Lamar Jackson Needs Thumb Surgery. The 4-4 Ravens Are Buying a Quarterback Instead of Folding.
Baltimore is finalizing a trade with the Arizona Cardinals for quarterback Jacoby Brissett, with the deal expected to be completed this weekend, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. The Ravens are 4-4, last in the AFC North and on a three-game losing streak.
Teams in that spot usually sell. Baltimore is shopping.
Why They Had No Choice
Lamar Jackson hurt his right thumb on the Ravens’ first snap at Buffalo on Nov. 1, when his hand caught Bills pass rusher Greg Rousseau’s as he threw. He needs surgery and is going on injured reserve. He had just returned from missing three games with a high left ankle sprain.
Head coach Jesse Minter was asked whether the thumb ends Jackson’s season. “Potentially, but we’ll see where it’s at,” he said. He also offered two words that covered the whole afternoon: “It’s tough.”
What happened behind Jackson was worse. Tyler Huntley relieved him and left in the second quarter with turf toe, out for the year. Undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano finished his NFL debut 10-of-21 for 91 yards with an interception and a lost fumble. Baltimore’s 36-10 loss produced 68 net passing yards, its fewest in nine years.
Fagnano is set to start Thursday night against Jacksonville with an ankle issue of his own. The Ravens signed Austin Reed to the practice squad to back him up. That is the depth chart that forced a trade.
What Brissett Actually Is
Brissett started Arizona’s first eight games this season before being benched midway through Sunday’s win over Dallas. Gardner Minshew is the Cardinals’ starter now, with rookie Carson Beck behind him.
Brissett is not a replacement for what Jackson does. He is a veteran who has started for several franchises and will not lose games by himself, which is a real upgrade over an undrafted rookie making his second NFL start.
The money is tidy. Brissett signed a revised deal with Arizona, most of which has already been paid out, and Baltimore will cover the remainder of his base salary. Draft compensation has not been reported. Ravens quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork coached Brissett in Arizona last season, the kind of detail that gets a deal done inside a short week.
Buyers, Not Sellers
The trade deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 4 p.m. ET. Baltimore sits two games behind Pittsburgh with a stretch against Jacksonville, the Chargers, Carolina and Houston while Jackson recovers.
ESPN’s Dan Graziano framed the front office’s thinking before the Brissett news broke. “Baltimore isn’t a throw-in-the-towel type of organization,” he said. The Ravens already bought once this season, sending a 2027 fifth-round pick and a 2028 second to Philadelphia for center Cam Jurgens on Oct. 7.
It also takes some air out of the other rumor circulating this week. Graziano floated Derrick Henry as a name to watch while saying he was not sure how realistic a trade would be. Henry is 32 and averaging 4.0 yards per carry on 158 attempts, down from 5.2 last season, on a deal that pays him a $1.3 million base salary this year. No team has been reported as actually interested in him. A front office acquiring a quarterback is not a front office clearing out its running back.
The Deadline That Matters Is in March
Jackson has no extension and enters the final year of his contract in 2027 with an $84.34 million cap hit. He holds no-trade and no-tag clauses, so he controls his own exit if he ever wants one.
Rapoport said this week he believes “very strongly that Lamar Jackson wants to be in Baltimore, wants to be there long term,” and called a long-term deal the team’s top offseason priority. Trading for Brissett keeps the season alive long enough for that conversation to happen with something still on the line.
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.
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