{"id":49307,"date":"2025-05-19T00:35:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T00:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49307"},"modified":"2025-05-19T00:35:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T00:35:49","slug":"ravens-all-pro-itching-for-a-little-payback-in-2-revenge-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49307","title":{"rendered":"Ravens All-Pro Itching for \u2018a Little Payback\u2019 in 2 Revenge Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"c-content entry-content\">\n<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\" class=\"wp-caption \">\n<div class=\"h-responsive\">\n<figure class=\"h-responsive__inner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2193477607.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2193477607.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2193477607.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2193477607.jpg?quality=35&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Roquan Smith\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" data-dom-ready-time=\"1062\" data-img-load-time=\"1325\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-credit\">Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-post-image-caption-text\">The Baltimore Ravens&#8217; Roquan Smith hopes to &#8220;set the tone&#8221; for the season with a win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 1.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Ravens\u00a0First-Team All-Pro linebacker\u00a0Roquan Smith\u00a0is ready for revenge in 2025. During an appearance on NFL Network\u2019s\u00a0NFL Schedule Release \u201925, Smith said he has two games circled on his calendar. The first is a rematch of last year\u2019s AFC Divisional Round game against the\u00a0Buffalo Bills\u00a0in Week 1. The other is a matchup against the\u00a0Chicago Bears, Smith\u2019s former team, in Week 8.<\/p>\n<h2>Ravens Using \u2018Misery\u2019 as Motivation for Revenge Throughout Offseason<\/h2>\n<p>Smith told host Rich Eisen that he had his eye on their first game, which should be no surprise. They will start with a road matchup against the Buffalo Bills, a rematch of their final game in 2024 \u2014 a 27-25 loss in the AFC Divisional Round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s how you start the season off and that\u2019s gonna set the tone for the entire season,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Eisen pointed out that the game was at the Buffalo Bills, which made Smith smile as he said, \u201cJust how I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRevenge is best served as a cold dish. So, it\u2019ll be nice to get up there in Buffalo and get a little payback for those guys from the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked about how much he\u2019s been thinking about the matchup between the Ravens and the Bills in the last few months, Smith said \u201cMisery sets in all offseason and you use that as motivation throughout the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith said that the Ravens know they have everything it takes to be the best team in the league, but they will have to show that \u201cgame in and game out.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Matchup Against Bears Will Be \u2018Sweet\u2019 for Smith<\/h2>\n<p>During his first four seasons in the league, Smith progressed rapidly. He led the Bears in tackles each year, earning 2nd Team All-Pro honors in both 2020 and 2021. But, according to\u00a0ESPN\u2018s Courtney Cronin, the Bears\u2019 timeline and valuation didn\u2019t match Smith\u2019s. Ultimately, they did not want to pay him $20 million per year and \u201creset the off-ball linebacker market\u201d with the team \u201cclearly geared toward building on offense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u00a0publicly demanded a trade in August 2022, but decided to play out his $9.7 million fifth-year option. Two months later, on October 31, the Bears traded him to the Ravens for linebacker A.J. Klein and a 2nd-round pick and 5th-round pick in 2023. At the time, he had a league-leading 83 tackles, with 2 1\/2 sacks and 2 interceptions in just 8 games. He ended up finishing with the third-most tackles (83) and the fourth-most sacks (2 1\/2) by any Bear in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Smith smiled and told Rich Eisen he\u2019s \u201cdefinitely excited\u201d and it\u2019ll be \u201csweet\u201d to face his former team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very excited for that one, you know,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI have a couple guys over there that I still know, keep up with and a lot of my friends are still in Chicago. So, I know a lot of them are going to be here at the game. It\u2019s going to be one that I\u2019m looking forward to for a little while now. I\u2019m very excited about it so whenever and wherever we play them, I\u2019m very excited about that one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eisen asked if there\u2019s anybody in particular that he\u2019d have something special for. Smith mentioned running back\u00a0D\u2019Andre Swift, his college teammate at the University of Georgia. But he said he\u2019ll be ready to go after \u201ceach and every guy who\u2019s lined up across from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, every single person has to get dealt with, in each and every game,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, Roquan Smith is ready to dole out some punishment to every Ravens opponent in 2025. But their matchups against the Bills and Bears may lead to some bigger hits in the name of revenge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getty The Baltimore Ravens&#8217; Roquan Smith hopes to &#8220;set the tone&#8221; for the season with a win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 1. Ravens\u00a0First-Team All-Pro linebacker\u00a0Roquan&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ravens All-Pro Itching for \u2018a Little Payback\u2019 in 2 Revenge Games - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=49307\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ravens All-Pro Itching for \u2018a Little Payback\u2019 in 2 Revenge Games - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Getty The Baltimore Ravens&#8217; Roquan Smith hopes to &#8220;set the tone&#8221; for the season with a win over the Buffalo Bills in Week 1. 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