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On October 4, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson injured his left ankle. For nearly three weeks, that was almost all there was to know about the injury. Details from coach Jesse Minter were scarce. Speculation filled the void as Jackson missed the Ravens’ next six practices and two games.
It wasn’t until Friday, when Jackson made his first public comments since his injury, that clarity emerged about the nature of the ankle condition itself. Jackson was asked if he suffered a deltoid strain. Jackson said no, it was a sprained ankle. Curious, he asked who had reported otherwise. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, said Jackson – one of the most established reporters in the NFL.
“He’s on the training team?” Jackson deadpans. He shook his head, adding, “He’s just reporting. Someone probably told him that too, so I can’t blame him.”
The exchange highlighted one of the great ironies of Jackson’s career. He is one of the NFL’s most accomplished and popular players, a two-time NFL Most Valuable Player, a franchise quarterback, and the face of a perennial AFC contender. And yet Jackson remains one of the NFL’s most inscrutable stars, his next steps eluding the league’s best-connected insiders — and sometimes even Ravens coaches.
Jackson’s sprained ankle, which sidelined him for a third straight game on Sunday – a blowout home loss to the Cincinnati Bengals – is almost as much a strategic communications story as it is a health story. The Ravens want Jackson healthy; it’s an advantage. The Ravens also want opponents to prepare for Jackson, even if he’s not healthy; this is also an advantage, although considerably less.
But in the NFL, gamesmanship and transparency are rarely compatible. Mixed messages about Jackson’s recovery this month have caused Ravens fans to lash out at Jackson for what some consider an overly cautious recovery; to Minter, for what some see as an unwillingness to acknowledge the seriousness of Jackson’s injury; and to team officials, who remained silent during another period of prolonged uncertainty.
The latest inflection point in Jackson’s injury narrative came Friday, when he met with local reporters after practice. Jackson initially called his sprained ankle “very, very, very, very, very painful.” He said playing with limited mobility would “do a disservice” to the Ravens. He said he was “going in the right direction” after three days of limited training participation. He also said the injury was a sprained ankle, which usually sidelines players for more than a month.
The Banner previously reported that, based on videos and photos of the injury, experts suspected Jackson suffered a medial or deltoid sprain (the terms are used interchangeably) and that high ankle sprains could accompany medial sprains. So it’s possible this is just semantics (medial and high ankle sprains generally take longer to heal than typical sprains). But since this is Lamar Jackson, the scrutiny is intense.
Nine days earlier, before the Ravens’ AFC North opener against the Cleveland Browns, Minter called Jackson’s status “definitely everyday.” This was perhaps a generous characterization of his availability; Jackson himself said Friday that he “couldn’t show up at all” the week Minter made the comments.
During his weekly press conference on Monday, Minter was asked what responsibility he had in setting the public’s expectations for players’ return to action.
“Again, when a player is healthy enough to play, he plays,” Minter said. “I think all players are like that. I think there are things that change sometimes with injuries, which you think is good when it happens in a game and things like that, where the adrenaline and all that continues. So Lamar has worked hard. He has continued to work hard, and when he’s ready to play, he’ll play.”
Jackson acknowledged Friday that the talk around his injury could be boring, saying, “No matter what Lamar does, there’s going to be something said, so it is what it is.” »
Minter laughed when asked Monday if he maintains a dialogue with Jackson to keep the quarterback informed of the Ravens’ public posturing.
“I think when Lamar and our training staff, our doctors, myself and everyone in the organization thinks it’s best for him to be on the field, he’ll be on the field and everyone will know when that happens,” he said.
CBS reporter Tracy Wolfson, who covered Sunday’s game in Baltimore and called Jackson’s unavailability a “shock” for the Ravens, said in a tweet Sunday that she was told Jackson was “confident” he would play Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.
But now the Ravens know to be careful with their optimism and their words. Jackson has only missed seven games due to injuries over the past three years – fewer than Joe Burrow of the Bengals, Aaron Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys, among others – but his absences have at times taken a toll on the organization.
Last season, Jackson injured his back in the second quarter of a crucial Week 16 loss to the New England Patriots, suffering a contusion that forced him to leave the game. Coach John Harbaugh later called the injury “a bruise of some sort” but acknowledged he didn’t know its severity. A day later, he said Jackson’s pain level was “legitimate” — “I don’t want to downplay the seriousness” — and labeled him daily.
However, it wasn’t until two days later, on Christmas Eve, that Harbaugh explained why a “bruise of some sort” could prevent Jackson from returning to a must-win game or practice before the team’s next must-win game.
“It’s not like a black and blue brand,” he said. “It’s deep tissue bruising. … Muscles lock up around it. You can’t really move very well. He’s releasing all of that, hopefully. You can’t really tell when it’ll be okay. He’s got to be able to play. He’s got to be able to be an athlete and be able to move.”
Other times, Harbaugh was premature with his predictions. Last October, after Jackson had already missed two games with a hamstring injury, Harbaugh said “our quarterback was going to be back” following the team’s Week 7 bye. He acknowledged he wasn’t sure of Jackson’s timeline, “but that’s the hope.”
Jackson did not return for the Ravens’ Week 8 game against the Chicago Bears. He returned a week later, for a Week 9 victory against the Miami Dolphins. He said Friday it was “stupid” for him to play with so many injuries last year.
During the 2022 season, Jackson’s recovery from a knee injury was so closely watched that he took to social media to provide updates on his health. In a series of tweets before the Ravens’ playoff game against the Bengals, Jackson said he suffered a Grade 2 knee sprain — moderate ligament damage and partial tear — that was “bordering on” a Grade 3 sprain, which involves a complete tear of the ligament.
In December of that year, Harbaugh initially called Jackson’s injury “not the season-ending type.” He then referred to his status as “week to week.” On his radio show days before the Ravens’ playoff loss to the Bengals, which Jackson missed, Rich Eisen said Harbaugh told him weeks earlier that Jackson could have played with a knee brace — “but he doesn’t want to.”
A year earlier, in December 2021, an ankle injury sidelined Jackson. Harbaugh initially told reporters it was a sprain. The injury was later revealed to be a season-ending bone bruise. Jackson didn’t return to practice until February, after the Super Bowl.
All the while, Harbaugh hoped Jackson would return in time to save the Ravens’ spiraling season. So was Jackson, who limped onto the practice field in late December and went through a Week 17 workout with a pronounced limp.
“I’m really hopeful,” Harbaugh said before practice. “I’m hopeful for all of our quarterbacks, starting with Lamar. I really want to see him out there on Sunday. I know the fans do, and I especially know Lamar does. He’s going to do everything he can to be out there. You can’t make promises because we don’t know what tomorrow brings.”
Jackson’s practice was his last of the season. He missed the Ravens’ last two games, extending his streak of consecutive absences to four. Harbaugh said after the season that Jackson “assured me” less than two weeks after the ankle injury that he would return to play.
“He worked really hard to come back, but it didn’t really heal,” Harbaugh said.
Conflicting reports from national journalists have only added to the uncertainty. These journalists often rely on agents for information, and agents are paid by clients to help them control stories, but Jackson doesn’t have one; his mother acts as his de facto advisor and manager and has cultivated an impenetrable inner circle.
In December 2022, two weeks after Jackson’s knee injury in Week 13, NFL Network reported that Jackson was “expected to return” to practice soon and that the team hoped he would play in Week 16. Neither happened.
Two weeks ago, ESPN reported that Jackson had a “realistic chance” to play in the Ravens’ Week 6 game against the Browns. But he was held out of practice that week and ruled out two days before the game.
And during a Sunday morning appearance on NFL Network, two days after the press conference in Owings Mills, Rapoport said Jackson was “still dealing with that sprained ankle.” But even he was jokingly skeptical about the injury designation.
“He called it a high ankle sprain; I was told it wasn’t a typical high ankle sprain,” Rapoport said. “It doesn’t matter. We love Lamar, but we also know he’s not coming today.”
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