Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson meet for next chapter of their rivalry when the Bills visit the Ravens

Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are about to be on the same football field for the first time in nearly two years, and those around them with the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens are preparing for another classic.

“I am just grateful to be a part of it and to be around it,” Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said. “These are the things that you’re going to look back on and you’re going to say, ‘Wow, wasn’t that cool to be there for that?'”

Allen's unbeaten Bills and Jackson's Ravens renew a premier NFL rivalry Sunday night, with the AFC contenders still chasing back-to-back Super Bowl champion Kansas City and coming in off very different starts to the season. Allen is the early favorite for league MVP honors with Buffalo at 3-0, while Jackson and Baltimore return home hoping to get on track after starting 1-2.

It is another chance for the elite quarterbacks to put on a show and put another dent in their doubters.

“I don’t think anybody thought that — maybe other than the people in our buildings — thought that we’d still be playing right now,” Allen said, calling Jackson an inspiration. “Love watching him play because every play is never dead with him. He’s got a crazy ability to keep plays alive and make guys miss and then get the ball downfield, so he’s a special player.”

Jackson is the reigning MVP, has won it twice and his 254 yards rushing are the most of any QB through the first three games of the season. He is now paired with Derrick Henry, who ran for 151 yards last week to help beat Dallas 28-25.

Even though the Ravens lost their first two games, veteran Bills linebacker Von Miller thought the combination of Jackson and Henry looked scary from the outset.

“I remember watching the game on TV, and I was like, ‘This is this is going to be a problem,’” Miller said. “And it has been.”

So has Buffalo's offense, which shredded Jacksonville in a 47-10 blowout Monday night and has scored the most points in the league. Allen, now the 2-1 top choice as MVP at BetMGM Sportsbook ahead of Patrick Mahomes, has thrown for 634 yards and seven touchdowns, has run for 85 yards and two more scores and has yet to get picked off after a career-worst 18 interceptions last season.

“Just an incredible player playing at such an extremely high level,” Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy said, crediting much of the Bills' success to Allen and offensive coordinator Joe Brady being on the same page. “They’re in sync right now, and they have a great pulse of their offense with their identity, and they’re doing an extremely good job of just getting everybody involved.”

Allen calls that “everybody eats,” and stopping not only him but running back James Cook and others will be a major challenge. Jackson's not worried about that on his side of the ball, but he is well aware of the spotlight on him and Allen whenever they face off.

“It’s always going to be that way as long as we are in the league,” Jackson said. “I really don’t know how people will judge it or what people will say. I’m just going out there trying to get a ‘W.'"

With Allen’s left, non-throwing hand still tender after he landed on it in while scoring a touchdown in the season opener, he has mostly used his right hand on handoffs. And that includes going backhanded.

“Style points,” Allen said, with a wink, before explaining he’s trying to limit hits to his left hand, which he says is improving.

Coach Sean McDermott, when asked whether he gets nervous seeing some of Allen’s more unorthodox handoffs, said with a laugh: “Yeah, I mean, that among 100 other things that I’m saying, 'I hope it goes well.’”

The Ravens blew a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead in a deflating Week 2 home loss to Las Vegas and nearly saw history repeat itself against the Cowboys before escaping with a win.

“I think we need to just lock back in," safety Kyle Hamilton said. "I think we’ve come in so strong, and it’s hard to keep that up for 60 minutes straight, but I think we have the people to do it. Reset, refocus in the fourth quarter.”

Miller feels like his old self again taking the field expecting, rather than hoping, to make a sack. The 35-year-old is on a three-game sack streak a year after he failed to register one in 14 games, including the playoffs, while coming back from a torn knee ligament.

“I feel really, really comfortable,” Miller said. “I was hoping for something to fall into my lap last year, and this year is just, like, ‘I just need to be out there to make it happen.’"

Miller is the NFL’s active leader with 126 1/2 sacks, which is tied for 17th on the career list with Derrick Thomas.

Ravens fans are being asked to wear black, and they have enjoyed watching their team play under the lights for more than a decade. Baltimore is 20-3 in prime time under Harbaugh since he took over in 2008.

“Just hearing ‘the Flock’ and seeing all black throughout the crowd, it’s hard to escape,” Jackson said. “Something about it. I can’t really describe it. It’s like the dark side.”

Asked to name his favorite nighttime victory, Jackson said: “All of them. I love winning.”

AP Sports Writer John Wawrow in Orchard Park, New York, contributed to this report.

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Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) throws a touchdown pass to wide receiver Rashod Bateman in the first half of an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

Buffalo Bills running back James Cook (4) celebrates after scoring a rushing touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in Orchard Park, NY. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry (22) runs the ball as Dallas Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs (7) gives chase in the second half of an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) walks off the field after a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in an NFL football game Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in Orchard Park, NY. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson sprints to the end zone to score a touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys in the first half of an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Khalil Shakir (10) celebrates his touchdown catch with teammates during the first half of an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in Orchard Park, NY. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson warms up before an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) throws a pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in Orchard Park, NY. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

FILE - Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) talks with Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) following a 24-17 Ravens win in an NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y., in this Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019, file photo. (AP Photo/John Munson, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Some judges in a New York appeals court appeared receptive Thursday to possibly reversing or reducing a civil fraud judgment that stands to cost Donald Trump nearly $500 million. One judge called the former president’s penalty “troubling” and wondered if the state’s policing of private business transactions was “deterrence” or “mission creep.”

A five-judge panel in the state’s intermediate appeals court in Manhattan quizzed lawyers representing Trump and the New York attorney general's office during oral arguments in the Republican presidential nominee's fight to get the Feb. 16 verdict overturned.

At times the judges appeared dubious of Trump’s side, too. Appeals court judges often ask pointed questions of both sides to test their arguments.

Trump is asking the court to reverse Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling that Trump lied for years about his wealth on paperwork given to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans. The verdict cut to the core of Trump’s wealthy, businessman persona. Three of the five judges who heard Thursday’s arguments must agree in order to alter the outcome.

Trump did not attend the hearing, which was held in an unusually ornate appellate courtroom — a far cry from the sterile courthouse where he spent weeks as a criminal defendant in his hush-money felony case earlier this year.

In the past, Trump has decried the lawsuit's outcome as “election interference” and accused Engoron of punishing him for “having built a perfect company.”

The appeals court, known as the Appellate Division, typically rules about a month after arguments, meaning a decision could come before Election Day, Nov. 5. It could uphold the trial verdict, reduce or overturn it.

Trump lawyer D. John Sauer argued that the lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, stretched the state's consumer protection laws, insinuating the government into transactions where there were “no victims" and “no complaints.”

Trump did business with “sophisticated counterparties" that performed their own due diligence rather than relying solely on Trump's financial statements — documents that Engoron ruled wildly inflated his net worth.

The case, Sauer said, “involves a clear cut violation of the statute of limitations." Judge Llinét Rosado noted that the case involved some “loans which closed long ago.”

If the verdict is allowed to stand, he argued, "people can’t do business in real estate" without fearing they'll face similar scrutiny, Sauer said.

The state's deputy solicitor general, Judith Vale, countered that “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here,” noting that lenders including Deutsche Bank incurred undue risk based on Trump's representations.

But Judge Peter H. Moulton questioned if James' office was engaging in “mission creep,” and whether the law she sued Trump under had "morphed into something that it was not meant to do.” At the same time, Moulton suggested the lawsuit and actions like it may deter similar actions going forward, reasoning that “in the future, some deal might not go down well and someone would be harmed by that.”

Judge David Friedman drew a distinction between Trump's case and others that were brought under the law in which corporate actions harmed large groups of people. One stemmed from the 2008 collapse of investment firm Lehman Brothers and another involved consumers taking out home loans they could not afford.

“It hardly seems that justifies bringing an action” against Trump, Friedman said. “You don't have anything like that here.”

Judge John Higgitt asked if the appeals court should consider “guardrails” to prevent James from “going into an area that wasn’t intended for her jurisdiction.”

Later, Moulton questioned Vale about Engoron's hefty punishment, observing that “the immense penalty in this case is troubling.”

Vale explained that, under the law, the judge was permitted to essentially take away whatever Trump gained from transactions based on his inflated financial statements. The gains included profits from selling properties like his Washington, D.C. hotel and savings from lower loan interest rates.

“That is an enormous benefit that they got from the misconduct, and it is not an excuse to say, ‘well, our fraud was really successful, so we should get some of the money,’” Vale argued.

The state argues there is ample evidence backing the verdict and that Trump’s appeal is based in part on arguments that Engoron and the Appellate Division have rejected before.

Sauer, a former Missouri solicitor general, previously argued Trump’s successful presidential immunity case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ruling after a 2½-month trial, Engoron found that Trump had padded his net worth by several billion dollars on annual financial statements by overvaluing assets including his golf courses and hotels, his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan.

Trump and his co-defendants are also challenging Engoron’s decision to rule, even before testimony had begun, that the state had proven that Trump had fraudulently inflated his financial statements. The judge ordered Trump and the other defendants to pay $363.9 million in penalties — a sum that has now grown with interest to more than $489 million.

Trump posted a $175 million bond in April to halt collection of the judgment and prevent the state from seizing his assets while he appeals. The bond guarantees payment if the judgment is upheld. If Trump wins he’ll get the money back.

If either side doesn’t like the outcome, it can ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to consider taking the case. Trump has vowed to fight the verdict “all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.”

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Mint Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)