Trey Hendrickson will not play Sunday, and the first thing worth clearing up is the jersey. Hendrickson is a Baltimore Raven now, not a Cincinnati Bengal, and Baltimore ruled its edge rusher out against the Tennessee Titans after he underwent a procedure to repair a broken finger.
He broke it in the season opener and played the next three games on it. Head coach Jesse Minter said the team finally decided to fix the thing rather than keep taping it up. “We were able to get the finger fixed,” Minter said, adding that the absence should be “very, very short term” and that handling it now was best “moving forward long term.”
One Week Off Is The Cheap Part
Missing a home game against an 0-3 Tennessee team is close to free. The Ravens are 2-1, and they will hand the snaps to second-year linebacker Mike Green, who has five tackles and a sack through three weeks, plus undrafted rookie Ethan Burke. Baltimore should win this game without him on the field.
The real cost is sitting in Hendrickson’s stat line. Through three games he has one sack, one tackle for loss and three quarterback hits. For a player Baltimore went out and added this year to make its pass rush a weapon again, that is not the production anybody in the building signed up for. How much of it traces to a hand he could not fully close is the question the next month will answer.
The Rest Of The Injury Sheet Is Scarier
Hendrickson is one line on a long report. Lamar Jackson was limited Wednesday with a back issue and has been cleared to play. Left tackle Ronnie Stanley is questionable with a toe injury, though Minter said of his week, “I think he had a really good two days.” Zay Flowers is questionable with a hamstring problem after returning to full participation Thursday, and Chris Moore is questionable with an ankle issue.
Then there is the middle of the offensive line. Both of Baltimore’s centers, Jovaughn Gwyn and Ethan Pocic, are out with long-term injuries. A quarterback coming off a back problem playing behind a patched-together interior is a more urgent concern than one Sunday without an edge rusher.
Baltimore Got This Decision Right
Letting a defensive lineman keep rushing the passer with multiple fractures in his hand is how a two-week problem turns into a four-month one. Minter said flatly that the point of the procedure was the long term, and the Ravens picked the ideal week to cash in the absence: a home date against a winless opponent, with the bye-adjacent stretch of the schedule still ahead.
What Baltimore has not given is a date. “Very, very short term” is a coaching phrase, not a timeline, and no specific return week has been reported. There has been no indication that an injured reserve designation is coming.
Here is what should actually worry Ravens fans. This defense gets to January only if the pass rush becomes a problem for somebody, and Hendrickson at full strength is the version of this roster that scares people. One sack in three games with a broken hand is explainable. One sack in six games with a healthy one is not, and that is the number to watch when he comes back.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
