The Ravens have announced that Lamar Jackson will not play on Sunday against the Bears.
Tyler Huntley is expected to start at quarterback on Sunday, making his first start of the season after Cooper Rush started the last two games in Jackson’s absence.
In addition to announcing that Jackson is out, the Ravens also changed Jackson’s Friday practice status. Yesterday, the Ravens said that Jackson was a full participant in practice. Today the Ravens said that Jackson had actually been a limited participant in practice.
Retroactively changing a player’s practice status is highly unusual, and could land the Ravens in hot water. The NFL requires teams to release accurate information about a player’s practice status because the NFL does not want insiders passing along information to gamblers. If there was ever a week when NFL teams needed to be transparent about that, it was this week, when the FBI arrested an NBA player and an NBA coach amid accusations that they were providing information to gamblers.
So the Ravens could be in trouble in two respects: Having to play the Bears without Jackson, and having to explain why they said Jackson was a full participant in practice when he wasn’t.