Jaguars vs. Ravens: can Baltimore win without Lamar Jackson?
Probably not. Derrick Henry was just as slow with Lamar (3.4 yards a carry either way); the passing is what broke, and Baltimore has thrown more anyway. Tonight Henry hits the league's best run defense.
Without Lamar, Baltimore's passing broke. Its running didn't.
Derrick Henry has averaged 3.6 yards per carry with a 41.8% success rate since Week 2.
ESPN's Bill Barnwell wrote this week that Derrick Henry has been stuck around 3.6 yards a carry since Week 2. Tonight Baltimore needs him more than ever. Lamar Jackson is out with a right thumb injury that needs surgery, and Tyler Huntley is done for the year.
The Ravens are putting Jackson on injured reserve, so he misses at least four games. Undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano makes his first start, and prediction markets give Baltimore about a 19% chance.
Barnwell is right that Henry has been slow. What our numbers add is that he was just as slow with Lamar. The passing is what broke, and Jacksonville is built to stop the one thing still working.
Henry was this slow with Lamar, too
Split Henry's season by quarterback and nothing changes. With garbage time taken out, he averaged 3.4 yards a carry on 59 carries in the four weeks with Lamar, and the same 3.4 on 66 carries in the four weeks without him.
The rest of the run game held steady too. About half of Baltimore's runs worked with Lamar (49%, 10th in the NFL), and about half still do (47%, 14th).
His workload looks smaller in the box score, down from 22 carries a game to 17. Most of that drop came in games that were already decided. When the game was close, he's actually carried it a bit more since Lamar went down, about 16 times a game.
The passing fell off, and Baltimore threw more anyway
Lamar had the best passing game in football over the first month, with 60% of Baltimore's dropbacks working. Huntley kept it near the middle of the pack (17th in Weeks 5-7) and even won his first start, in overtime at Atlanta. Then the points dried up: about 2.6 per drive through Week 5, about 1 per drive in the three losses since.
The Ravens answered by throwing more. With Lamar they ran 63% of the time on early downs in close games, the most in the league, though that's only about 50 plays. Since then it's 48% over about 100 plays, 22nd.
And the runs they cut were the ones still working. On 1st and 10 (80 plays), 56% of runs worked against 41% of passes. On 3rd-and-short the sample is tiny, 19 plays, but runs converted 5 of 7 and passes only 5 of 12.
Without Lamar, runs still worked on 1st down and 3rd-and-short
Jacksonville takes away the one thing that still works
Tonight that run game meets the best run defense in football. Jacksonville gives up 3.1 yards a carry with garbage time out, fewest in the NFL. Its pass defense is ordinary, about 16th, with 44% of passes against it working.
Cincinnati and Philadelphia ran for barely a yard a carry against the Jaguars in back-to-back weeks. That's the wall Henry runs into, and Fagnano won't have Lamar's legs to pull defenders out of the box.
There is one crack. Nose tackle DaVon Hamilton is out for the season, and Jonas Shaffer of the Baltimore Banner found that Jacksonville allows 3.8 yards per designed carry with him off the field.
So it's on Fagnano's arm
In relief at Buffalo, Fagnano went 10 of 21 for 91 yards and threw an interception. He played through a low hit there and practiced this week in an ankle brace.
Fagnano's eight drives at Buffalo: 3 points, two turnovers
History isn't kind either. Shaffer counted nine undrafted rookie quarterbacks since 2000 who started at least two games, and only Matt Moore in 2007 finished with a winning record. Help is coming in Jacoby Brissett, but he arrives after this game.
We think Jacksonville (5-2, 3rd in our ratings) beats Baltimore (4-4, 18th) comfortably. Prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket US agree, pricing the Ravens near 19%, and ESPN notes Baltimore is a 10-point home underdog, its biggest in 11 years.
Live prices are on the game page, with every game in our NFL predictions and a grade on both records in which records are real.
Questions people ask
Is Lamar Jackson playing tonight against the Jaguars?
No. Jackson is out with a right thumb injury that needs surgery, and he is headed to injured reserve. Tyler Huntley is also out for the season, so Joe Fagnano starts.
Who is the Ravens' quarterback against the Jaguars?
Joe Fagnano, an undrafted rookie making his first NFL start. Kedon Slovis and Austin Reed back him up. Jacoby Brissett's trade from Arizona isn't expected to be final until this weekend.
What time is Jaguars vs. Ravens on Thursday Night Football?
Thursday, Nov. 5, at 8:15 p.m. ET (5:15 p.m. PT) at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, on Prime Video.
Is Derrick Henry still good?
Not like he was. With garbage time removed, Henry is averaging 3.4 yards a carry this season, the same with Lamar Jackson as without him.
How we did this
Play-by-play from the NFL warehouse, regular season through Week 8 (Monday, Nov. 2). Garbage time removed: only snaps where either team had a 10-90% chance to win. A play "worked" when it raised the offense's expected points. "Close games" for run rate means 1st and 2nd down, first three quarters, 20-80% win chance. Team ratings are our canonical Week 8 table: per play, every play weighted, adjusted for opponents. Market price as of 6:20 a.m. PT Thursday. Injury news from the NFL's Week 9 report and ESPN.