Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh hasn’t decided whether Lamar Jackson will play Saturday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Week 18 regular-season finale carries no consequences for the Ravens, who already clinched the AFC North and conference’s No. 1 seed.
Harbaugh assured Monday that he wouldn’t keep the decision a “secret.”
“We’ve got to kind of work through the injury part of it first,” Harbaugh said, according to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley. “That’ll take us probably 24 to 48 hours to get a real handle on that, and then we’ll make those decisions.”
Harbaugh didn’t sound convinced that resting Jackson and potentially others would lead to the same issues the team faced the last time it was the No. 1 seed. During the 2019 season, Baltimore elected to sit its starters for the regular-season finale with a playoff bye already clinched, only to go one-and-done in the postseason.
“It’s a different team, different circumstances, different everything except for the record was about the same and the bye,” Harbaugh said.
Pundits have regarded Jackson as a leading candidate for the NFL MVP award. The signal-caller bolstered his case Sunday with five touchdowns and no interceptions in a 56-19 victory over the Miami Dolphins.
