Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Guessing The Opener

The other day, I noted how I am expecting the NFL fixtures for the upcoming season to be released very soon.

I don't know for sure when this will be. I am basing my guess on memory. I seem to remember that they come out a week before the draft. As the draft is a week from this Thursday, I'm going out on a limb and predicting we'll see the schedules sometime this week.

We all know who is playing who. It's the question of 'when?' that makes me look forward to the publication of the fixtures.

In today's post, I'm going to predict which game will be the opener.

We all know that the defending Super Bowl champions are one of the teams on the Thursday night season openers so it's a given that we'll be seeing the Baltimore Ravens.

Interestingly, the Ravens will not be the traditional home team in the encounter.

There is a baseball game going on on the same day as the NFL season launch and an agreement could not be met so the Ravens will have to play their first game as defending champions on the road.

So, we know it's going to be Baltimore and we know they are playing away.

The Ravens will be playing the following teams as a visitor this upcoming season - Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Miami, Chicago, Detroit and Denver.

Looking at this list of teams, the one that stands out slightly more than any other is the one against the Denver Broncos.

Baltimore beat Denver in the divisional round this past January and secured a place in the AFC championship game against New England.

I have a feeling that a rematch of this game will be where the NFL will want to kick-off the season.

The only other game I can see being the opener is the one against the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, I'm being bold and picking one so I'm sticking with the Broncos.

You heard it here first.

UPDATE
The NFL announced yesterday that they are still working out the schedules and it could take up to two weeks before they are revealed.

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