Remember that whole injury thing the Baltimore Ravens have been dealing with for basically the entirety of the calendar year? Well we’re still operating on the same calendar year, so it’s not surprise that that whole injury thing is still going.
The fourth-year veteran defensive end, Brent Urban, suffered a Lisfranc foot injury during the Ravens’ demonstrative loss at the hands of the Jaguars in London on Sunday. Urban had been playing a critical role along the team’s defensive line this season after they traded Timmy Jernigan in the offseason.
Through the first two games of the season, prior to his injury, Urban logged 104 snaps, starting those games. Michael Pierce logged 87 snaps over the course of the first two games. But with Brandon Williams out, Pierce logged 64 snaps on Sunday.
Urban, a fourth-round pick in 2014, unfortunately has quite an extensive injury history in his young career. He missed all of his rookie season with a torn ACL, and suffered a torn bicep prior to the 2015 season opener, only making his first appearance in a game late that year.
He was able to play in all 16 games a year ago—his emergence was one reason why the Ravens became comfortable with the idea of moving Jernigan in the first place—but it is undetermined how long he will be sidelined now, after starting the first three games.
If it is a typical Lisfranc foot injury, then it could potentially end his season, making him something like the 16th or so player that the Ravens will have put on injured reserve for the 2017 season. That is a lot of cap space used on players that you can’t put on the field.
The Ravens do at least believe that they have some depth to minimize the loss. Carl Davis is already a player who has been in place, another recent high draft pick, and they have had two that have not even been dressing, drafted in the past two years.
Bronson Kaufusi and this year’s addition, Chris Wormley, each taken in the third round of their respective classes, should be expected to compete for playing time in Urban’s absence, and coach John Harbaugh has done a good job all season of making the best of his team’s injury situation.
“I’m looking forward to seeing them play”, he told reporters. “We’ve got some depth there. That’s the good news about that particular situation. We have a lot of depth on our defensive line, and we’ve been saying that all along”.
“Those guys, it’s their turn to step up”, he went on. “We’ve had a lot of practice this year of guys stepping up, so we’re getting good at it now”.
