Lamar Jackson is out, and that changes the Ravens’ Week 6 trip to Cleveland before the game even starts.
Baltimore has officially ruled Jackson out for the divisional matchup with the Browns, extending a recovery from the ankle injury he suffered in Week 4. He has missed six straight practices and, as of Thursday, had not practiced at all this week. The Ravens will have to move forward without the quarterback who normally shapes everything they do.
That leaves Tyler Huntley back in the role of immediate replacement.
Huntley will once again step into the fray as Jackson’s substitute, and Baltimore is asking him to do more than simply keep the offense afloat. Jesse Minter said of Huntley, “[Huntley] is a really good player, and he’s got a great demeanor, great poise, great respect amongst his teammates.”
Huntley’s recent track record gives Baltimore a reason to believe it can still function offensively with him under center. He is 3-0 in his last three starts, and in his brief action this season he has completed 78 percent of his passes over one and a half games. The Ravens do not need him to be Lamar Jackson. They need him to make the offense workable in a game where the quarterback plan has already changed.
That also shifts the burden onto Derrick Henry.
If Jackson can’t go, the expectation is that Baltimore will feed Henry. Through five weeks, Henry has averaged 4.03 yards after contact per rush, which ranks seventh in the NFL. That number matters here because the Ravens are not just looking for a complementary run game; they are looking for a way to control the game without their starting quarterback.
Cleveland’s injury situation gives Baltimore a possible opening. The Browns are likely to be without two of their best defensive players, Mason Graham and Carson Schwesinger, both of whom are listed as questionable. Derek Barnett is also questionable. If Graham and Schwesinger are unable to play, that would be significant for Henry.
The Browns’ run defense has also been vulnerable through the first five weeks. They are allowing 117.4 rushing yards per game, 18th in the league, and they rank 30th in yards after contact allowed at 3.67 per rush. That is the kind of profile that can turn a game into a test of patience and physicality, especially if Baltimore is already leaning on its ground game.
The Ravens are carrying their own injury load, too. Twenty-one players have had some sort of injury designation this week, which makes the margin for error even thinner as they prepare for a divisional game against a Browns team dealing with its own roster uncertainty.
So the question is no longer whether Baltimore can win with Jackson driving the offense. It is whether Huntley can manage the game well enough to let Henry take over the parts of it the Ravens want most.
That is the path Baltimore has left itself. The quarterback is out, the backup is back in, and the game may come down to whether the Ravens can turn that disruption into an advantage somewhere else on the field.