Ravens Place Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley on IR in Devastating Double Blow

The Baltimore Ravens just pulled off the most depressing magic trick in football. According to Adam Schefter, Baltimore officially placed both Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley on injured reserve at the exact same time. Losing your franchise quarterback is a tragedy, but losing his backup in the exact same afternoon is just the universe laughing at you.

Jackson went down with a hand injury on the very first play of Sunday's 36-10 blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills. Huntley stepped in to save the day, only to suffer a severe turf toe injury shortly after. That left the offense in the hands of undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano, who is now staring down the barrel of a prime-time start.

"Adam Schefter reported: 'Ravens officially placed QBs Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley on injured reserve.'"

This is a catastrophic blow for a Baltimore team that was already fighting an uphill battle. The Ravens are sitting at 4-4 and dead last in a brutal AFC North, looking up at the 6-2 Pittsburgh Steelers and a 5-2 Cincinnati Bengals squad. Jackson was carrying the load with 967 passing yards and his usual elite rushing threat before his hand gave out.

Handing the offense to a guy who probably does not even have a Wikipedia picture is not exactly a recipe for a playoff push. Fagnano is stepping into a situation where the margin for error is zero. The front office is already scrambling to sign warm bodies off the street just to make sure they have someone to hold a clipboard this week.

If you are looking at the betting markets, this double-IR move just nuked Baltimore's outlook. The point spread for Thursday's matchup against the 5-2 Jacksonville Jaguars is going to look like a college football mismatch, and any futures tickets on the Ravens winning the division might as well be used as coasters.

Baltimore has to figure out how to run a functional NFL offense on a short week with a quarterback room that was assembled three days ago. If Fagnano somehow pulls off a win against Jacksonville, they should build him a statue outside the stadium by Friday morning. Otherwise, this season is about to slip away fast.