Ravens doomed by QB injuries, porous defense in loss to Jaguars
· Yahoo Sports
With Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley on injured reserve, the Baltimore Ravens turned to Joe Fagnano, an undrafted rookie out of UConn, to start against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday night.
It went exactly how you would expect.
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The Ravens scraped their way through a 10-3 first quarter, but the Jaguars literally ran away with the game on a 50-yard Parker Washington touchdown just before halftime. A rainy night in Baltimore contributed to a sloppy second half that, to be frank, could have gotten much worse for the home team. Jacksonville ended up settling for three field goals inside the 30-yard line before another late touchdown – all on short fields – to finish with a 33-10 win.
Fagnano himself was playing with a heavily-bandaged right ankle that clearly limited his dropback capabilities. All of offensive coordinator Declan Doyle’s tricks – motion, misdirection, even a healthy dose of Derrick Henry wildcat – could not cover up his quarterback’s basic inability to plant on his back foot and drive the ball downfield. The Jaguars rolled out base personnel, loaded the box, and stuffed Henry for just 57 yards on 17 carries. Fagnano completed 10 of his 18 passes – most of them screens and other simple designed throws – for just 60 yards and two interceptions.
The Ravens’ struggling offensive operation only compounded the issues. Doyle’s trickery made execution even more of a priority for a unit that was playing its first full game with its best starting-five offensive line. But a slew of pre-snap penalties and missed blocks kept the offense behind the sticks and consistently killed their chances to sustain drives. Offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford in particular could be seen expressing his frustration at his unit on the sidelines. Outside of a 65-yard garbage-time rushing touchdown from Justice Hill, Baltimore managed just three points and 162 yards on 53 plays (3.05 yards per play).
Defensively, the Ravens picked up where they left off in recent games: on skates. The Jaguars marched down the field with little resistant on their opening drive, going 77 yards in just seven plays before punching in a goal-line touchdown. Baltimore’s defense stiffened up after, but Washington’s catch-and-run score was exactly the kind of back-breaking coverage collapse that has doomed the unit this year (and for the last few).
It was also exactly the kind of play that would doom a team trying to pull off an upset win with an undrafted rookie under center. A valiant second half – in which the Ravens defense twice forced three-and-out field goals after a Fagnano interception and kept the Jaguars out of the end zone until the game was effectively lost – deserves some mention, but there are no game balls in a defeated locker room. Regardless of the circumstances at quarterback, a team with a defensive-minded head coach; a respected defensive coordinator; an exciting young staff of defensive assistants; and one of the most expensive defensive rosters in football…should be able to play better defense. Standing tall on short fields in the second half means less after giving up a pair of full-length scores that effectively defined the game in the first. All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton also left the game with a hip injury and did not return, raising questions about the status of Baltimore’s best defender for Week 10.
A 53-yard field goal from Jake Moody in his Ravens debut was an early highlight for a special teams unit that quickly fell into the same disarray as the team’s other two phases. There is almost something impressive about Baltimore’s ability to conjure up seemingly-obscure penalties like Rasheen Ali’s illegal double-team block on a first-quarter return. And while a fourth-quarter comeback was never realistic, LaJohntay Wester’s return fumble still added insult to injury and put an exhausted defense out on the field once again.
With Thursday’s loss, the Ravens drop to 4-5, keeping them in last place in the AFC North. They have 10 days ahead of their next game, a Monday night matchup with the Los Angeles Chargers. Jacoby Brissett should be in Baltimore by then, assuming Eric DeCosta finalizes the reported trade with the Arizona Cardinals. The 10-year veteran is no doubt an upgrade over Fagnano (not to mention his ankle), but he will face the same adverse circumstances, not to mention the heightened chance for procedural issues with a fourth quarterback under center.
If the Ravens’ 2026 season is over, it did not end on a rainy Thursday night in Baltimore. It ended on a sunny afternoon in Buffalo, as soon as Jackson rushed off the field cradling his throwing hand. The loss to the Jaguars represents something different, arguably worse: just how bad things can get.