On Sunday, the Ravens will celebrate 30 seasons in Baltimore with pageantry and pomp.

Fans at M&T Bank Stadium’s home opener will receive a “Ravens Forevermore” flag. The 1975 Baltimore Colts’ memorable AFC East-winning season will be commemorated. Ravens executive vice president Ozzie Newsome will be introduced as the “Legend of the Game.”

Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis will be feted along with other Ring of Honor members. And the four officials who helped bring an NFL franchise back to Baltimore — among them John Modell, standing in for his late father, Art, the Ravens’ original owner — will be recognized as honorary captains.

It will be a day of nostalgia, of remembering where the Ravens come from. And that is what will make it painful for those still scarred by the franchise’s origin story.

The Ravens did not choose Cleveland as their opponent for their 2025 home opener; the NFL decides on the schedule. Planning for the franchise’s 30th-season festivities began long before Ravens officials knew when the Browns would play in Baltimore.

But there is a cruel irony that the Ravens’ opponent is Cleveland, which lost its beloved NFL franchise in 1996 after Art Modell moved the franchise over financial considerations.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who was born in Ohio, grew up a Browns fan and played college football at Miami (Ohio), said Wednesday that he hadn’t heard any grievances from longtime friends about the Ravens’ historically fraught home opener. But he acknowledged they could be coming.

“Have I heard from any of my friends in the Midwest? I have not,” Harbaugh said. “Nobody’s mentioned it to me, but now that you asked the question, I’ll probably expect to get a couple calls.”

Others from the region have been more outspoken. Andy Baskin, a radio host for Cleveland’s 92.3 The Fan, on Tuesday called the timing of the festivities a “giant middle finger” to Browns fans. The franchise didn’t return to Cleveland until 1999, reactivated as an expansion team with different players.

“I just think it’s kind of horse-you-know-what that they’re doing this against the Browns,” Baskin said on “Cleveland’s Talking Heads.” “I understand that they probably wanted to do it in their season opener, and I get that. But did you really have to pick the Cleveland game to do this? You want to talk about just poking the bear on something.

“And the problem I have with the whole thing is that I care, people my age care, anyone that rooted for the Browns more than 30 years [ago] cares. I just think it’s a real [self-censored noise] move on the Ravens to do this against the Browns.”

Baskin poked fun at a Ravens news release about the franchise’s 30th season that said the 2025 team was “excited to add to that remarkable legacy.”

“The next line should be, ‘The legacy of how we stole a team from Cleveland, the same way Indianapolis stole a team from us,’” Baskin said.

Mary Kay Cabot, a longtime Browns reporter for The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com, wrote Tuesday that “Ravens fans certainly would’ve understood if they waited a few weeks and marked the occasion without reminding Browns fans of that painful episode and three long years without football.”

The Ravens will host the Detroit Lions in a Week 3 “Monday Night Football” matchup before returning to Baltimore in Week 5 for a game against the Houston Texans.

Cabot added: “No one expected Baltimore to turn down an NFL franchise just because hundreds of thousands of Clevelanders were devastated, but celebrating it Sunday with the Browns in town seems insensitive. … Baltimore cheered while Cleveland wept, and Sunday seems an inappropriate time to trigger those memories.”

Browns quarterback Joe Flacco, who played in Baltimore for 11 seasons, will see former Ravens teammates around the stadium Sunday. He told reporters in Cleveland on Wednesday that he could appreciate the history of his old team while acknowledging the imperfect optics of the situation.

“That isn’t the first thing that I think about, not being from here, but I can understand how that looks,” Flacco said of the Ravens’ history with Cleveland. “Listen, they do these things, and I think you can take it however you want. If you’re from Cleveland, you can take it one way. And, if you’re from Baltimore, you can say it’s not a big deal, it’s just one of those things. Honestly, for me, it kind of makes it more exciting. We get to go in there when they’re having some people back, and it’s just more ex-players, more eyes on you. It’ll make it more interesting.”