Ravens hit with brutal Chandler Martin injury update

The Baltimore Ravens’ Thanksgiving collapse in Cincinnati cost them far more than a spot in the standings. Their 32-14 loss to the Bengals dropped them to 6-6 and likely cost them promising rookie linebacker Chandler Martin for the remainder of the season, a brutal blow to a defense that had just started to steady itself after weeks of inconsistency.

Shortly after the game, initial reports indicated Martin was expected to land on season-ending injured reserve after suffering a knee injury. Those fears were confirmed on Friday when the NFL’s own site reported that Martin tore his ACL in the loss and will miss the rest of the year following surgery, according to NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport.

For an undrafted free agent who had just begun carving out a role, it is a gut-punch ending: three games played, five tackles, and his snap count ticking upward before everything stopped.

Baltimore signed Martin as a developmental piece and quickly discovered he could help on special teams and as depth on the second level. With five regular-season games left, his absence forces the Ravens to reshuffle their linebacker rotation and lean even harder on a unit that has already been stretched by injuries and uneven play up front. Whether they promote from the practice squad or scan waivers, any replacement will lack the reps Martin had accumulated inside Mike Macdonald’s system.

All of this lands on a fan base already questioning what this team really is after Thanksgiving night. In that same loss to Cincinnati, Baltimore turned the ball over five times, fueling a narrative that the Ravens belong on “fraud watch” rather than in the circle of true contenders.

The remaining schedule does the Ravens no favors, and now they have to navigate it without a young linebacker they believed could help them on the margins. Martin’s injury will not dominate national headlines, but for a 6-6 team trying to prove it is more than a mirage, losing another contributor on defense only tightens the squeeze on a roster already running out of cushion.