The Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills are scheduled to meet at Paycor Stadium in Week 9 of the 2023 NFL season on NBC’s Sunday Night Football on Nov. 5 at 8:20 pm Eastern.
The game will be a rematch of their divisional-round playoff meeting in Buffalo in January, won 27-10 by the Bengals.
The Bengals’ schedule was revealed Thursday night.
Five interesting facts about the Bengals-Bills SNF game:
Cincinnati is set to welcome Damar Hamlin back to the city where he survived a life-threatening cardiac arrest on the field.
The return of the Bills’ defensive back to the Queen City and Paycor Stadium will be a huge deal. Hamlin has expressed how grateful he is for the medical personnel who saved his life in January, and the NFL has recognized “Team Damar.” Last month, he was cleared to fully resume football activities.
He was at Highmark Stadium for the playoff game between the two teams, but actually being back in Cincinnati for a football game will be quite an experience for Hamlin.
Because the Jan. 2 games in Cincinnati were canceled, this will be the first Joe Burrow-Josh Allen regular-season meeting.
The Bengals’ last regular-season meeting with the Bills was a 21-17 loss in Buffalo in Sept. 2019. Allen passed for 243 yards with a touchdown and an interception against Andy Dalton and Cincinnati.
The Bills will be well-rested when they visit Paycor Stadium.
The Bengals will have played the entire NFC West during the six weeks leading up to their showdown with the Bills. After their bye week, they play in San Francisco one week before hosting Buffalo.
The Bills will have a mini-bye ahead of their trip to Cincinnati, having faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football in Week 8, 10 days before playing the Bengals.
If the Bengals don’t have a game flexed into Sunday night, this will be their only Sunday Night Football game.
Cincinnati is scheduled to face Pittsburgh on NBC in a standalone national window on a Saturday in December. But entering the season, these are their only nationally televised NBC games.
The Bills will have played on Sunday night three weeks earlier, against the New York Giants.
The Sunday night game will be the first of three November home games.
The Bengals only played once at home in the month of October, against the Seattle Seahawks on the 15th. After their bye week and a road trip to San Francisco, they get back-to-back games at Paycor against the Bills and the Houston Texans.
The Sunday night game is the second of three in a row in primetime for the Bills, who get Monday Night Football at home against the Denver Broncos in Week 10 after TNF against the Bucs in Week 8 and SNF in Cincinnati in Week 9.
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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati hosts Buffalo in Week 9 Sunday Night Football game