Reports from the open portion of Ravens practice were that wide receiver Zay Flowers was not on the field, but he wound up getting on the field later in the day.
Flowers was listed as a limited participant in practice due to a foot injury. Flowers missed one game with a hamstring injury earlier this season and he remained on the report for that reason in Week 4.
Linebacker Trey Hendrickson (finger) was not on the field for any portion of practice. Hendrickson had surgery last week and did not play against the Titans, but head coach Jesse Minter said he expected it be a short-term absence.
Quarterback Lamar Jackson (ankle), defensive lineman Calais Campbell (rest), cornerback Marlon Humphrey (hamstring, calf), left tackle Ronnie Stanley (rest, toe, ankle), and guard Andrew Vorhees (foot) joined Hendrickson on the sideline.
Tight end Durham Smythe was listed as out of practice before being placed on injured reserve with a torn ACL. The Ravens signed tight end Nick Vannett off of the practice squad to fill his roster spot.
Wide receiver Rashod Bateman (shoulder), safety Kyle Hamilton (groin), wide receiver Chris Moore (ankle), and guard John Simpson (groin) were limited participants. Tight end Mark Andrews (hand) was listed as a full participant.
Falcons Clips
The Ravens traded for center Cam Jurgens on Wednesday, but it doesn’t look like his debut for the team will come for another week.
Jurgens is in the concussion protocol and head coach Jesse Minter said that the team expects that he’ll be cleared to return to action before they face the Browns in Week 6.
“I anticipate him really being ready next week, probably,” Minter said, via the team’s website. “So, again, we will see who is available, what that looks like and what the best five are for this particular game.”
While Jurgens is progressing through the protocol, he’ll also be familiarizing with a new offense. Minter said he thinks Jurgens’s experience with different offensive coordinators in Philadelphia should make that easier.
“I think he has just been really well-developed and well-trained. He is a good athlete. Mentally, he is at a really high level, I would say,” Minter said. “We will have to catch him up. Obviously, the terminology will be different for him. But with a guy like that — with the experience of having gone through a few different offenses — that will probably end up benefiting him now, rather than a guy coming from maybe one system.”
Vega Ioane started at center for Baltimore in Week 4 and he’s the likeliest choice to be there against the Falcons on Sunday night. Once Jurgens is ready to step into the lineup, Ioane will likely move back to his original spot at right guard.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson didn’t practice on Wednesday because of the ankle injury that has left doubt about whether he’ll play against the Falcons this Sunday, but head coach Jesse Minter isn’t ruling him out at this point.
Minter said he wasn’t worried about Jackson being prepared to play because of missed practice time and that the team isn’t going to rush making any decision until they see how he responds to treatment in the coming days.
“It’s Wednesday. There’s a lot of time between now and Sunday,” Minter said. “To Lamar’s credit, he’s getting a lot of treatment and doing things. There’ll be a point later in the week where we’ll kinda figure out where it’s at. . . . When he’s ready to play, he’ll be ready to play.”
Tyler Huntley will get the start for Baltimore if Jackson does not play. He was 8-of-9 for 63 yards in the second half of last Sunday’s win over the Titans.
The Ravens have brought in a new center, but they don’t currently have a healthy quarterback.
According to multiple reporters on the scene, Lamar Jackson is not practicing on Wednesday.
Jackson is dealing with a sprained ankle. Head coach Jesse Minter told reporters on Monday that he was unsure of Jackson’s availability for Sunday’s game against Atlanta.
Additionally, receiver Zay Flowers, safety Kyle Hamilton, edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, cornerback Marlon Humphrey, receiver Rashod Bateman, and guard Andrew Vorhees also were not spotted during the portion of practice open to media on Wednesday.
Baltimore’s full injury report with practice participation levels will be released later on Wednesday.
The MVP award has become, essentially, a “best quarterback” award — with rare exceptions.
No non-quarterback has won the MVP prize since Vikings running back Adrian Peterson eked out the distinction over Peyton Manning in 2012. In the current century, a non-quarterback became the MVP only four times: Marshall Faulk in 2000, Shaun Alexander in 2005, LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006, and Peterson in 2012.
This year, a couple of running backs deserve serious consideration, based on what we’ve seen through four weeks.
Falcons running back Bijan Robinson is a touchdown waiting to happen, on any given play. His opening-drive 59-yard touchdown run on Monday night in New Orleans set the tone for Atlantas’ 45-24 win.
Though four games, Robinson has 494 yards rushing and 120 yards receiving and five total touchdowns.
Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker III has become the straw that stirs the Kansas City cocktail. He has 537 yards rushing, 84 yards receiving, and six total touchdowns. He’s also the third player in NFL history to have 170 or more rushing yards in two of the first four games of a season, joining only Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson.
Both Robinson and Walker have 99 touches. Walker has gained 621 yards. Robinson has gained 614.
When it comes to the MVP betting odds (which are instructive to the general perceptions that surely will influence some or many of the 50 Associated Press voters), both Robinson and Walker are low on the list. Robinson, who was 70-1 when Simms and I discussed the dynamic earlier this morning on PFT Live, is now at 60-1. Walker is 50-1.
Currently, the eight highest players on the list of odds are quarterbacks.
Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs sits at 30-1, which may be a reflection of the bets made on him before the season started. (He has 102 touches and 540 yards from scrimmage, with seven touchdowns.)
Here’s the real question. Is the perception of “value” skewed by the fact that the best quarterbacks make so much more money than the best quarterbacks? The top of the quarterback market is approaching $65 million per year. Gibbs, the highest-paid running back, is at $22.5 million annually.
Robinson sits at $22.25 million per year. Walker, who signed as a free agent months before the Robinson and Gibbs deals were done, is making $14.35 million per year. (To put it apples-to-apples terms, the Gibbs deal is worth $16.995 million per year from signing, Robinson’s deal has an average of $16.36 million from signing.)
The best running backs are far more valuable to their teams than the market suggests. The existing market held back Walker, Robinson, and Gibbs. The enhanced injury risk at the position is a major factor in the unwillingness of teams to embrace the financial risk that the player at some point won’t be available.
While their “value” may not properly be reflected in their contracts, it needs to be recognized in their consideration for the MVP award. The present betting trends show that it’s not. Whether it will be comes down to the ability and willingness of the voters to stop viewing the MVP as a quarterback prize and to start looking at the definition of the prize, as articulated by the AP.
“The player who was most valuable to their team over the course of the season.”
Robinson and Walker fit the bill. Gibbs will, too, if the Lions can recover from a sluggish start and become true contenders.
Signs continue to point toward Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson missing Sunday night’s game in Atlanta.
PFT reported that Jackson was considered week-to-week after injuring his ankle in Baltimore’s Week 4 win over the Titans with an MRI still to come to determine the extent of the issue. Jackson underwent further evaluation on Monday and Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that there is only an “outside chance” that he will be available against the Falcons.
Jackson’s chances of playing in Week 6 will rely on how his sprained ankle responds to treatment.
Tyler Huntley will start for the Ravens as long as Jackson is out of action. Huntley was 8-of-9 for 63 yards in the second half of the win over the Titans and he has started 11 times for Baltimore over the years. He also made five starts for the Dolphins in 2024.
Falcons safety Jessie Bates wasn’t exaggerating when he said they’re a different team with Michael Penix.
After starting the season 0-2, the Falcons are 2-0 since Penix became the starter in Week 3. But even that doesn’t fully display how different things have been with Penix.
On average, NFL teams are scoring 23.1 points per game this season. If we considered the Falcons two different teams, with Penix and without him, the version with Penix would rank first in the NFL with an average of 40.0 points per game — more than a touchdown better than the No. 1, the Bills, who average 31.8 points per game. Meanwhile, the version of the Falcons without Penix averaged 8.0 points per game. That ranks dead last, more than a field goal worse than the No. 32 Dolphins, who are averaging 11.5 points per game.
Among the 42 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 15 passes this season, Penix ranks fifth with a 113.1 passer rating. The two Falcons quarterbacks who played before Penix are dead last: Rush ranks 41st with a 42.5 passer rating, and Jack Strand ranks 42nd with a 35.1 passer rating.
How much better is Penix at avoiding pressure than Rush and Strand? Rush was sacked five times while throwing 39 passes. Strand was sacked twice while throwing 15 passes. Penix has been sacked only once while throwing 45 passes, and Penix played most of the second game after the Falcons lost starting left tackle Jake Matthews to an injury.
The effect of Penix on his teammates is notable. In two games with Penix, Falcons running back Bijan Robinson has rushed for 339 yards and four touchdowns. In two games without Penix, Robinson rushed for 155 yards and no touchdowns. Backup running back Brian Robinson has 24 carries for 112 yards and four touchdowns with Penix. He had 20 carries for 82 yards and no touchdowns without Penix.
The Falcons’ top receiver, Drake London, has 14 catches for 290 yards in two games with Penix. London had six catches for 80 yards in two games without Penix.
That stats are a remarkable display of just how well Penix is playing — and just how poorly Rush and Strand played. With a different quarterback, the Falcons are a completely different team.
During the first two weeks of the 2026 season, the Falcons looked like one of the worst teams in the NFL.
The last two weeks have been much different. A 35-14 win in Green Bay in Week 3 was followed by Monday night’s 45-24 rout of the Saints in New Orleans and it’s not hard to notice the biggest difference in the team over the last two games. Quarterback Michael Penix was cleared to return from last season’s torn ACL and he’s been at the helm of their offensive explosion.
Penix is 33-of-45 for 479 yards and two touchdowns in the two wins and combining accuracy with an ability to pick up big chunks of yardage every time the ball is in the air has opened the door for the Falcons to run wild. Bijan Robinson has run for 339 yards and four touchdowns while Brian Robinson has 117 yards to go with four more scores in the back-to-back wins. The change in offense has made a strong impression on safety Jessie Bates.
“We just want to show the world who we can be,” Bates said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.com. “The first two weeks were not up to our standards. Obviously, when you got [Penix] back there dealing, it’s a whole different team. So, we’re just excited to continue to go with this.”
The Falcons had a strong collection of skill position players to open the season, but poor quarterback play didn’t allow them to take advantage of that talent. The shift with Penix has been clear and it’s opened the door to a much brighter future in Atlanta.
The NFL scheduled the Saints to host the Falcons on Monday night to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Superdome’s reopening after Hurricane Katrina. It was a big night in New Orleans, and the Saints did not match the fans’ energy.
Saints head coach Kellen Moore said after the 45-24 loss that the team came out flat despite the excitement of the moment.
“Really disappointing game for us,” Moore said. “The dome was an incredible night, incredible energy. I did a poor job preparing our football team. Didn’t coach well enough, didn’t play well enough. It wasn’t good enough. We’re at where we’re at, a 1-3 football team with some good moments but not enough consistent football to be where we ultimately want to be. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Moore said he addressed the historical significance of the game with his team and thought they bought into this being a particularly big game. But when it was time to put it all together, they didn’t.
“We talked about it at the beginning of the week, the guys were fired up,” Moore said. “I thought there was good energy, we just didn’t execute well enough.”
The Saints saw the nationally televised, much-discussed game as a big opportunity to show what kind of team they are, and they didn’t show much.
“Those are big-time opportunities,” Moore said. “It’s just disappointing for us and I know there’s frustration for everyone.”
The Saints will always have the Hurricane Katrina game on Sept. 25, 2006. Steve Gleason’s block of a Falcons’ punt is commemorated in a statue outside the Superdome titled “Rebirth.”
But Monday night belonged to the Falcons.
Atlanta ruined New Orleans’ “Domecoming” celebration, routing the Saints 45-24.
The Superdome cleared out in the second half as the Falcons ran over the Saints, with 205 of their 420 yards coming on the ground. Bijan Robinson had 19 carries for 145 yards and two touchdowns, and Brian Robinson added 14 carries for 62 yards and three touchdowns.
Bijan Robinson went 59 yards for a touchdown on the third play from scrimmage, a foreshadowing of how the night was going to go.
The Falcons led 14-0 at the end of the first quarter and 24-7 at halftime before continuing to pour on the points in the second half.
The Falcons scored the fewest points in the NFL the first two weeks, with 16. In the past two games, since quarterback Michael Penix returned, the Falcons have an NFL-leading 80 points. The Falcons are 2-2 and tied with the Panthers atop the NFC South. The Saints are 1-3.
Penix went 15-of-20 for 223 yards and a touchdown, which was a 31-yard throw to Jahan Dotson. Drake London caught five passes for 96 yards and Dotson had two for 54.
Alvin Kamara turned back time in scoring two of the Saints’ touchdowns on runs of 3 and 5 yards. He tied Deuce McAllister’s franchise record for most multiple-rushing touchdown games with his 14th.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the game out of reach, Devaughn Vele made one of the best catches of the season. He got both feet down for a 3-yard touchdown with 1:13 left.
Tyler Shough went 30-of-48 for 286 yards and a touchdown despite banging up his left hand. Chris Olave caught eight passes for 116 yards before taking a hard hit on his knee late in the game.
The only bad news for the Falcons was the loss of edge rusher Za’Darius Smith (concussion) and left tackle Jake Matthews (groin). They left in the first half with their injuries and now have a short week to try to get back for the Ravens on Sunday Night Football.
