Sunday Night Football in Kansas City couldn’t have started and ended worse for John Harbaugh. He entered the game with four starters down and exited with twice as many on the list, with a side of decade-long streak up in the flames.

In a game that saw the Ravens fall 1-3 for the first time since 2015, QB Lamar Jackson, arguably the best thing about their season, incurred a hamstring injury trying to avoid a sack. As he limped off, Baltimore watched their fourth starter exit for the evening with no hopes of return. Minutes later, second-year corner Nate Wiggins wrapped up the list with a right arm issue. Harbaugh, though, says they are not hitting the panic button just yet.

As reported by Sarah Ellison, co-host of @RavensVault, the HC said, “Nothing looks like a season-ending by any stretch for anybody. But we’ll have to look at those injuries tomorrow and see where we’re at going forward.” Where does that leave Jackson and the Ravens? 

An analysis of the NFL’s injury history says a hamstring injury could take anywhere between one week and several months to heal, depending on the severity. Considering Harbaugh isn’t calling it season-ending, the QB could be sidelined for a maximum of three weeks even if the injury is ruled as grade II. Anything less, and a report by Strive says players are out for an average of 13 days. But any amount of time Lamar’s out is a full-blown crisis for this team.

The Ravens already have the league’s worst defense, coughing up an ugly 32 points a game. The QB was the duct tape holding this thing together, almost single-handedly putting up 30 a night. Before he limped off, Lamar was doing Lamar things again. 722 yards, 9 TDs, and zero picks coming in, plus another 147 yards and a score tonight. Yeah, he tossed a pick and had two turnovers, but you still felt like he was about to drag them to another 30-point outing.

In his absence, QB Cooper Rush, who completed nine of his 13 passes for 40 yards following Jackson’s exit, is expected to start for the Ravens. He has a career record of 9-5 as a starter and arrives as one of the most consistent QB backups. But this isn’t the only position of concern for Harbaugh. The Ravens saw the injury list shoot up to nine by the end of Sunday night:

•  Roquan Smith (hamstring)
•  Marlon Humphrey (calf)
• Nate Wiggins (elbow)
• Ronnie Stanley (ankle)
• Nnamdi Madubuike (neck)
• Broderick Washington (ankle)
•  Kyle Van Noy (hamstring)
•  Travis Jones (knee)

Harbaugh’s update is the breathing room this team needs right now. Because against the Chiefs, the offensive line might as well have been made of tissue paper, letting Lamar Jackson get sacked three times in just three quarters. That’s 15 sacks in just 3.5 games. They’ve failed to protect their QB time and again. As for the defense, they got lit up for 37 and are scraping the bottom in pretty much every major category.

It’s worth remembering this group somehow flipped the switch last year after a brutal start, morphing into one of the league’s best by midseason. But right now? There’s zero sign of a repeat miracle.

Baltimore’s defense has been unable to generate stops, surrendering at least 322 yards to every opponent this season. More alarmingly, each non-Browns opponent has scored at least 37 points while the Ravens have failed to force a single turnover against those teams.

The defensive struggles extend across multiple metrics – Baltimore has allowed at least 24 first downs to each non-Browns opponent, indicating consistent inability to get off the field on third downs. While the Ravens historically improve defensively as the season progresses and coaches optimize personnel usage, the early returns are particularly concerning. The struggles mark a concerning start for a team with playoff expectations. But it doesn’t end with injuries and defensive lapses.

John Harbaugh calls out the locker room

The Ravens still have 13 games remaining to salvage their season and avoid repeating the disappointing campaign of 2015, but the worries seem to be never-ending for the team. Speaking about the delay-of-game penalties, Harbaugh said, “That’s really out of character for us… That’s surprising, but we’ve got to deal with it.”

He’s not wrong; this team absolutely shot itself in the foot. Early in the second quarter, they somehow racked up two delay-of-game flags on the same drive, wiping out plays and killing any momentum. By halftime, they had six penalties for 56 yards, three of them pre-snap mistakes that cost 15 yards on one brutal sequence.

The worst part? This isn’t some random blip. Pre-snap screwups have haunted Baltimore for years. Here we are, even though they spent camp tinkering with cadences and extra reps to clean it up, finally. Same old Ravens, still beating themselves before the ball’s even snapped. There are way too many fixes that need to be done.