The Baltimore Ravens were forced to say goodbye to former sixth-round pick Trace McSorley last season when he was poached off the team’s practice squad by the Arizona Cardinals.
The Cardinals officially signed McSorley to their active roster on Monday, Nov. 22. However, they had plans to do so a few days earlier. The only reason they didn’t was to help out the Ravens.
McSorley spoke on the Breneman Shows Up show on YouTube last month and revealed an interesting anecdote about his midseason departure from Baltimore.
According to McSorley, the Ravens asked the Cardinals to let them keep McSorley for their Week 11 matchup with the Chicago Bears given Lamar Jackson’s uncertain status at the time.
Arizona agreed to let McSorley travel with the team, and as fate would have it, Jackson would go on to miss the game due to an illness prompting McSorley to be promoted to the active roster to serve as Tyler Huntley’s backup.
The very next day, he boarded a one-way flight to Phoenix.
"“We need you to hang around. If Arizona is cool with it, you hang around till Sunday and still travel with the team. If (Jackson) wakes up Sunday and isn’t feeling good, you will be elevated. I suited up Sunday, had a flight out Monday morning to Arizona.”"
Trace McSorley’s time with the Ravens was brief but memorable
Drafted in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft, McSorley appeared in one game as a rookie, but he didn’t throw his first pass until his second NFL season in 2020.
The former Penn State standout was memorably forced into action in the Ravens’ Week 12 meeting with the Pittsburgh Steelers after backup Robert Griffin III went down with a hamstring injury. Lamar Jackson was already sidelined after contracting COVID-19.
McSorley would complete two passes for 77 yards, including an unforgettable 70-yard touchdown to Marquise Brown in a game the Ravens would fall just short in, losing 19-14.
Now, McSorley finds himself reunited with the man who caught his first, and so far only, NFL touchdown in Arizona. And perhaps the Cardinals’ kindness in November helped facilitate the trade for Brown a few months later.
McSorley didn’t appear in a game with the Cardinals last season, but he will have the opportunity to win the primary backup quarterback job in training camp this summer.
It always helps to make connections in this league, and the Cardinals and Ravens seem to be on very good terms with one another. The Trace McSorley situation could serve as the start of a beautiful friendship.