1:??pm: Part of the story of Jackson’s downgrade came as Baltimore changed his practice
11:50am: Injured Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson will miss Week 8 against the Bears, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports. Tyler Huntley, signed from the Ravens’ practice squad, will start. Jackson is expected to return in Week 9 in Miami.
While it was reported that Jackson was a full participant in practice on Friday, that was not the case. The Ravens announced that the two-time MVP remained limited with a hamstring injury. He’ll now miss his third straight game, an unwelcome development as Baltimore returns from its bye.
Off to a stunning 1-5 start after entering the season as Super Bowl hopefuls, the Ravens are 0-2 without Jackson. With Jackson unavailable, the Ravens initially turned to ex-Cowboy Cooper Rush as their starter. That couldn’t have gone worse. The Texans and Rams outscored the Ravens 61-13 in a pair of lopsided defeats. While Rush was a capable backup in Dallas, he went 25 for 39 for 251 yards, no touchdowns, and four interceptions in his first two starts as a Raven.
With Rush struggling mightily, the Ravens pulled him in favor of Huntley in the Rams game. Huntley finished the day 10 of 15 for 68 yards. Unlike Rush, Huntley can hurt defenses with his legs. He added 39 yards on three rushing attempts last week.
Huntley spent the first four years of his career in Baltimore before a regular-season stint with the Dolphins in 2024. He made nine starts for the Ravens from 2021-23. The team went 3-6 in those games, though Huntley’s 2-2 mark while filling in for Jackson in 2022 helped the Ravens earn a playoff berth.
As the Ravens try to keep their fading playoff hopes alive this year, they’ll need a strong performance out of Huntley against the 4-2 Bears. Regardless of whether the Ravens pull off a victory on Sunday, they’ll get Jackson back with a favorable schedule over the next several weeks. They’re set to face five straight sub-.500 opponents after Chicago, including the winless Jets in Week 12.
Ravens in the midst of a season from hell. They can’t buy a break.
And the Bears have been getting nothing but lucky for a month. The easiest schedule in the league, timely turnovers (a lot of this is luck) and two one score games they probably should have lost. And they have another month of easy games in front of them yet.
Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.
I might argue that it’s always better to be lucky than good…
♫ Born under a bad sign
Been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
You know, I wouldn’t have no luck at all ♫
Ravens reported Lamar was a full participant in Friday’s practice, and now they’re admitting he wasn’t. That needs to be punished and hard because the betting line was -6.5 and tilting to -7. Shot down to -3.5 and now at -1.5. The hypocritical NFL lobbyed against legalized sports betting for years, now they love it. They need to clean this up.
lol. Lamar is soooo mentally weak. Looses a bunch of games and when the media coverage becomes white hot, all of a sudden his hamstring is bad. It’s all gravy when the ravens are winning. But when it’s tough in the regular season or in the playoffs, he melts like the wicked witch of the west. Lol. Is this your MVP?
Yeah, I was wondering about that. I don’t think you’re allowed to lie about the practice status of your players like that, because the other team is also prepping for who they will face. From the way it was going it didn’t seem like he was going to play anyway. I agree there should be some form of punishment for this.