The Ravens have been fined $100,000 by the NFL for last week’s injury report violation involving the status of quarterback Lamar Jackson, but they won’t lose a draft pick or face stiffer punishment.
After investigating why Jackson was listed as a full practice participant two days before the Week 8 meeting with Chicago despite the two-time NFL MVP only taking practice-squad reps, the league deemed the infraction a result of negligence rather than a deliberate attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Following last Sunday’s win over the Bears, head coach John Harbaugh described the Ravens listing Jackson as full instead of limited as “an honest mistake” and “not on the football side.” Last Saturday afternoon, Baltimore retroactively changed Jackson’s Friday practice status and then ruled him out for the game after listing him as questionable to play against Chicago a day earlier.
In a statement, the organization said it will not appeal the NFL’s ruling.
“It is critical that the Baltimore Ravens always operate with integrity and in full accordance with NFL guidelines,” the team stated. “We clearly made an error regarding player injury reporting and cooperated transparently with the league’s investigation. We accept the decision by the NFL that we violated the policy and have taken steps to ensure that we will be compliant moving forward.”
The NFL’s injury report policy has long stated a player should be listed as limited if he takes less than 100% of his “normal” reps and even spells out the exact scenario of a starter recovering from injury and taking practice-squad reps needing to be listed as limited, regardless of how extensive that participation may have been.
Shortly after the announcement of Jackson being ruled out for Week 8, the Ravens went from being a 6 1/2-point favorite to a 1 1/2-point favorite over the Bears, according to ESPN BET.
