravens and Harbaugh are headed back overseas.
The NFL unveiled its slate of five international games on Wednesday morning, and the Ravens will play the Tennessee Titans on Oct. 15 in a Week 6 matchup at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The game will kick off at 9:30 a.m. and be broadcast on the NFL Network.
“We look forward to taking on the Titans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium,” Ravens president Sashi Brown said in a statement. “It’s exciting to witness and play a role in the NFL’s rise in popularity across the globe. This is an incredible opportunity to play in front of and connect with Ravens fans in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.”
The team’s full 2023 schedule, which also includes three trips to the West Coast to play the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Chargers, will be released at 8 p.m. Thursday.
This marks just the second international game in the Ravens’ 28-year existence. They hope it goes better than their first.
In a blundering performance filled with missed tackles and three turnovers, the Jaguars embarrassed the Ravens, 44-7, in the Week 3 matchup.
“We fell flat on our faces,” then-Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith said.
“They out-executed us in every phase of the game,” added Ravens receiver Jeremy Maclin. “That’s what happens in the National Football League when you don’t come ready to play.”
Back then, Joe Flacco was the Ravens’ quarterback and didn’t complete a pass or manage a first down until nearly four minutes to go in the second quarter. The Jaguars led 23-0 at halftime and didn’t look back.
Flacco completed 8 of 18 passes for just 28 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns before being yanked for Ryan Mallett, who completed 6 of 9 passes for 36 yards and the Ravens’ lone touchdown. Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles, meanwhile, was 20-for-31 for 244 yards with four touchdowns.
Harbaugh didn’t hold back in his comments the day after the game.
“Maybe I’ll get into trouble for saying this — don’t plan on going over there any time soon to play again,” he said. “So, somebody else can have that job.”
He also seemed to take aim at the NFL with his criticism, particularly over the logistics involved with playing a game overseas. The Ravens’ hotel was 45 minutes outside London and the team practiced for two days at the facility of a local rugby team.
“There were some certain things that came up that you look at it and you go, ‘That wasn’t ideal,’” Harbaugh said then. “But we really had no way of knowing that. Some things we have no control over. We have no control where we stay, how far the bus ride is, how long it takes to get to the stadium. What impact it had are things we look at.”
The 37-point drubbing matched the largest margin of defeat in franchise history.
That wasn’t all.
As the national anthem began to play before the game, about 25 Ravens and Jaguars players — along with former Ravens star and Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis, who was working the game as an analyst for Fox Sports — took a knee in protest against racial injustice and police brutality and in response to then-President Donald Trump’s inflammatory comments earlier in the week about athletes protesting during the anthem. It was the first of several protests by players around the league that day.
But this trip should be markedly different from the last.
The Ravens enter this season on the high of having recently re-signed quarterback Lamar Jackson to a five-year extension after two years of difficult negotiations and his request in March to be traded. With already one of the league’s best defenses and the addition of two-time All-Pro wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. in free agency and wideout Zay Flowers in the draft, Baltimore has quickly gone from a team with question marks to a potential Super Bowl contender.
As for the Titans, they’re coming off a 9-7 season and led by quarterback Ryan Tannehill and running back Derrick Henry, though they could look to trade both stars and enter a rebuild.
Like the Ravens, they also lost in their last game overseas, falling to the then-San Diego Chargers, 20-19, in 2018 when coach Mike Vrabel opted to try a game-winning 2-point conversion with 31 seconds to play and quarterback Marcus Mariota’s pass to wide receiver Taywan Taylor fell incomplete.
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