Baltimore's Quarterback Room Is Down to a Rookie, a New Arrival and a Short Week

Baltimore's quarterback room is down to almost nothing, and the short week is already here. Rooms like this do not collapse all at once — they collapse in sequence, snap by snap, until a team that employed a two-time MVP on Sunday morning is spending Tuesday signing a new arrival off somebody else's practice squad and hoping an undrafted rookie's ankle holds up for a Thursday night game. That is where the Ravens are, and the speed of it is the story.

It started, as these things have started too often for Baltimore this season, with Lamar Jackson's body giving out. Jackson had just returned from a high ankle sprain that cost him three games. On the Ravens' first offensive snap Sunday against the Buffalo Bills — his first throw — he hit his right hand on a pressuring defender, left holding his thumb, and never came back, as we reported in our coverage of the one-play return. The Ravens lost 36-10 and fell to 4-4. On Sunday, coach Jesse Minter said, per USA TODAY: "That'll be a surgery deal. He'll go to IR. That's a tough deal." Asked Monday whether Jackson had had the surgery yet, Minter said he had not, and that the team would know more later in the week. What is already known is the floor of the absence: injured reserve means at least four games. USA TODAY's timeline puts the earliest possible return at Week 14 against Tampa Bay, after missed games in Weeks 9 through 12 and the Week 13 bye — and Minter has acknowledged the injury could "potentially" be season-ending. A team does not use that word about its franchise quarterback unless it has to.

Then the backups went down too

Tyler Huntley replaced Jackson on Sunday and lasted into the second quarter before a toe injury — believed to be turf toe, per Ravens Wire — took him out as well. That left Joe Fagnano, an undrafted rookie, to make his NFL debut in a blowout, behind a line that gave up four sacks and 12 quarterback hits. Fagnano went 10 of 21 for 91 yards with an interception and a lost fumble, per Ravens Wire, and took a low hit from Bills defensive lineman Ed Oliver along the way. The depth chart got so thin that running back Justice Hill was Baltimore's emergency fourth quarterback. Read that sentence again. The Ravens finished an NFL game one snap away from handing the offense to a running back.

And even Fagnano did not escape clean. Baltimore's Monday injury report — an estimated report off a walkthrough, because Thursday night football waits for nobody — listed all three quarterbacks: Jackson out, Huntley a non-participant with the toe, and Fagnano limited with the ankle he hurt on the Oliver hit, per Ravens Wire. Minter, to his credit, did not pretend otherwise. Minter said, via the team's official website: "To Joe's credit, he's kind of fighting through a couple things he's dealing with. But expect him to have a chance to play on Thursday." The report had more bad news stacked under the quarterbacks: kicker Tyler Loop did not participate with a right groin injury, Minter said he could "potentially" land on injured reserve too, and Jake Moody is expected to kick Thursday. Safety Jaylinn Hawkins was out with a knee issue, and nine Ravens in all were limited, including Roquan Smith and Trey Hendrickson.

The scramble: Reed on Monday, Slovis on Tuesday

So Baltimore went shopping at the only store open on 48 hours' notice — other teams' practice squads. On Monday the Ravens brought back Austin Reed, who had been with them in training camp and the preseason, signing him to the practice squad and waiving fullback Lucas Scott to make room, per Ravens Wire. Reed knows the offense, which on a short week is worth more than raw talent; he completed six of 12 passes for 59 yards in Baltimore's preseason, per Ravens Wire, though he has never appeared in a regular-season game.

On Tuesday came the bigger move: Baltimore signed Kedon Slovis directly to its 53-man roster off the Green Bay Packers' practice squad, according to The Ringer's Tom Pelissero, via Ravens Wire. Because Slovis was signed off another club's practice squad, league rules require Baltimore to keep him on the 53 for at least three weeks — this is not a one-game rental, it is a commitment made by a team that does not know when its starter is coming back. Slovis, 25, is 6-foot-2 and 223 pounds, with a college trail through USC, Pittsburgh and BYU. He entered the league as an undrafted free agent with Indianapolis in 2024, passed through Houston's practice squad, and appeared in two games for Arizona in 2025 — one completion in two attempts, for minus-2 yards, per Ravens Wire. Green Bay signed him Sept. 1 after a preseason in which he completed 39 of 61 throws for 434 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. There is a thread of familiarity, too: Ravens quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork worked with Slovis in Arizona, per A to Z Sports. The Packers, for their part, backfilled by signing Cam Miller to their practice squad Monday night.

Thursday will tell the truth

Strip away the transactions and the picture is simple, and a little stark. Baltimore's options for Thursday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars are a limited rookie who has thrown 21 NFL passes, a practice-squad returnee who knows the playbook but has thrown none, and a quarterback who will have had roughly two days to learn the offense. Ravens Wire's read is that Fagnano "appears to have the clearest path to starting if his health permits," with the final call riding on Tuesday and Wednesday's evaluations. The trade deadline is not until Nov. 10, so a bigger swing remains theoretically available to general manager Eric DeCosta — but a quarterback trade on a short week solves Thursday not at all, and Baltimore knows it.

The Ravens built this season around the most electric player in football, and they have now lost him twice — once to an ankle, once, cruelly, on the very first throw of his return. What is left is a 4-4 team, a division race that will not wait, and a rookie named Joe Fagnano limping toward the biggest start of his life. There are worse stories in this league. There are not many more honest ones about how fast it can all go.