This is a game you want every few weeks, because it features two of the three most dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL.
Anyone who’s not fired up to see quarterbacks Lamar Jackson from the Ravens and Josh Allen from the Bills on the field in the same game simply isn’t interested in football.
Jackson is the reigning MVP, having won it twice, and his 254 yards rushing are the most of any quarterback through the first three games this season.
Allen is the current oddsmakers favorite to win the MVP this season now — ahead of Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes — and has thrown for 634 yards and seven touchdowns, and rushed for two more TDs. He’s yet to throw an interception after throwing a career-high 18 last season.
This is what you get when the 3-0 Bills play the 1-2 Ravens on Sunday night in Baltimore.
“I am just grateful to be a part of it and to be around it,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh told reporters this week, referring the rivalry between the two star quarterbacks. “These are the things that you’re going to look back on and you’re going to say, ‘Wow, wasn’t that cool to be there for that?’ ”
There is mutual admiration between the two quarterbacks.
“[I] love watching him play because every play is never dead with him,” Allen said of Jackson. “He’s got a crazy ability to keep plays alive and make guys miss and then get the ball downfield, so he’s a special player.”
Jackson told reporters he embraces the spotlight he and Allen share.
“It’s always going to be that way as long as we are in the league,” Jackson said. “I really don’t know how people will judge it or what people will say. I’m just going out there trying to get a ‘W.’ ”
Both Allen and Jackson were drafted in 2018 and made their NFL debuts as backups in Baltimore’s 47-3, season-opening rout of Buffalo later that year.
Allen, in his six-plus NFL seasons, has led Buffalo to four consecutive AFC East titles and five consecutive playoff appearances. He has completed TD passes to six different players — which is impressive considering he lost his top two targets, Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis, in the offseason.
Buffalo receiver Khalil Shakir called Allen “a freak of nature,” adding, “He’s putting the ball to where only we can make the play on it.”
The Bills, who are coming off a 47-10 annihilation of the Jaguars on Monday night, have scored an NFL-high 112 points — their most through three weeks since scoring 113 over that span in 2011.
The Ravens, after losing their first two, ripped the Cowboys last week in a desperation game. It was in that game in which Bills edge rusher Von Miller took notice of Jackson paired with power runner Derrick Henry.
“I remember watching the game on TV, and I was like, ‘This is going to be a problem,’ ” Miller said of the Dallas game. “And it has.”
Henry is coming off rushing for 151 yards and two TDs at Dallas, his best game since joining Baltimore.
One thing that’s been an issue for the Ravens has been their defense protecting leads. The Ravens blew a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in a Week 2 loss to the Raiders, and they nearly squandered a big lead to the Cowboys before surviving last week.
“We need to just lock back in,” Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton said during the week. “We’ve [started] so strong, and it’s hard to keep that up for 60 minutes straight, but I think we have the people to do it. Reset, refocus in the fourth quarter.”
The Bills have won eight consecutive games in the regular season dating back to last year, the league’s longest active streak. They’re making a third consecutive prime-time appearance.
The Ravens are 20-3 in prime-time home games under Harbaugh since he arrived in 2008.
