Ravens head coach Jesse Minter spoke about Lamar Jackson’s availability for Week 7 in a nearly identical manner as he did the past two weeks, which might be very bad news for the team with the Bengals coming to Baltimore.
Minter continues to stick to his “day-to-day” mantra for the two-time MVP quarterback, which is quite odd considering Jackson has not even stepped foot on the practice field in any sort of meaningful manner since injuring his ankle at the end of the first half in Week 4. We never expected to see Jackson until Week 7, as we have reported, but also thought that Minter’s tone would have changed at his Monday press conference of Jackson was truly in a significantly better position to play this week.
"I’d still put it as a day-to-day thing,” Minter said. “We’ll know a lot more on Wednesday, I would say.” When pressed as to whether he believed Jackson would be cleared to practice when the team returns to the field on Wednesday, Minter said: “Potentially, but we’ll see how it goes.” Minter is not shy about throwing in “optimism” and “he’s close”’ when he thinks it’s warranted and we haven’t heard anything close to that about this injury.
Given how Minter has been calling this ankle injury “day-to-day,” for over two weeks now, he was also asked yet again if Jackson is truly making progress in his rehab (Minter has been maintaining for weeks that he is). To that he responded with a simple "yes."
Sounds to us like backup Snoop Huntley, a seriously limited passer who constricts the scope of any offense, will be getting practice reps again this week, perhaps the bulk of them. Best case scenario might be for Jackson to get on the field in a limited fashion on Wednesday and see how it goes, but as someone with over 20 years of studying these injuries and how coaches talk about them and knowing Jackson’s history with easily-aggravated injuries, color me far from convinced that Jackson gets the start for a huge divisional game against the Bengals.
Other Injury Updates
It continues to sound like newly acquired center Cam Jurgens, who general manager Eric DeCosta made a desperate move for despite being in concussion protocol, will actually be activated fully this week where he will take over as starting center. “He came a long way over the weekend,” Minter said. The expectation is that moving rookie Vega Ioane back to guard will allow an offensive line that was overwhelmed in Cleveland and has struggled much of the year, to reestablish the ground game, at least.
Trey Hendrickson, the team’s signature offseason signing who is making $30M to close out games for a fourth-quarter defense that is arguably the NFL’s worst since 2019, continues to get adjustments made to his hand following a finger surgery recently. He returned Sunday after missing two weeks and got off to a fast start but seemed to fidgeting with both hands as the game went on and was seen awaiting X-Rays after the game. Minter refereed to the situation as “ongoing” but did not seemed concerned about his stats for a rematch with his former team Sunday.
“For his first game back, I thought he rushed well,” Minter said.
Minter also expressed some optimism that receiver Rashod Bateman, who missed practice last week with a shoulder problem and left the game early on not to return, could be back soon.
New Kicker?
Tyler Loop is just 2/5 on kicks between 40-49 yards and Minter’s frustration with his inconsistency seeped out some in his comments Monday. He is no longer as defensive of the second-year kicker after misses as he once was, and it would not be surprising if the Ravens leaned into bringing another veteran in this week.
Loop survived an early challenge from Jake Moody a few weeks back, and won a game in Brazil with a last-second kick and has been perfect from 50+, but is clearly a work in progress, and this team still clearly lacks the clutch gene in other aspects, compounding the problem. Loop, who missed a season-ending kick at Pittsburgh in Week 18, could have given Baltimore a two-score lead late Sunday but missed from 49 yards, pushing the ball wide again.
“You always look at ways of how to improve the roster … with that one being no different,” Minter said, bluntly.
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