Ravens lose tight end Mark Andrews for the season to ankle injury

The Ravens lost tight end Mark Andrews for the season after Andrews was tackled with the controversial hip-drop method by Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson.

The Baltimore Ravens beat the Cincinnati Bengals 34-20 on Thursday night to push their record to 8-3, but it was an expensive victory. After the game, head coach John Harbaugh said that tight end Mark Andrews, one of the team’s primary offensive weapons, will be out for the season due to an ankle injury.

“Mark Andrews has a very serious ankle injury,” Harbaugh said. “It looks like a season-ending injury. Our prayers will be with Mark. Nobody cares more about the team and being there for the guys than Mark Andrews, so this is going to be hard for him, but we’re going to be there for him all the way.”

Andrews was injured with 11:05 left in the first quarter, when he took a pass from Lamar Jackson and got to the Cincinnati four-yard line. Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson tackled Andrews with a hip-drop tackle, which the NFL has considered banning for a while now.

“We got the news while we were in here, and it’s just tough,” Ravens receiver Odell Beckham Jr. said. “It’s the hardest part about this game. These guys put in endless hours of work, rehab [and] the things that people don’t see. They only see the final product, [but] for a guy like Mark, I know exactly [that] he’s in the training room, he’s getting his work, he’s in the weight. It’s just tough, so just as brothers, you’ve got to be there for him. I’ve been through it; it’s not easy. It’s very unfortunate. It’s a big hit for this team. Mark has been an integral part of this team since [he] and Lamar [Jackson] have been here. So, we’ve just got to find a way to step up, but right now, I think the moment is to be with him [and] his spirit. Prayers up for his mentals, and I pray over his heart.” 

“It’s very tough,” Lamar Jackson said. “I was just telling the [Amazon Prime] primetime crew out there that that’s the guy who I entered the league with. We’ve been bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly – whatever you want to call it. It’s very tough, because that’s my boy. That’s receiver [No.] 1 sometimes, and for him to go out [in the] first quarter … He’s been having a remarkable year. [He’s] one touchdown away from a record, I think. That’s tough, but we have to somehow do it without him. We have [Isaiah] Likely. We have Charlie [Kolar]. We have guys who are going to step up, but it’s tough.” 

At the mid-October league meetings, league executive Jeff Miller said that the league was thinking of banning the hip-drop tackle — in part because studies have shown a 25% increase in injuries.

“It is an unforgiving behavior and one that we need to try to define and get out of the game,” Miller said, via the Associated Press. “To quantify it for you, we see an injury more or less every week in the regular season on the hip-drop.”

Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said that the hip drop is a close cousin of the horse-collar tackle, which was banned by the league years ago.

“What’s happening on the hip-drop is the defender is encircling tackling the runner and then swinging their weight and falling on the side of their leg, which is their ankle or their knee,” McKay said.

“When they use that tactic, you can see why they do, because it can be a smaller man against a bigger man and they’re trying to get that person down because that’s the object of the game. But when they do it, the runner becomes defenseless. They can’t kick their way out from under. And that’s the problem. That’s where the injury occurs. You see the ankle get trapped underneath the weight of the defender.”

In the end, as McKay said, the decision was made to see how things went in the 2023 season before making any more moves against the tactic.

“Last year, we did talk about it a lot. There were enough teams to say it’s one year, let’s see it and leave it alone. So we did, and I’m sure it’ll be back again. But I just don’t want to get in the business of predicting because I really don’t know what the outcome will be. I do know it will be talked about.”

Harbaugh said that he will discuss Wilson’s tackle with the league.

“Well, yes, it was definitely a hip-drop tackle, and it is being discussed. It’s a tough tackle. Was it even necessary in that situation? There are always plays you send into the league to have them look at and have them interpret for you.”  

This season, Andrews had caught 45 passes on 58 targets for 544 yards and six touchdowns.