Joe Fagnano will start at quarterback for the Ravens on Thursday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars, giving Baltimore a first-time NFL starter as it tries to stop a slide that has put the team in last place in the AFC North. Lamar Jackson is headed to injured reserve, Tyler Huntley reportedly is out for the season with a toe injury, and the Ravens have turned to the undrafted rookie to steady the offense on short rest.
That is why who is starting for the Ravens has become the question driving the night. Fagnano’s first start comes with Baltimore already having lost three straight games, two of them against division opponents, and now facing the possibility of dropping below.500 for the first time this season. The stakes are bigger because the next answer is not about a depth chart in name only; it is about whether a rookie who has never started in the NFL can keep a wounded team from sliding further.
There is reason Baltimore believes he can handle it. Fagnano was a full participant in Tuesday’s practice despite an ankle injury, and his track record in college suggests a quarterback who can protect the ball and keep an offense on schedule. He started 45 games across seven collegiate seasons, including four with Maine and three with UConn, and was intercepted on just 1.6% of his pass attempts in college. The Ravens also saw enough in the preseason to carry him on the initial 53-man roster, where he made the team as one of two undrafted rookies.
His preseason line was strong enough to stand out even on a crowded camp roster. Fagnano led the NFL with 509 passing yards and threw just one interception in 75 pass attempts, production that helped him survive final cuts and put him in position for this moment. When Tyler Huntley went down in the second quarter of Week 8 against the Buffalo Bills, Fagnano entered the game and completed 10 of 21 passes for 91 yards, though he also threw an interception and lost a fumble in a 26-point loss.
That relief appearance was a reminder that the transition is not clean. Fagnano has promise, but he is still a rookie adjusting to NFL speed, and Thursday night will ask him to do more than manage the play clock. Baltimore needs him to limit mistakes, absorb pressure and keep the offense functional against an opponent that can punish a mistake quickly. Jesse Minter called him cool, calm and collected, said he does not get rattled and praised the way the offense operated around him in the preseason, adding that the team feels good about him. Those are encouraging words, but they do not erase the fact that this is his first career start.
For Baltimore, the next chapter is simple to state and hard to execute: Fagnano has to turn a survival assignment into something stable enough to keep the Ravens from falling deeper into the season’s worst stretch. If he can do that, the quarterback question stops being a crisis for one night. If he cannot, the search for answers only gets louder.
