The Cincinnati Bengals face the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, November 8 in Madrid, Spain, in the NFL’s Week 9 international game at the Bernabeu Stadium. Kickoff is set for 9:30 a.m. ET, with Atlanta as the designated home team, and this is a preview of a game that has not been played yet.
Madrid is hosting a regular-season NFL game for the second straight November. The stadium’s first game last year drew 78,610 fans and finished in overtime, the Miami Dolphins edging the Washington Commanders 16-13, and DAZN’s Madrid game preview sets out the full card for the return visit: Joe Burrow against the league’s leading rusher, with Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Drake London and Kyle Pitts all on the same field. The game airs on NFL Network and NFL+ in the United States, and on NFL Game Pass internationally.
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Burrow Arrives In The Form Of His Season
Burrow has never played an NFL game outside the United States, because Cincinnati’s London trips in 2016 and 2019 came before his time in the league. He could hardly arrive in better form for a first game on foreign soil. Through seven games he has thrown for 2,115 yards and 20 touchdowns with a 111.6 passer rating, he has nine touchdown passes in his last two games, and he tied his career high with five touchdown passes against Tennessee last week after being named AFC Offensive Player of the Week for his Week 7 game in Baltimore.
“We’re finding ways to win right now. That’s more [than] you can say for the last couple of years,” Burrow said after the Tennessee game, as quoted in DAZN’s Madrid preview.
The weapons around him are healthy at the right time. Chase played through an ankle issue against the Titans and is not on the injury report for Madrid. Higgins has 726 receiving yards this season, including 155 yards and two scores against Tennessee, and tight end Mike Gesicki already has six touchdowns, a red zone problem Atlanta has to solve on top of the two wide receivers every defence already plans around.
Robinson Carries The Atlanta Answer
Atlanta’s clearest path runs through Bijan Robinson. He leads the NFL with 780 rushing yards at 5.2 yards per carry and has 983 yards from scrimmage, following a 2025 season in which he earned first-team All-Pro honours after leading the league in scrimmage yards. The matchup is a fair test of a rebuilt Cincinnati front, because the Bengals allow 4.8 yards per carry and 122.3 rushing yards per game, 20th in the league, even after an offseason spent adding size up front.
The rest of the Atlanta picture is less settled. Michael Penix Jr. took over at quarterback in Week 3 and enters Week 9 needing a response after throwing four interceptions and going 0-for-12 on third down last week. The Falcons do get one major boost: pass rusher James Pearce Jr. is eligible again after an eight-game suspension, joining a defence that already ranks inside the top seven for pressure rate without him, against a Cincinnati line that allowed three sacks to a one-win Tennessee team last week.
Two Seasons Pointing In Opposite Directions
The records frame the stakes plainly. Cincinnati heads to Madrid at 5-2 on a three-game winning streak, and last season’s 6-11 collapse, when Burrow missed nine games with a toe injury, already feels distant. The Bengals needed overtime to beat the 1-7 Titans 43-36 last week, a letdown scare before a run of grand-stage games, but they keep winning the close ones that slipped away a year ago.
Atlanta arrives at 3-5 off the strangest loss of the season, shut out 16-0 in a Tampa downpour by a Buccaneers side that did not complete a single pass, the first team to win that way since the 1974 Buffalo Bills. And yet the Falcons sit just half a game behind Carolina in an NFC South that is still wide open, so a win in Madrid pulls them level in the loss column with the division lead in reach. Cincinnati leads the all-time series 10-5, and Atlanta has lost all three meetings since its last win over the Bengals in 2010.
What Madrid Gets On Sunday Morning
For the Toronto audience watching at breakfast time, this is the best kind of international game: a genuine contender’s quarterback at his peak, the league’s leading rusher on the other sideline, and two offences built to score in a stadium that produced an overtime finish on its debut. The honest questions are narrow. Can Atlanta’s pass rush, now with Pearce back, get to Burrow before Chase and Higgins separate downfield? Can Cincinnati’s run defence hold Robinson under the kind of line that lets Atlanta control the clock and keep Burrow watching?
Madrid gets the answers first on Sunday, at 9:30 a.m. ET, before the rest of the Week 9 slate kicks off. A fourth straight Cincinnati win tightens its grip near the top of the AFC North. An Atlanta win ends a 16-year wait against this opponent and keeps the NFC South race crowded. Either result travels home with a team whose season looks different for it.
