Seventeen-point-seven points per game is a hostage video masquerading as an NFL offense. For three straight weeks, Baltimore has been trapped in the Tyler Huntley waiting room while the AFC standings slowly close over their heads, culminating in that 35-13 humiliation against Cincinnati on Sunday that made me want to throw my remote through the drywall. Now Ian Rapoport is reporting that Lamar Jackson is believed to be as close to 100 percent as he has been since Jermaine Johnson II folded his left ankle in Week 4, and the Ravens expect their two-time MVP under center Sunday at Highmark Stadium against the 5-1 Buffalo Bills.
I refuse to treat this like a cautious medical evaluation anymore. Sitting at 4-3 after dropping two of three without your starter, a trip to Orchard Park is the entire season on a single afternoon. “I expect, based on the people I’ve spoken with, that Lamar Jackson will play this week,” Rapoport said Tuesday on ESPN’s Big Day. “He will be on the field this week against the Buffalo Bills. He is believed to be as close to 100 percent as he has been, and the Ravens do expect him to play.”
When a franchise quarterback misses three games with what he described as a left high-ankle sprain and returns right into the teeth of a 5-1 Buffalo team, you find out immediately whether a new coaching staff actually has a plan or just a clipboard full of excuses.
Why A High Ankle Sprain Terrifies Me Less Than 17.7 Points
Now, independent injury analyst Dr. David Chao pegged Jackson’s odds of playing Sunday at 50-50 on Monday, and head coach Jesse Minter is still preaching patience. “So look, if he’s able to play, that’s healthy enough to play, and play the way that obviously we feel like he needs to play, then he will play,” Minter said Monday. That cautious camp has a fair point on paper: rushing a 29-year-old dual-threat quarterback back onto cold upstate New York turf when his career-low 26.8 rushing yards per game last season already showed what leg injuries do to his burst is how a three-week absence turns into a lost winter.
Here is why that caution dies on impact this week: Buffalo owns the second-worst pass defense in the NFL, and Jackson does not need his 2019 track speed to carve them into pieces from the pocket. Even during last year’s injury-plagued grind, Jackson posted a 6-to-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio on throws of 20-plus yards, and prior to getting hurt in Week 4 this year, he was already sitting on 967 passing yards with six touchdowns and a single interception. Last time he faced Buffalo in Week 1 of 2025, he went 14-of-19 for 209 yards and two scores through the air while adding 70 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
Look at how offensive coordinator Declan Doyle built this playbook after coming over from Chicago. Doyle’s entire pitch is pre-snap motion and heavy play-action to manipulate linebackers and create clean geometry before the ball is even snapped. With Derrick Henry still in the backfield to force defenses into heavy boxes, play-action freezes the second level and gives Zay Flowers, Rashod Bateman, and Mark Andrews free releases into the intermediate windows where Buffalo has bled yardage all autumn. Even if Jackson only gives you 75 percent of his lateral cutting ability against a Bills front allowing 15.5 rushing yards per game to quarterbacks, his gravity on the mesh point changes the math on every single snap.
Declan Doyle And Jesse Minter Are Out Of Training Wheels
We need to talk about what Baltimore actually did this offseason, because clearing out the coaching staff to hire a defensive-minded head coach in Minter and a first-time play-caller in Doyle was a massive organizational gamble. They watched Tyler Linderbaum, Isaiah Likely, and Patrick Ricard walk out the door, drafted Olaivavega Ioane in the first round to patch the interior line, and grabbed wideouts Ja’Kobi Lane and Elijah Sarratt on Day 2 and Day 3 for size. You do not overhaul the entire building like that just to punt away October while Huntley averages 6.8 yards per attempt.
“I think he was able to get in a little bit of work obviously towards the end of last week,” Minter said Monday. “And so I think he’ll be in a decent spot, but we’ll know a lot more on Wednesday.”
Notice how Minter framed this when the Ravens held Jackson out against the Bengals after three limited practices. Rapoport noted on Sunday that Jackson was really close to going against Cincinnati, “but because they got the Bills and then a short week after this, (the Ravens said) you know what, let’s just be cautious.” That admission tells you everything about how Baltimore circled November 1 on the calendar. If you hold your quarterback out of an AFC North divisional game that you lose by 22 points specifically to save him for Buffalo and the short week that follows, you cannot walk into Highmark Stadium and lay an egg.
Over five career regular-season games against the Bills, Jackson has completed 67.3 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns to three interceptions alongside 55.2 rushing yards per game. He owns the efficiency blueprint against this defense… provided Doyle calls a game that protects that left ankle from free rushers off the edge. When Wednesday’s official injury report drops and Jackson steps onto the practice field in Owings Mills, the grace period for Minter and Doyle’s new-look Ravens officially expires, and we find out at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday whether Baltimore is a true AFC heavyweight or a 4-4 cautionary tale.
