There aren’t many clean answers when a team blows through its starting and backup quarterbacks before the season is even halfway done, but the Ravens found one fast.
Baltimore has landed Jacoby Brissett and a 2027 fifth-round pick from the Cardinals in exchange for a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2028 seventh-round pick, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The deal was first reached Wednesday and became official Friday, coming on the heels of Baltimore’s 33-10 “Thursday Night Football” loss to the Jaguars.
The timing tells the whole story. Against the Bills on Sunday, the Ravens lost Lamar Jackson on the first offensive snap because of a thumb injury, then watched Tyler Huntley go down shortly after with turf toe.
Jackson is on IR, which means he’ll miss at least the next three games, and Jesse Minter said the injury and surgery are “potentially” season-ending. Schefter reported Wednesday that Huntley is done for the season.
Baltimore sits at 4-5 and has dropped four straight.
Brissett is expected to start in Week 10 against the Chargers on “Monday Night Football,” and likely beyond that. Right now, the Ravens’ other quarterback options are undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano, who finished the game against the Bills and started against the Jaguars, along with Kedon Slovis and Austin Reed, both of whom signed this week.
For Arizona, the move made sense the moment Baltimore’s quarterback room collapsed. Brissett had started the Cardinals’ first eight games, then got benched midway through Week 8 against the Cowboys.
After Gardner Minshew sparked a stunning comeback, Mike LaFleur named Minshew the starter and rookie Carson Beck the backup. Brissett was pushed to third string, and the fit with Baltimore became obvious almost immediately.
Baltimore Ravens: B-
Brissett isn’t walking in to rescue the Ravens on his own. This roster has bigger problems than quarterback, and those problems are not the kind one steady veteran can erase. Fixing this season would require something Jackson-level.
Still, Baltimore had to do something.
It wasn’t fair to keep asking Fagnano, an undrafted rookie, to hold down the position for more than half a season. No undrafted quarterback over the last six years has started more than six games.
Reed has never taken an NFL snap, and Slovis has only logged a handful. Both are former undrafted players who have spent time out of the league or on the margins of it.
That’s not a long-term plan.
The trade also gives first-year coach Jesse Minter and first-year offensive coordinator Declan Doyle a real quarterback environment to work with, even if it’s only a functional one. Doyle, in particular, has done some solid work. With Brissett, Baltimore at least has a chance to run an offense that can be evaluated honestly instead of being buried under emergency quarterback chaos.
Brissett’s profile is what it has been for years: a low-end starter, high-end backup. That matters here because the Ravens needed someone with real NFL experience, not another developmental stopgap.
He can keep a passing game afloat. Since the start of last season, Brissett ranks 17th out of 30 qualified quarterbacks in passing success rate, though he’s 28th in net yards per attempt because he doesn’t generate many explosive plays and takes a fair number of sacks.
The schedule gives Baltimore a small opening. After the Chargers, the Ravens get the Panthers, a pair of games that at least look winnable with Brissett.
Then comes Houston and a bye week. That would be the shortest possible window for a Jackson return, though it doesn’t sound like he’d be ready then.
Even so, Brissett doesn’t solve the larger issue. This doesn’t look like a team built to survive on defense and the run game alone.
The defense has been mediocre, which is a letdown given how good Minter had been as the Chargers’ defensive coordinator, and Derrick Henry has fallen off badly this year. Jackson’s absences surely play a part in that, but Brissett doesn’t change the overall equation much.
So the Ravens are stuck in a rough spot. Giving up draft picks for a short-term fix is never ideal, but Baltimore’s steady stream of compensatory picks softens the blow a bit.
The likeliest outcome is an offense that lands somewhere around average or below average, but at least functions. In this situation, that counts for something.
Arizona Cardinals: A
If you told Cardinals fans before the season that they’d beat the Chargers, Rams and Cowboys and also pick up draft capital for Brissett by midseason, they’d have taken it.
Brissett and Minshew filled a similar role in the bigger picture: veteran, journeyman, useful backup. Their styles aren’t the same - Minshew is more aggressive and more turnover-prone - but the general job description is. Arizona’s comeback against the Cowboys lined up perfectly with Baltimore losing two quarterbacks in the same game, and that made this a clean sell for the Cardinals.
Even if Minshew struggles enough to get benched, Arizona was probably going to get to Beck eventually anyway, if only to see what it has in the third-round rookie. At 3-5, the Cardinals aren’t going anywhere this season, and that was clear before the year even started. This is a rebuild year in its early stages.
That makes Brissett exactly the kind of veteran Arizona should be moving before the Nov. 10 trade deadline. The fact that the Cardinals got meaningful draft capital for a player who wasn’t part of the long-term plan and, as of Sunday, wasn’t even part of the short-term plan is strong business.
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