OWINGS MILLS, Md. — In the midst of playing their best game of the season in Sunday’s shutout win at Cincinnati, the Ravens defense lost one of its young starters to a significant injury.
Head coach John Harbaugh confirmed Monday that rookie inside linebacker Teddye Buchanan will miss the rest of the season after suffering a torn ACL in his right knee. Buchanan was injured covering a punt late in the first quarter and was eventually carted to the locker room.
It’s an unfortunate development for the fourth-round pick out of Cal, who showed improvement over his rookie campaign and beat out third-year linebacker Trenton Simpson to earn the starting weak-side spot next to Roquan Smith early in the season. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound Buchanan ranked second on the team with 93 tackles and also collected a forced fumble, a half-sack, five tackles for a loss, two quarterback hits, and a pass defensed in 14 games (13 starts).
“Just to see his progress and see him grow as a player on defense and special teams has just been really fun,” Harbaugh said. “Nobody’s into it more than he is. He’s just great, and he’s going to be back next year. He should be back, hopefully, for training camp ready to go and ready to kind of build on what he’s done. It’s unfortunate and disappointing. It’ll be part of his story going forward.”
Buchanan had played roughly 70% of the defensive snaps since the Week 7 bye, and the Ravens are now expected to turn to Simpson to primarily fill that void. The 2023 third-round pick out of Clemson was benched last December in his first season as a starter, but Simpson has continued to contribute on special teams and has even rushed from the edge in a more limited defensive role since the bye. In his most extensive action since Week 6, Simpson finished with seven tackles in 35 defensive snaps in the 24-0 win over the Bengals.
Defensive coordinator Zach Orr could also elect to turn to versatile All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton to help pick up the slack at the weak-side spot, but Simpson will clearly need to fill a bigger role in the defense.
“He played well and has been practicing great,” said Harbaugh about Simpson’s Week 15 effort. “Every time he’s been playing, he’s been playing well too, so I expect Trent to come in there and just build on what Teddye’s been doing so far and also what Trent’s been doing.”
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A couple veteran players are also nursing injuries as cornerback Chidobe Awuzie left Sunday’s game with a foot injury and left tackle Ronnie Stanley appeared to tweak his leg late in the game. Harbaugh said the Ravens would “know more as the week goes on” in determining Awuzie’s status for this Sunday’s game against New England, but it’s not expected to be a long-term absence.
After saying Stanley looked “fine” immediately after the game, Harbaugh acknowledged they’ll be monitoring how he’s feeling during the practice week.
“We’ll see. He’s sore like a lot of guys,” Harbaugh said. “Three weeks left, there are different little things. He’s another guy that we’ll be looking at over the course of the week to see where he’s at.”
