Tavon Young dodged a major injury during Thursday night's loss to the Miami Dolphins.
Head Coach John Harbaugh said Young might play Week 11 against the Chicago Bears, after leaving Thursday night's game in Florida with a foot injury. Young has suffered three season-ending injuries during his career, but he has fortunately avoided that outcome this time.
"It doesn't look real severe. He'll have a chance to play this week," Harbaugh said. "That was fortunate for us."
Harbaugh gave injury updates on several other players, including tight end Nick Boyle (knee),[comma] who Harbaugh said was close to playing Thursday night. Boyle could make his season debut against the Bears. Rookie guard Ben Cleveland, who has missed four games since suffering a knee injury against the Indianapolis Colts, is moving closer to returning.
"He's going to be an option coming up," Harbaugh said of Cleveland. "I don't know if he'll make it this week or not, but he'd have a chance."
Patrick Queen's Failure to Scoop and Score After Strip Sack Was a Huge Play
Inside linebacker Patrick Queen almost pulled off a huge play Thursday night when he sacked and stripped Tua Tagovailoa from behind after he dropped back to pass.
However, Queen couldn't control the fumble when he tried to scoop the ball and run. The fumble was alertly recovered by Miami guard Liam Eichenberg, who dove from behind Queen to get the ball, denying the Ravens a turnover when they really needed one, trailing 15-3 with less than 10 minutes left in the game.
In hindsight, it's easy to say Queen should have simply fallen on the football, but he was trying to make a huge play on a night when Baltimore's offense was struggling. Harbaugh understood why Queen tried to scoop and score, having a split second to make up his mind.
"It's funny, I had the same conversation with our owner, Steve Bisciotti," Harbaugh said. "He was basically saying in the heat of battle he was thinking, 'Pick it up!' Then, all of a sudden, he was thinking 'Fall on it' when you don't get it.
"That's a judgement call that guys make. When in doubt, I think you fall on it. You want to make sure you have possession of the ball. That's an easy priority to see. I don't think Patrick saw the offensive lineman coming. The offensive lineman made a nice play. Hindsight, you definitely want him falling on it. In the heat of battle, I want him falling on it if he's not sure. But if he has space to pick it up, I want him picking it up and running for a touchdown. You try to do the best you can without shackling your guys, handcuffing your guys, away from making big plays."
Ravens Staff Spent Aftermath of Miami Game Watching 'Myriad of Mistakes' on Film
It wasn't a relaxing weekend for the Ravens coaching staff, diving into heavy film study Friday and Saturday after Thursday's defeat. There will be plenty of things to discuss with players this week as the team prepares for the Chicago Bears.
"We made so many mistakes," Harbaugh said. "We had just error after error. Missed assignments, blocking the wrong guy, going the wrong direction, not communicating. It was just a myriad of mistakes. Why did that happen? There's a lot of reasons. It's a short week. We played 99 plays on offense the four days before that. I think our guys might have been a little mentally tired. But we're never going to step up and say that's the reason for it. We just didn't do a good job of executing the game plan, and the game plan wasn't good enough to tackle what we were going against."
The Ravens have not lost two straight games this season, and plan on using the extra time since Thursday's game to bounce back with a strong performance in Chicago. Having a short week of walkthroughs before the Miami game was a challenge the Ravens did not respond well to.
"We spent time looking at every detail of that (Miami game)," Harbaugh said. "We spent all day Friday. We spent all day Saturday, as a staff, going through all the things on the different sides of the ball, just trying to detail out exactly what we're doing, make sure we're doing the things guys can do.
"We were walking through last week. You don't get a chance to do it at speed, and you get out there and it doesn't execute. That's the challenge of football."
What Ty'Son Williams Can Do to Earn More Playing Time
The Ravens were held to 94 yards rushing against the Dolphins and produced just 115 yards rushing in their Week 7 loss to the Bengals. Running back Ty'Son Williams wasn't a factor in either game, with no carries against the Dolphins and just two carries for 10 yards against Cincinnati.
Williams' playing time has decreased dramatically since Week 1, when he started and rushed nine times for 65 yards and a touchdown, and Week 2, when he carried the ball a season-high 13 times for 77 yards against the Chiefs. He has not carried the ball more than five times in any game since, though he leads Baltimore's running backs in average yards per carry (5.5). While Latavius Murray (ankle) has missed the last three games, Devonta Freeman and Le'Veon Bell have been the primary ballcarriers at running back.
Harbaugh was asked what Williams must do to earn more playing time. He played six snaps on special teams for the first time this season against the Dolphins.
"Every player just has to contribute and perform and produce when they're out there, and that goes for any player," Harbaugh said. "So, if you're a running back, you need to run hard, you need to break tackles, you need to get yards, you need to pass protect, you need to run the right route out of the backfield, catch the ball and get up [the] field.
"If you're in the rotation, special teams sure would help you. Get out there and run down kicks, get on the punt team, get on the punt return team, because that's how you got on there when you're the third back, in that case. So, I'm not talking about one player; it's anybody in that spot, or it's anybody at any position. You've got to produce."
