Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones will miss 4-6 weeks after spraining his MCL Thursday night.
Jones, Baltimore’s numbers two receiver entering the season, hurt his knee preparing to return a punt. While setting up Jones collided with teammate Brynden Trawick. Neither saw the other.
After trading Anquan Boldin and losing Dennis Pitta to injury, losing Jacoby Jones is not good for the Ravens. Dallas Clark looked bad replacing Pitta and the Ravens only other reliable target is Torrey Smith.
Baltimore will have to lean heavily on Ray Rice in the coming weeks to stay competitive. He might have to take a bigger role in the pass game while losing time in the run game to backup Bernard Pierce. The Ravens need to keep Rice fresh every week. That could be a solution.
The hardest part of losing Jacoby Jones is going to be his playmaking ability. Jones has never been a big statistical receiver, but his impact in the playoffs and Super Bowl will be hard to replace.
Fans should remember in the AFC Divisional game that Jones caught Joe Flacco’s hail mary in the fourth quarter against the Broncos to send the game into overtime. The Ravens went on to win.
Then Jones arguably put the Super Bowl out of reach by returning the kickoff to start the third quarter for a touchdown. Despite the 49ers best efforts, Jones’ touchdown was just too much to overcome.
Pro Football Talk broke the news of Jacoby Jones MCL sprain with this tweet:
Ravens receiver Jacoby Jones is likely out 4-6 weeks with MCL sprain, per league source.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) September 7, 2013
The Ravens looked overmatched on Thursday night. The Broncos easily beat them 49-27. Baltimore was hoping to get good news after Jones underwent and MRI on his knee. Unfortunately, the defending Super Bowl champions can’t seem to catch a break.
Do you think the Ravens losing Jacoby Jones for 4-6 weeks will be too hard to recover from?