Ravens Say Lamar Jackson Expected to Miss 6-10 Weeks After Thumb Surgery

The Ravens finally have a timeline for Lamar Jackson. Head coach Jesse Minter said in a team statement Friday morning that the quarterback is expected to miss six to 10 weeks while he recovers from surgery on the broken and dislocated right thumb he suffered against the Bills.

Minter added that Jackson "is doing well" and that the team is "committed to playing our best football over the second half of the season."

Jackson was hurt on Baltimore's first offensive snap of the Nov. 1 loss in Buffalo, in his first game back from a high ankle sprain, and the Ravens moved him to injured reserve. Counting from the injury, the six-to-10-week range points to a return somewhere between mid-December and early January. That lines up with what Jackson has been telling the locker room: he told teammates he plans to return this season and asked them to "just stay alive" until he does.

That is the hard part. Baltimore is 4-5 after four straight losses, and the offense was held under 14 points in each of them. Tyler Huntley is expected to miss the rest of the season with turf toe, so the job belongs to Jacoby Brissett, whom the Ravens acquired from Arizona before the deadline. Brissett is in line to make his first start for Baltimore on Monday night against the Chargers.

Anywhere inside that range would put Jackson back for at least part of the closing stretch, which includes a Week 16 game against the Browns on Dec. 27, a Thursday night trip to Cincinnati four days later and the Week 18 finale against the Steelers. Whether those games still matter depends on how Brissett handles the next month.