Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson sustained a right hamstring injury. Because of this injury, there has understandably been confusion regarding if he’ll practice and play in this week’s game. Head coach John Harbaugh handled it with class. He termed the team’s infraction of the NFL’s injury report policy on Jackson as “an honest mistake.”
Last Friday, Jackson was actually a full participant on the practice report. He had gotten acclimated, he was doing a lot of work on the scout team. One thing he didn’t do was take a snap with the first-team offense. This miscommunication prompted the Ravens to adjust Jackson’s practice status to limited on Saturday, ultimately ruling him out for Sunday’s game against the rival Miami Dolphins.
Harbaugh said the team misjudged Jackson’s practice at first due to the number of reps he was able to get in. This was not in compliance with league rules. He made the point that, to their credit, in the player’s defense, that player was able to have a full practice. Anderson thinks they thought it was an awesome session because he performed the same number of reps as normal. When you look and you really read the rule, at the end of the day, it just wasn’t correct. That’s what it was. That’s why, when we found out, we removed it as quickly as we could.
Leading up to this unfortunate blow, Jackson had appeared in practice as a limited participant on both Wednesday and Thursday. In his last game action, he’d looked fantastic, running for 53 yards on five carries in the Ravens’ 30-16 win over the Chicago Bears. Despite the ongoing injury concern, Harbaugh expressed optimism about Jackson’s potential return to play against the Dolphins, saying he was “hopeful” for his recovery.
The Ravens bungled Jackson’s injury situation, first by misclassifying his practice status on Friday. This unintentional error would have earned discipline from the league. Harbaugh went on to explain that he personally hadn’t been setting players’ practice participation statuses. Instead, those decisions went to the athletic trainers and public relations staff.
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