Ravens coach John Harbaugh pleaded innocence and ignorance as the NFL investigates his team for retroactively changing quarterback Lamar Jackson’s Friday practice participation from full to limited and abruptly ruling him out Saturday morning for the Bears game. He had been designated questionable the day before.
The team said Jackson did practice for the duration Friday, but worked on the scout team. By the league’s policy, that counts as limited.
“We weren’t going to rule him out before we had to,” Harbaugh said Sunday after the Ravens won 30-16. “I’m not involved in [the injury report]. I don’t know those particular rules. … When you dig in and you read the rule, [the report] wasn’t right. As soon as we found out, we changed it.”
Harbaugh put it on the training staff and public relations department and called it “an honest mistake.” He said there was “no advantage” to be gained by trying to mislead the Bears and the public.
Bears coach Ben Johnson said from the start of the week that his defense was preparing for Jackson, not backup Tyler Huntley.
“We were looking at tape of him and saw him practicing all week … so we had to flip our minds to the next quarterback,” safety Jaquan Brisker said. “It was a big difference.”
He added that the Bears scrapped some schemes they had planned for Jackson, but “no excuses.” Huntley completed 17 of 22 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown for a career-high 116.9 passer rating.
Bears safety Kevin Byard said it was a non-factor, citing instead the Bears’ failures to engineer a pass rush, stop the run or get takeaways, and defensive tackle Grady Jarrett didn’t believe it was malfeasance.
