Ravens bettors burned by Lamar Jackson injury confusion ahead of key Bears matchup

Ravens bettors aren’t happy with how the franchise handled Lamar Jackson’s injury status this week. 

The star quarterback will miss his third straight game with a hamstring strain on Sunday when the Ravens host the Bears in Baltimore, despite Jackson appearing to be ready to go less than 24 hours ago.

Jackson had been listed as a full participant in Friday’s practice, seemingly paving the way for his return to the field after going down in a loss to the Chiefs during Week 4.

The betting public acted accordingly, with the Ravens jumping from roughly 3.5-point favorites to as high as 7-point favorites at some sportsbooks after the good Jackson news dropped. 

The optimism around Jackson quickly disappeared Saturday

Jackson’s practice status was retroactively downgraded a day before the game from “full” to “limited” for Friday’s workout and shockingly ruled out for Sunday’s game, puzzling bettors, fantasy football players and, perhaps most importantly, the Bears.

Once again, the betting line took a major turn, this time toward Chicago, who went from a 3.5-point underdog to a razor-thin 1.5-point underdog as of this writing after news broke that Tyler Huntley would be the opposing quarterback rather than Jackson.

Those who took the Ravens, who at 1-5 desperately need a win to stay in the playoff hunt, in the meantime, were, unsurprisingly, not happy about the switcharoo. 

“I placed a bet, and I know other people placed bets based on the fact he was a full [participant in] practice,” an X user by the name of @BballMichael wrote. “It’s the Raven franchise being the ravens, though. Trying to get Chicago to prepare for Lamar when they knew he wasn’t playing. Such a shady franchise.”

“…how convenient after I placed a bet last night,” another user who goes by the handle @darrenhoughton_ wrote on the platform. “Everyone who picked the ravens to win should get a refund if they lose now since Lamar’s out.”

NFL Network reported that Jackson participated with the scout team on Friday, indicating that he may not have truly been a full participant in practice as the team listed him as. 

The Ravens released a statement later on Saturday, stating that Jackson “was present and participated fully in [their] entire Friday practice,” but decided to make the designation change  because he worked out with the backups 

“Upon further evaluation and after conferring with the league office, because Lamar didn’t take starter reps in practice, we updated our report to reflect his practice participation,” the statement read. 

The NFL’s injury report policy states that “participation on the scout team” due to an injury “by a player whose normal repetitions would be with the starters” would require the team to list the player as “limited.”

Some have speculated that the Ravens could get some punishment from the league, which takes compliance with injury reports extremely seriously, calling it a “cornerstone of public confidence in the NFL” in its policy, for the Jackson snafu.

Teams are subject to fines for violating the NFL’s injury report policy. 

In 2023, the Falcons were fined $75,000 and head coach Arthur Smith $25,000 for failing to disclose an illness of running back Bijan Robinson.