Jesse Minter was asked on Saturday to clear up when Lamar Jackson had surgery on his right thumb. He did not. “The surgery happened,” the Baltimore Ravens head coach said, “and the timeline is the timeline.”
The question came a day after the team put out a statement from Minter on Friday. It said Jackson was “doing well” as he recovers from a broken and dislocated right thumb, and that “recovery timelines are challenging to predict, but injuries like this that require surgery typically take about 6 to 10 weeks to heal.” Minter added in the statement: “He is doing everything he can to get back, and we will let his progress guide the timing of his return.”
On Saturday Minter explained why the statement went out at all. “Really just to kind of, you know, get it out there of what happened,” he said. “Again, less speculation of timelines and what happened and things like that. Lamar and I are, I think, you know, very much on the same page with the whole thing, so leave it at that.”
What we know about the thumb
Jackson hurt the thumb on his throwing hand on the first snap of the 36-10 loss at Buffalo on November 1, when his hand hit Greg Rousseau’s as he threw. It was his first game back after missing three weeks with a high left ankle sprain. Minter said after that game that the injury would need surgery, and Jackson went on injured reserve, which keeps him out for at least four games: Jacksonville, the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday, Carolina and Houston.
The team has not said when the operation took place, and Minter would not add to that on Saturday. That matters for the math. If the six-to-10-week window were counted from the day he was hurt, it would run from mid-December into the first part of January, but without a surgery date nobody outside the building can count it. Jackson has played in five games this season, completing 68 of 97 passes for 967 yards with six touchdowns and one interception.
Brissett ran “such a clean operation”
The quarterback for Monday night is Jacoby Brissett, who came over from Arizona in a trade on November 6 and has had less than two weeks to learn the offense. Minter said the reputation that came with him was about being a veteran presence and a pro who has been in different systems. What stood out was something else.
“I would just say, man, very, very impressed with how fast he’s learned what we’re doing,” Minter said. He said practice “didn’t operate at any sort of different level for having a guy that literally just got here,” and that Brissett “made some really nice plays and really nice throws.” “You know, there’s maybe some timing things that we went back over a couple times, but for the most part, such a clean operation for a guy that just got here,” he said. “And so major credit to him and just the work that he’s put in, his ability to learn, his ability to work with the coaches and the players.”
Brissett started eight games for the Cardinals this season, going 193 of 305 for 1,719 yards with 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions. On Thursday he called his first days in Baltimore a “crash course.” He replaces undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano, who started the 33-10 loss to Jacksonville that made it four losses in a row.
Jaylinn Hawkins is out
Minter also ruled out safety Jaylinn Hawkins, the only Raven who was limited at Friday’s walkthrough. “Hawkins will be out this game, so just to throw that out there,” he said, adding that Hawkins had “been able to work back in a little bit this week.” Hawkins played with Brissett in New England and called the trade “a good move.”
Minter against his old team
Monday is also Minter’s first game against the Chargers, where he spent the previous two seasons as Jim Harbaugh’s defensive coordinator. “I just have so much respect and love for the people in that building,” he said this week. “It was a very, very gratifying two years for me there.” Going against people he cares about, he said, “sometimes makes it even more competitive,” but the focus is on “getting our team ready to play at a high level” in prime time at home.
The 4-5 Ravens host the 0-8 Chargers on Monday at 8:15 p.m. ET, which is 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo. Baltimore will wear its all-black Darkness Falls uniforms with the matte black helmet for the first time.
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