The Baltimore Ravens have battled the injury bug all summer, and that trend continued on Monday with Sammy Watkins, among others, landing on the injury report.
Watkins along with rookie defensive back Brandon Stephens left Monday’s practice early with what head coach John Harbaugh later described as minor injuries.
Watkins and Stephens join a growing list of Ravens players to miss time with injuries. That includes quarterback Trace McSorley who, as announced on Monday, will miss the remainder of the preseason with a back injury.
McSorley reportedly injured his back at home and played through the ailment on Saturday. But further tests revealed that the injury is worse than originally believed and he will be sidelined for a number of weeks.
The Ravens injury news is bad once again on Monday
The list of injured players also includes the likes of Ben Cleveland, Marquise Brown, Rashod Bateman, Deon Cain, Miles Boykin, Nick Boyle, Iman Marshall, Jimmy Smith, Khalil Dorsey, Greg Mancz, Otaro Alaka, and Ja’Wuan James.
The offense, in particular, has been hit hard.
Cleveland has been dealing with a concussion and could return as soon as this week. That’s good news for an offensive line that returned the likes of Kevin Zeitler and Ronnie Stanley on Monday.
All five of the team’s projected starters have battled some type of injury this summer and the offensive line’s play on the field has been indicative of that.
The wide receiver position has also been banged up and Watkins would be the latest loss. If Watkins were to miss any time, the Ravens would be without their top three wideouts.
Brown, Bateman, Boykin, and Cain have all missed time leaving the likes of Watkins, Devin Duvernay, James Proche, and Tylan Wallace to pick up the slack.
The Ravens have actually been one of the healthier teams in the NFL in recent years making this recent string of poor injury luck all the more surprising.
Fortunately, there are still a few weeks to go before Week 1 arrives. The Ravens will look to use that time to get healthier in preparation for a long season.