NFL Official: Joe Burrow's Complaint vs. Ravens is Fair

Not that it needed any more fuel added to the fire, but this year's series between the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals is shaping up to be another intense one.

The first matchup of the season comes at M&T Bank Stadium on Thanksgiving night, and that in itself has been a point of contention. This is the fourth year in a row that the Bengals have travelled to face the Ravens in primetime, and the third year in a row that the game falls on a Thursday night, while all the regular season matchups at Paycor Stadium have kicked off at 1 p.m. ET. The Ravens have won all three of the prior games.

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is none too happy about that fact, publicly calling out the NFL schedule makers at a press conference last week.

"Playing in Baltimore for the fourth straight prime-time year isn't ideal," Burrow told reporters. "Maybe we can get one of those in Cincinnati next year. Please."

It seems the schedule makers heard that complaint loud and clear. In an interview with Bengals.com, Mike North, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, described Burrow's complaint over the situation as "fair."

"It's not a one-or-two years sort of a league where you fix every problem every other year or every two years," North said. "Once you start getting to the same thing three years in a row, four, or five years in a row, whether it's a short week Thursday on the road or opening on the road.

"When trends like that emerge, we probably have to adjust at some point."

While the league wanted to give the Bengals a home prime time game in the series, it ultimately wasn't meant to be this season.

"It just ended up as we got down the stretch here, that this was our best schedule, and fully acknowledging that, I'm sure the Bengals fans are a little surprised and probably a little disappointed," North said. "Which puts them in the same category as all 31 other teams. Everybody is just a little disappointed in the schedule makers."

Ultimately, however, this is the first Thanksgiving game for either team in over a decade, and that's something to celebrate on its own.

"They deserve it. You've played your way into these windows," North says. "An MVP quality quarterback and superstar wide receivers, and we play exciting games. Both Ravens-Bengals games last year were spectacular. We wanted to make sure that we ended up with at least one of them in primetime this year. We got it. I'm sure Bengals fans would have preferred it in Cincinnati, but it should be fun for you guys to ruin Baltimore's Thanksgiving."