Lamar Jackson is headed to injured reserve with a right thumb injury that requires surgery, and coach Jesse Minter has named rookie Joe Fagnano the starter for Thursday night, 5 November, at home against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tyler Huntley is out for Thursday with a toe injury.
With Jackson, AccuScore's model has Baltimore losing that game by 4.9 points on average; with Fagnano starting, the expected margin widens to a 13.5-point loss.
AccuScore then ran Baltimore's rest of season 50,000 times with each quarterback, holding the schedule, results so far and every other team identical.
The short answer: Baltimore's playoff chance falls from 37.9% with Jackson to 7.8% with Fagnano.
| With Lamar Jackson | With Joe Fagnano | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projected wins | 8.88 | 6.65 | -2.23 |
| Playoff chance | 37.9% | 7.8% | -30.1 pts |
| Division chance | 10.9% | 1.3% | -9.6 pts |
| Conference win | 1.7% | 0.6% | -1.1 pts |
| Super Bowl win | 0.65% | 0.25% | -0.40 pts |
The gap shows up game by game too: AccuScore's simulations put Baltimore's average expected margin per remaining game at +1.56 points with Jackson versus -7.12 points with Fagnano — a swing of 8.68 points per game.
In the AFC North, with Jackson, Baltimore's division odds (10.9%) sit behind Cincinnati's 48.5% and Pittsburgh's 32.5%. With Fagnano, Baltimore's division number drops to 1.3% while Cincinnati (50.3%) and Pittsburgh (39.5%) both tick up.
One caveat: Fagnano's number rests on a tiny sample — 10-of-21 for 91 yards with an interception in relief at Buffalo — and is the least certain input in this scenario. It's also his first NFL start, and he's carrying an ankle injury that this scenario does not model; the simulation changes only the starter. What would change the answer is simple: AccuScore's model rates a quarterback on what he's actually done so far, so a bigger Fagnano sample — good or bad — would move these numbers. Full season-long projections are tracked on AccuScore's predictions page and the Market Index.