Last weekend saw the Baltimore Ravens fly to the Jungle in Cincinnati and avenge the back-to-back losses they suffered against the Bengals last January.
It was a day to remember, from the 27-24 close score, to Geno Stone stepping up to the plate and pulling off the game-changing play of Week 2, to all other sorts of backups doing their thing as if they had been starting games for weeks on end.
Sadly, and as we're pretty much accustomed to by now, the Ravens received another unexpected setback on Tuesday when starting nickel cornerback Ar'Darius Washington was placed on Injured Reserve with a chest injury.
Back then, that news alone was surprising as it came literally out of nowhere with Head Coach John Harbaugh having said on Monday that there were no IR-type injuries worth announcing coming off Sunday's victory.
Then, on Friday, all hell broke loose following Harbaugh's announcement. I wouldn't blame you if you missed it even listening to the coach speak live because he just dropped the news like it's nothing.
Coach Harbaugh on injuries: pic.twitter.com/zzBGuso1j6
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 22, 2023
Asked by Brian Wacker "at what point [do injuries] start to become a concern," Harbaugh answered "if they're going to be season-ending injuries."
That was reasonable, but what nobody was expecting is what followed: "We've had two of those. We've had J.K. [Dobbins] and possibly Ar'Darius [Washington]. Now that's not set in stone yet, but the rest of the guys are a few weeks, one week, [or] two weeks."
Uh, oh, Washington is gone. Here are two possible solutions, including the obvious one and another, more fluid scenario that could also work for the Ravens going forward.
Natural solution: start nickel cornerback Arthur Maulet
With Washington entering IR and probably missing the remainder of the season, the Ravens will have to at least play this weekend without their starting nick corner and their best outside cornerback (Marlon Humphrey).
Baltimore is also missing starting safety Marcus Williams, who decided against undergoing surgery to avoid getting placed on IR but will miss a few weeks too. That's important for how the Ravens might shape their secondary going forward.
The first man in line to occupy Washington's vacated role is veteran and former Pittsburgh Steelers slot corner Arthur Maulet.
Maulet is good at run-stopping and came with ample experience at the nickel corner position, where he started in Pittsburgh.
However, Maulet suffered an injury in August and has not been activated in any of the first two regular-season games.
It's not that he hasn't been around and training for weeks on end, but he has yet to appear on the field taking actual snaps and defending NFL plays at real speed while donning Ravens' threads, so we'll see if he gets eased into the system.
Hybrid solution: build a rotational secondary including safeties and corners changing roles
Another wilder solution would be using sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton in the slot. Baltimore did it last year, but that would open a hole in the deepest level of the secondary that another reserve would need to take, most probably Brandon Stephens.
Also, Hamilton was always expected to transition to full-time safety this year given his skill set and production at the position, something he's done in the first two games of the season to great results. The change might not be worth it.
Backup safety Geno Stone was sublime against the Bengals in Week 2 taking over Marcus Williams' vacated starting position, but putting Hamilton in the slot would mean using two backups (Stone and Stephens) as starters going forward. No bueno.
The cornerback rotation is missing Humphrey, which means that Rock Ya-Sin and Ronald Darby will keep getting most of the reps, with a dash of Stephens in a super-rotational role, and perhaps/maybe Kevon Seymour and/or Daryl Worley and Jalyn Armour-Davis.
At the end of the day, there is no optimal solution for Washington's injury because it has not come as an isolated problem. Washington's absence comes along with those of another starting cornerback and another starter in safety Williams.
That's three holes to fill in one fell swoop, which is unreasonable to think about as something easy to accomplish.
There are many solutions Harbaugh and defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald can go with in Week 3 and later, but none of them sounds like music to our football ears.
Macdonald offered the world a defensive masterclass on how to manage a banged-up unit last weekend, and he will have to keep on doing it for the time being.