The week of practices is over for the Flock and the Dawgs as both the Baltimore Ravens and the Cleveland Browns get dressed and ready to face off on Sunday in Week 4 of the regular season.
As expected, or perhaps even worse than that, the Ravens released their final injury report of the week following Friday's practice and things are looking bleak for Sunday's divisional matchup.
Game status vs. Browns: pic.twitter.com/5uYQZzCqjO
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 29, 2023
The list of injured players, for starters (no pun intended) is still incredibly packed. The brim is feeling the heat once more as the Ravens ruled out five starters for Sunday with another player pretty much out of contention to play even though still hanging by a thread.
That latter man would be offensive tackle Ronnie Stanley, who returned in limited capacity on Wednesday, did the same routine on Thursday, but just couldn't endure the stress on Friday logging a DNP and getting listed "doubtful" for the game against the Browns.
Stanley, if ultimately ruled out prior to kick-off time, would join WR Rashod Bateman (hamstring), WR Odell Beckham Jr. (ankle), CB Marlon Humphrey (foot), OLB David Ojabo (ankle/knee), and OLB Odafe Oweh (ankle) on the sidelines.
Those five-plus-one players make it six starters out of commission in Week 4. They would also share the shelves with players already placed on IR by Baltimore, including RB J.K. Dobbins, WR Tylan Wallace, OLB Tyus Bowser, and CB Ar'Darius Washington. That makes it ten players overall, and arguably eight starters, out for Sunday.
Beckham and Oweh are missing their second game in four weeks. Humphrey has yet to make his debut in 2023. Ojabo and Bateman left last weekend's game before it was over.
Center Tyler Linderbaum and safety Marcus Williams should play in Week 4 but both of them are covering from more than week-long recovery periods so the Ravens might take it easy with them and deploy on pitch counts.
While the return of running backs Gus Edwards and Justice Hill will help Baltimore in not having to use their fourth- and fifth-string rushers (Melvin Gordon and Kenyan Drake), the Ravens will need to do that at another skill position.
After losing OBJ and Bateman for Sunday, the Ravens only have three active wide receivers from their 53-man roster with Tylan Wallace having entered IR at the start of the week.
Zay Flowers, Nelson Agholor, and Devin Duvernay should be the starters at the wide receiver position. They will inevitably be joined by practice-squad members Laquon Treadwell and/or Sean Ryan.
Another player expected to be elevated to the active roster for Week 4 before Saturday's deadline for such moves (at 4 p.m. ET) is recently signed OLB Kyle Van Noy, who will start across veteran Jadeveon Clowney flanking Patrick Queen and Roquan Smith in the middle of the line.
The Browns listed QB Deshaun Watson as "questionable" for Sunday but everybody expects him to start in Week 4 with rookie QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson as the main backup just in case Watson cannot play. Cleveland also signed P.J. Walker to its practice squad and he is expected to be elevated to the active roster to take on the QB3/emergency role.