Ravens Agree to Trade for Jacoby Brissett With Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley Out, Leaving a Rookie to Face the Jaguars

Lamar Jackson's season may have ended on his first pass attempt against the Bills on Sunday, when he injured his right thumb badly enough to need surgery. His backup, Tyler Huntley, came on and left the same game with a turf toe injury that is also expected to end his season. On Wednesday the Ravens did the only thing left: they agreed to acquire Jacoby Brissett from the Arizona Cardinals, CBS Sports reported, citing ESPN. The compensation has not been settled and the deal is not expected to be completed until the weekend.

That timing matters, because Baltimore plays Jacksonville on Thursday night. The man expected to start is Joe Fagnano, an undrafted rookie who is himself nursing an ankle injury, according to CBS. A 4-4 team that sits last in the AFC North and has lost three in a row will go into a prime-time game with a third-string quarterback making his first NFL start.

Who is Jacoby Brissett and why Baltimore?

Brissett, 33, is in his eleventh season and the Ravens will be his seventh team, after the Patriots, Colts, Dolphins, Browns, Commanders and Cardinals. He started Arizona's first eight games this year, completing 193 of 305 passes for 1,719 yards, 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions, per the New York Post's report carried by Yahoo Sports. Then Gardner Minshew came off the bench to beat Dallas 33-30 in overtime, and Brissett was demoted to third string. What Baltimore is buying is a low-risk starter: CBS notes his career interception rate of 1.5 percent is tied for the second-lowest in NFL history, behind only Aaron Rodgers, across 73 starts in which he has gone 23-50. He is a caretaker, and the Ravens need one for eight or nine games.

How bad is the Ravens' quarterback situation?

Jackson has been placed on injured reserve, and both CBS and the Post describe the injury as potentially season-ending. Huntley's turf toe is expected to be season-ending outright. That leaves Fagnano for Thursday and Brissett, once the paperwork clears, for the games that follow. Baltimore is not yet out of the division race, because nobody in the AFC North has run away with it, but the margin for a long losing run has gone.

What else moved before the deadline?

The Brissett deal comes with the trade deadline approaching and follows the Bears' blockbuster for Jeffery Simmons last Thursday.

For Baltimore, the measure of this trade will not be Brissett's numbers but whether the defence and the running game can hold a 4-4 team together until Jackson is back, if he is back. Thursday night in Baltimore will show how much of that job falls to a rookie nobody drafted.