Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh had a crucial decision to make during his team’s home matchup against the Los Angeles Rams.
Devin Duvernay, who has been Baltimore’s go-to punt returner this season, suffered a back injury during the game. Harbaugh had multiple options to replace Duvernay, including Zay Flowers. The rookie wideout returned a total of seven punts during his final season at Boston College last year.
Harbaugh ended up calling on Tylan Wallace to fill in for Duvernay. Wallace combined for 19 yards on his first two punt returns against the Rams. On his third punt return of the contest, the third-year wideout wound up stunning the NFL world, as he reached the end zone to clinch a 37-31 overtime win for Baltimore.
Harbaugh had put some thought into penciling in Flowers to return punts in Duvernay’s absence, but he rolled with Wallace due to a few reasons.
"[Tylan Wallace] was our guy," Harbaugh said during his postgame press conference. "That was already set. That was the pecking order, so to speak. The other person in there is Zay Flowers, which we did talk about and considered putting Zay out there, too. But Tylan — here's a veteran player. … We just felt like — it wasn’t a conscious thing — we just felt like he deserved it. He was ready for that moment.
"Now, did [we] think he was going to take it back to the house? No, but I thought he’d catch it, maybe make a guy miss. You could see how tough it was to catch those punts out there. Another amazing event [in] Advent."
Harbaugh said after the game that Duvernay is being "evaluated" for his back injury. If the fourth-year wideout ends up missing time due to his ailment, then the Ravens sure are expected to call on Wallace to be the team’s go-to punt returner in the meantime.
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