Key Baltimore Ravens defender suffers season ending shoulder injury

Baltimore Ravens’ star defensive back Marlon Humphrey suffered a season ending shoulder injury today against the Pittsburgh Steelers and is expected to be out for the rest of the 2021 season, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

It’s a significant blow to the Ravens’ secondary, as Humphrey has long been one of the best defensive backs in the league. Baltimore has suffered a number of season ending injuries this season at a variety of positions.

The injured state of the Ravens’ defensive secondary is what provoked their head coach, John Harbaugh, to go for a two-point conversion at the end of the game in their 20-19 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon. His team was already without two other starters in the secondary, Marcus Peters and DeShon Elliott.

Baltimore was down by a point after Lamar Jackson completed a six-yard touchdown pass to his receiver, Sammy Watkins with 12 seconds left in the game. The Ravens could have kicked the field goal and sent the game to overtime, but Harbaugh elected to trust his offense and go for two instead.

Baltimore’s list of season-ending injuries in 2021 has been among the worst in the league. They’ve been hit severely hard by injuries to numerous players across their roster.

Check out the list below.

Ravens out with season-ending injuries include:
J.K. Dobbins
Gus Edwards
Justice Hill
Ronnie Stanley
Marcus Peters
L.J. Fort
DeShon Elliott
Derek Wolfe
Marlon Humphrey

— Kyle Phoenix Barber (@KylePBarber) December 6, 2021

Humphrey was a star in high school, at Alabama, and he’s been a star for much of his NFL career. Simply put, he’s been one of the best defensive backs in the game of football at every level he’s played.

This season, the former Alabama star had one of the more bizarre interceptions you’ll ever see against the Las Vegas Raiders, when he was defending Raiders star tight end Darren Waller in Week 1. He intercepted the pass and didn’t even realize he had the football in his arms.

Career at Alabama

Coming out of prestigious Hoover High School (Hoover, Alabama), Humphrey was rated a five-star prospect and he did not disappoint during his time at Alabama. He played on the team’s College Football Playoff National Championship team in 2015 and was named a first team All-American by the Football Writers Association of America for the 2016 season.

Marlon Humphrey NFL grade when playing for the Baltimore Ravens

PFF ranked Marlon Humphrey as the 29th best player in the NFL, and its third best graded cover corner coming into the 2021 season. They only graded him lower than Jaire Alexander and Jalen Ramsey.

Sam Monson of PFF had this to say about the talented corner, “Humphrey doesn’t get the recognition he deserves because of his role within the Baltimore defense and the things they ask him to do precisely because he is their best coverage player. Over the past two seasons, only Xavien Howard has a higher PFF coverage grade when in single coverage. Humphrey has achieved that despite lining up in the slot on 58.8% of his snaps in that time, a position that often leads to far more coverage losses.”

Ravens fans are hoping Humphrey and all the other injured players on their roster can make a speedy recovery in the 2021-2022 offseason and be back for next year.