Times, Key Match-Ups and More

“Call it primetime. Call it national television appearances. Call it whatever you want. We’re not doing our job if we’re not putting on Bengals games for the fans to see.”

NBC got the highly anticipated Bills game, set for Sunday night Nov. 5, after last year’s Monday nighter between the two at Paycor was canceled when Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin was revived on the field. With Hamlin vowing to return this season, his teammates are out to avenge this January’s 27-10 Burrow clinic in Buffalo during the playoffs.

“Every game is a free agent now with the new media deals. That’s a game that, literally, could have gone anywhere,” North says. “As the computer is searching, trying to find all the different places you can put a game like that, there aren’t many games like it. It’s almost like a blank scrabble tile. It’s going to be good no matter where.”

This year’s ESPN Monday nighter at Paycor in the third game on Sept. 25 spells out the Super Bowl LVI rematch that takes place 19 months after the Rams came from behind to take the lead with the Bengals 85 seconds from the championship.

And, for the ninth time in its history, Paycor hosts a joust of overall No. 1 drafted quarterbacks when Burrow meets Matthew Stafford. Stafford, then with the Lions, lost a 2009 game to the Bengals’ Carson Palmer in his rookie season. In 2021, Burrow split with Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence and Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield after Mayfield beat him in 2020.

Lawrence, who was a rookie, now is quarterbacking the AFC South defending champions and gets another shot at Burrow on his home turf when Duval County hosts a Monday nighter on Dec. 4.

Juicy is the Bengals’ lone Thursday night appearance on Amazon Prime in Baltimore on Nov. 16 that could be one of the biggest markers of the season because it caps an intriguing seven-game stretch beginning after the Rams game. Following the Week 3 MNF game, the Bengals head to Tennessee on a short week to begin a run of three October road games that includes two…