The Ravens won a football game on Sunday. However, the Ravens lost the injury battle for the fourth consecutive week.
Entering October with a rather packed injury report and an even fuller IR, the Ravens proceeded to demolish the Browns at Cleveland trouncing the best defense in the nation to a 28-3 result. Baltimore also lost four (three, if you're positive) more players to injury throughout Sunday's divisional matchup.
Safety Daryl Worley started at safety and suffered a shoulder injury. Offensive tackle Morgan Moses injured his shoulder before halftime. Cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis suffered a hamstring injury. Nickelback Arthur Maulet suffered a concussion but cleared the protocol and was cleared to return.
Coach Harbaugh on injuries coming out of the game: pic.twitter.com/NAtws1uaSX
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 2, 2023
Head Coach John Harbaugh addressed the media on Monday and while he revealed that there is "nothing right now that looks like it's going to be a long, long-term-type ," he also let it be known that "some of MRIs are still getting evaluated."
One of those MRIs, as the coach pointed out, is related to Morgan Moses' injured shoulder. Harbaugh said that the franchise "will know more Wednesday, probably," in terms of which guys will be able or not to do on the practice field ahead of Week 5.
Obviously, it took no time for everybody (fans and analysts alike) to become aware of the problems that missing Moses for any time at all might cause.
The Ravens are already without their starting left tackle (Ronnie Stanley) and only welcomed back their starting center (Tyler Linderbaum) in Week 4. Not having available Moses could turn into a game-killing development.
Ravens will probably need to add an OT with both Stanley and Moses dealing with injuries. Ben Cleveland could play some tackle and they have Mekari and Faalele. But they don't have a natural OT on practice squad. Stanley coming back and playing Sunday obviously would help https://t.co/SwK8CCMjiC
— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) October 2, 2023
That's why Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic was quick to warn that Baltimore "will probably need to add an OT" to cover for the absences of Moses and Stanley.
Moses left Sunday's game before halftime and never returned, getting replaced by backup Daniel Faalele. Faalele logged 29 snaps while surrendering a sack and two pressures through 16 pass-blocking snaps, per Pro Football Focus.
Faalele earned the absolute-worst PFF grade (32.8) among all Ravens players (on defense and offense) and was rather bad at stopping the Browns' frontline, putting Lamar in danger and giving up that sack.
As Zrebiec noted, the Ravens can use a combination of Faalele along with the versatile Patrick Mekari and the ostracized Ben Cleveland, but Baltimore has run out of options at the position outside of those as there is no OT in the practice squad at this point.
One potential candidate available to be signed off the street is former Cincinnati Bengals RT La'el Collins. Collins was released in mid-September because of some health issues, which all by itself could instantly rule him out of any consideration by Baltimore as the Ravens are, well, trying to patch injury-related holes.
Collins started the 2023 season on the PUP list before being released. He appeared in 15 games in 2022 before suffering a torn ACL and MCL in Week 16. There has been no real news or updates on his status, situation, or contract demands ever since he was released three weeks ago.