Ravens Trade for Jacoby Brissett: How the Cardinals Deal Reshapes Baltimore’s Odds After Lamar Jackson Injury

The Baltimore Ravens are finalizing a trade with the Arizona Cardinals for veteran quarterback Jacoby Brissett, according to reports from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. The deal is expected to be completed this weekend, and Brissett is slated to make his Ravens debut on Monday Night Football in Week 10 against the Los Angeles Chargers. For a Baltimore team whose futures prices have collapsed over the past week, the move is a bid to keep a season alive that the betting market had largely written off.

The Ravens (4-4) are last in the AFC North after a loss at Buffalo in which Lamar Jackson hurt his right thumb on the first snap and backup Tyler Huntley left with turf toe. Jackson is headed for surgery and injured reserve, and Huntley is done for the season. That left undrafted rookie Joe Fagnano, a UConn product, to start Thursday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars while Baltimore waits for Brissett to arrive.

Why the Cardinals Were Willing to Move Brissett

Arizona opened the door to the deal this week by benching Brissett in favor of Gardner Minshew II during last Sunday’s comeback win over the Dallas Cowboys. Head coach Mike LaFleur then named Minshew the starter, rookie Carson Beck the primary backup and Brissett the No. 3 quarterback. Discussions with Baltimore reportedly began Sunday after the game and gained momentum Tuesday afternoon. Trade compensation has not been reported, though a journeyman quarterback in his situation has typically fetched a fifth- or sixth-round pick in recent years.

Before the trade, Arizona restructured Brissett’s contract, converting $2.7 million of his remaining $5.4 million salary into a signing bonus. If the deal is completed before Thursday night’s game, Baltimore would owe him a $2.7 million base salary. If it is finished afterward, that figure drops to $2.43 million. Because Baltimore is playing Thursday, finalizing the trade before kickoff would have required the Ravens to release another player, which is why the move is expected to be completed after the game. That timing also gives Brissett roughly 10 days to learn the offense ahead of the Nov. 16 meeting with the Chargers.

Brissett is 33 years old, a third-round pick of the New England Patriots in 2016, and has made 73 career starts across 11 seasons. He started the first eight games for Arizona this year, completing 63.3 percent of his passes for 1,719 yards, 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions. His best recent work came last season, when he threw for 3,366 yards and 23 touchdowns in 12 starts for the Cardinals. He has long been a careful ball handler, carrying an interception rate of roughly 1.5 percent among quarterbacks with at least 2,500 attempts since 2000. He also spent the past two seasons in Arizona with Ravens quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork, which should shorten the learning curve in Declan Doyle’s offense.

What the Brissett Trade Means for the Betting Market

The market reaction to Jackson’s injury was brutal. Baltimore entered Week 8 at around +1400 to win the Super Bowl, a number that had been as short as a tie for third at Week 5. One sportsbook trading head said the Ravens were 14/1 before Sunday’s game, 50/1 by the end of the day and 100/1 by midweek. Other published prices put them anywhere from +10000 to +20000, and one outlet listed them at +500 simply to make the playoffs with a regular-season win total of 6.5. In the AFC North race, the Ravens were priced at +910 at one point, the longest number in the division, while Cincinnati became an odds-on favorite at -170.

The Week 9 line shows how sharply the quarterback situation moved the needle. Baltimore was a 3-point home favorite on the lookahead line with Jackson expected to play. When the market reopened Sunday evening, it shifted to Jaguars -7.5, and the number has since climbed as high as Jaguars -9.5, with sharp action reported on both Jaguars -8.5 and Ravens +10.5. The total sits at 40.5. Brissett will not play in that game, so Thursday’s price is essentially a referendum on Fagnano, who went 10 of 21 for 91 yards with an interception and three sacks in relief at Buffalo.

The more interesting question is what happens to the Ravens’ price once Brissett takes over. A veteran with his track record raises the floor of the offense considerably, but nobody in the market is treating him as a substitute for a two-time MVP. Oddsmakers will have to account for how little time Brissett has had in Baltimore’s system when they post the Chargers number, and that line is worth monitoring as injury news firms up. The pricing will also depend on how much of a passing-game rebuild the Ravens need, since their offense was built around Jackson’s dual-threat skill set.

Season-long markets remain skeptical. One simulation model had Baltimore’s playoff probability at 19 percent and its division title chance at 3 percent as of Tuesday, with Cincinnati at 56 percent for the division and Pittsburgh at 35 percent. For futures bettors, Jackson’s timeline is the real swing factor. He is out at least four weeks, and any report suggesting a return before the postseason would likely compress Baltimore’s longshot numbers quickly, while a season-ending designation would cement them. Until then, Brissett’s arrival looks more like a stabilizer than a catalyst for the futures board.

For prop markets, expect passing totals for Brissett to be set conservatively in his first outing, with limited practice time and an unfamiliar receiving group working against volume. The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. ET, and with Baltimore already active in the quarterback market, more roster movement before then could further shift the lines.