Lamar Jackson’s first offensive snap against Buffalo lasted exactly long enough for a blitzer to land on his throwing thumb, and by the second quarter Baltimore was down to an undrafted rookie who had never taken a regular season snap in his life.
Jackson faked a handoff to Derrick Henry, dropped back and took the hit on his throwing hand that left him with the thumb injury as he threw incomplete to Zay Flowers. He walked straight to the locker room. Tyler Huntley trotted out for the very next snap, which is the part of this story that keeps getting skipped. Baltimore did have an answer at backup quarterback. It just didn’t survive the afternoon either.
Huntley went 2 for 4 for no yards in relief before a second quarter sack and fumble left him with a toe injury that ended his day too.
Two quarterbacks, two trips out of the game, before Buffalo had even pulled away.
https://twitter.com/Ravens/status/2116958510353137968
Joe Fagnano walked into that.
Fagnano is 25, an undrafted rookie out of UConn by way of a tryout at rookie minicamp, and Sunday was his first regular season snap of any kind. He finished 10 for 21 for 91 yards with an interception and a lost fumble, which is about the best-case version of that debut for a guy who had done none of this before.
Baltimore wasn’t rolling the dice blind, either. Fagnano led the entire NFL in preseason passing yards, 509 of them, on a 74.7 percent completion rate across three exhibition games, and that tape is exactly why the front office handed him the emergency job instead of going out and signing a veteran third arm in August. They liked what they saw from him. They just bet it against the one Sunday where both quarterbacks ahead of him went down on the same field.
I’d have paid for a bridge veteran specifically built for an afternoon like this one, tape or no tape.
Josh Allen didn’t need to do much more than usual to turn this into a laugher, two touchdown passes and a rushing score against a defense that spent the second half guessing at protections. The final was 36-10, and Buffalo improved to 6-1, tightening its grip on the AFC’s No. 1 seed. Baltimore fell to 4-4, suddenly in traffic for a wild card spot with a quarterback room that has exactly one proven arm in it.
Fagnano played his part fine. The real exposure sits with the same front office that’s balked at paying Lamar Jackson, which has treated the QB3 spot like a formality year after year, confident a healthy Huntley would always be enough. Sunday proved it wouldn’t be, the moment Huntley got hurt too.
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/2116985532962259077
Jackson is set for more imaging on the thumb this week. Whatever it shows, Baltimore already knows the answer to the question that actually matters, who starts if he’s out again. Right now it’s a rookie with three preseason games on his resume and nobody behind him.
