David Ojabo underwent season-ending ACL surgery; Tyus Bowser is dealing with an ‘angry knee’

The Ravens will officially be without one of their pass rushers for the rest of the year but could get another back at some point.

Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh provided injury updates on a pair of outside linebackers. Harbaugh announced second-year pro David Ojabo underwent season-ending surgery to repair a partially torn ACL. Also, Tyus Bowser is still working his way back from a knee flare-up that occurred during the summer, but could still play this season.

The biggest and most disappointing news of the two announcements is the loss of Ojabo who will now have been limited to just six games and 104 defensive snaps in his first two seasons in the league due to injury. A torn Achilles suffered at his pro day last March caused him to fall out of the first round of last year’s draft and delayed his debut until Week 15 of his rookie year. He suffered his knee injury this year in Week 3 and had been weighing his options ever since but opted to do what was best for his long-term health.

“He had to make a decision about it in terms of whether to risk it or not,” Harbaugh said. “Every medical expert said to get it fixed…He wanted to play but even I told him ‘Man you got to get that right for the rest of your career because it’s a clean type of surgery and he’ll be rolling again (by) training camp at the latest.”

Ojabo was projected by many pundits as prime breakout candidate heading into his second season after showing impressive flashes in limited opportunities as a rookie. He was the most hyped up player during the offseason program and after underwhelming in the preseason, he silenced his critics by coming up with a strip sack in the regular season opener.

The former Michigan product possess a lot of unrefined and possibly limitless potential given his impressive athletic ability when healthy and the fact that he still relatively new to football having not picked up the game until later in high school. His second season will end with him having recorded six total tackles including five solos, a quarterback hit, a sack, and a forced fumble in three games.

Bowser’s situation is still somewhat more complicated as he has yet to appear in a regular season game due to the nature of the injury.

“Tyus is just trying to get the knee where it can basically handle to loading and swelling and stuff like that,” Harbaugh said. “It’s just kind of an angry knee I guess.”

Thankfully, the Ravens are far from destitute at outside linebacker and actually have a trio of players at the position playing at an extremely high level. They have a pair of 10-year veterans in Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy who each were signed late and have recorded six or more sacks a pieced already. Third-year pro and former first-rounder, Odafe Oweh, has come on very strong since returning from an ankle injury and has four sacks in his last six games.

The Ravens’ defense as a whole is not lacking in the pass rush department and are heading into their bye week with a league-leading 47 sacks as a team. They have shown an ability to generate pressure from anywhere with defenders from all three levels with 15 different players having recorded at least one sack and six with three or more.