The Ravens have traded a conditional draft pick to the St. Louis Rams for wide receiver Chris Givens, who will replace wide receiver Michael Campanaro.
Campanaro has been placed on injured reserve with a back injury suffered in Thursday night's 23-20 overtime win in Pittsburgh.
Givens is very much in Campanaro's mold, and they even both went to Wake Forest.
The 6-foot-0, 203-pound Givens is in his fourth season. The 2012 fourth-round pick has been a slot receiver and kick returner in St. Louis, both mostly in a reserve role.
Givens' biggest season came as a rookie when he made 42 catches for 698 yards and three touchdowns. He also returned 23 kicks that year, averaging 23.4 yards per return.
He had fallen out of the main rotation in St. Louis, however, with the arrival of first-round pick Tavon Austin, another smaller wideout with return skills.
Givens has just one catch for 7 yards and one rush for 24 yards this season. He hasn't returned any kicks.
In Baltimore, Givens will step into a reserve receiver role and will likely be one of the leading candidates to take over for Campanaro at kick returner.
Campanaro suffered a back injury in the fourth quarter of Thursday's game when trying to bulldoze through a pair of Steelers for extra yardage at the end of a 9-yard gain.
His season-ending injury came just three quarters after scoring a highlight-reel 9-yard rushing touchdown in which he juked out Steelers linebacker Arthur Moats. Campanaro was just starting to look like one of the Ravens' offense's top playmakers outside of Steve Smith Sr. on a team that needs more.
Whenever he's been on the field, he's made plays. The problem has been staying on the field.
It's yet another setback in Campanaro's injury-riddled career. He played in just four games last year in part because of a hamstring injury suffered on his second career punt return. That injury lingered longer than the Ravens had expected, knocking him out for seven games.
This summer, Campanaro vowed to get his body in better shape, and did so, but still suffered another hamstring injury during Organized Team Activities (OTAs), then an unrelated soft-tissue issue in training camp.
In his two years thus far, the River Hill High School product has 12 catches for 137 yards and one receiving touchdown, and two rushes for 17 yards and one rushing touchdown.
