The Ravens re-signed running back Terrence Magee and placed defensive end Brent Urban on injured reserve with the designation to return on Tuesday morning.
The move to give Urban the designation was expected after the second-year defensive player remained on the 53-man roster when final cuts were made on Saturday. The 2014 fourth-round pick is recovering from a biceps tear suffered early last month, an injury that was projected to keep him sidelined for at least three months.
“This is an injury he can come back from,” head coach John Harbaugh said. “This is a league where big guys are very valuable, especially at the end of the year, and we think — just from a football business perspective — putting him in that slot is good for us. It’s going to be up to him to work like crazy and get back and get ready to play.”
Urban may not return until after the first eight weeks of the regular season, meaning the earliest he could play would be Nov. 15 against Jacksonville, the first game following the Ravens’ bye week. He may begin practicing after the first six weeks of the regular season.
With backup running back Lorenzo Taliaferro still out with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee, the Ravens only had two healthy running backs — starter Justin Forsett and rookie Buck Allen — on their 53-man roster. Magee spent the entire spring and summer with the Ravens and averaged 3.6 yards per attempt on 26 carries in the preseason before being waived on Saturday.
“He would’ve been with us either on the practice squad or the 53-man [roster] one way or the other,” Harbaugh said. “He played really well. He’s a north-south guy. He’s physical. He runs hard. He has been good in pass protection. He has been good on special teams. He’s a good football player.”
Should Magee remain on the roster for Week 1, it would mark the 12th consecutive year in which a rookie free agent has opened a regular season playing for Baltimore.
With every team having only one designation to use for a player on I.R., the Ravens’ decision to give theirs to Urban shows how highly they think of a defensive lineman who hasn’t played in as much as a preseason game to this point in his NFL career. Urban missed his entire rookie season after suffering a season-ending knee injury early in training camp.
