Best Of - Nick Wright puts Stephen A. Smith ON BLAST, Eagles IMPLODING, Lamar Jackson INJURED, Josh Allen FLOPS vs. Patriots

Nick Wright (0:00)

Welcome to the best of the week for What's Wright? with Nick Wright. The best takes and moments from this week on the show. Enjoy.

And the next week, Demonsay, the Falcons take on your Baltimore Ravens. So let's get right to actually your Baltimore Ravens, because that is, while it was kind of a nothing game on Sunday, there are a dozen point favorites against Tennessee. They're up 14 Tennessee gets a late backdoor cover. But Baltimore controlled every second of that game. And because of that, I think a lot of people thought, Oh, Lamar got dinged, but they're sitting in for precautionary reasons because they're in such control.

The latest news says that is not the case. Let's go to your Ravens.

SPEAKER_2 (0:49)

Oh, yeah. So obviously we got the dub. Lamar went down in the first half. He has a sprained ankle and there is an outside chance that he plays on Sunday night against the Falcons.

How concerned should me and other Ravens fans be right now?

Nick Wright (1:03)

Scale of 1 to 10, I would be a 6

And that's probably higher than you might be right now. And here is why. And this is, I get it, that there are a lot of people that feel like I am too negative or too critical of Lamar. And so this, I think they might lump this into a similar part of their brain. But that is not what I'm trying to do right here. I'm trying to do a fair reading of the history. And before I even do that, let me say this on the front end. He was absolutely dealing in that first half. He has been dealing all year. He is having another kind of vintage Lamar Jackson style, just phenomenal regular season where it is not high volume passing, but it is crazy high efficiency. Let me fix my lights a little bit. And he has just been, is that better? Let me see. I'm doing it in real time. Yeah, you know what? I like that one better. I look more tan. Looks better. I was getting all, I looked all pale.

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He's been playing great.

With that said, Lamar, I'm going to read you Rappaport's exact report on this, and then I'm going to translate it for you through our NFL Insider Injury Report translation. Okay? Lamar Jackson is dealing with the sprained ankle that gives him only an outside chance to play Sunday against the Falcons, sources say. Jackson could end up missing multiple games based on how the rehab goes, but the injury is not considered long term or surgical. Okay. So remember, NFL Insiders almost 100% of the time skew injury reporting positively rather than negatively, meaning if someone says this player could miss this week, that almost never means they're in great shape to play, very rarely means they could miss this week, and almost always means they're missing this week. You would be, whatever we are told, make it one iteration more negative. So when I hear outside chance to play Sunday, I read that as he ain't playing Sunday. And then when I read could end up missing multiple games, I read that as is expected to miss at least a couple of games. And when I read but the injury is not considered long-term or surgical, I read that as it is most likely not long-term or surgical, but it is not definitive 100% ruled out. So that's concerning in and of itself.

You then add to it that Lamar's return from injury in his Ravens career has always been odder than almost any other quarterback. We did a ton of this last year where we went over the Harbaugh quotes, the three times Lamar's dealt with significant injuries, and about how Harbaugh and the team was always more optimistic about his return than the timeline ended up being. Now, last year, we thought some of that was maybe Lamar being displeased with the organization or with Harbaugh. But the other piece of it that I think Demonsay would be concerning if you're a Ravens fan is a few years ago when Lamar missed the end of both of those seasons that was under the context of he had wanted a long-term real contract from the team and they hadn't given it to him. And so he was, in my opinion, very protective of his health in a way, again, in my opinion, he might not have been had he gotten the long-term guaranteed contract. I want to add, I 100% support football players doing that. If your team has, I think there is a shift in expectation. If you have just been given a long-term contract with real guarantees, I think there is a higher expectation for you to play through pain and try to, you know, right, put more on the line. I think that's fair. I think that's kind of the bargain you, like a team is making with you. But if the team is, has not given you a long-term guarantee, the bargain they're making with themselves is, man, if this guy gets dinged, he might be very cautious with his return timeline, which again, I don't begrudge the player at all.