QB3: A Ravens Rarity

Joe Fagnano May Travel a Familiar Path with the Ravens

Let’s talk about a phenomenon that’s as much a part of Ravens summers as crab cakes and complaining about the secondary — the preseason darling quarterback who balls out in August, gets his walking papers on cutdown day, and then quietly slides onto the practice squad like nothing ever happened. Eric DeCosta and Ozzie Newsome before him have been running this play for years, and frankly, it works.

Exhibit A: Josh Woodrum, circa 2018. Remember him? The kid threw for 321 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the preseason, tacked on two more scores with his legs, and looked every bit like a guy worth stashing. The Ravens cut him anyway, Cleveland swooped in off waivers — because of course they did — and then the Browns being the Browns, he was back in Baltimore inside a week, tucked away on the practice squad where the Ravens wanted him all along.

Then there’s Anthony Brown in 2022, and this one’s got a storybook ending. The undrafted kid out of Oregon went 35-of-47 for 464 yards with three scores and a single pick over the summer. Didn’t matter. No room at the inn on the 53. So he parked on the practice squad — until the football gods intervened. Lamar goes down, Tyler Huntley goes down, and suddenly Brown is making his NFL debut in a win over the Steelers (which never gets old) and starting the season finale. From camp arm to starting quarterback in one season. Only in Baltimore.

Speaking of Huntley — Snoop himself is the patron saint of this pipeline. Undrafted in 2020, waived in September, signed to the practice squad, and all he did from there was climb his way to nine starts and a Pro Bowl. And here’s the kicker: he ran it back as a vet. Cleveland cut him loose in 2024 despite the fact that he led their quarterbacks in completion percentage — 72.5%, mind you — and touchdown throws that preseason. Where’d he land? Right back on the Ravens’ practice squad. Home is home.

Devin Leary’s 2024 tale is a little less rosy. The sixth-rounder had himself a rough preseason finale — two picks and a fumble will do that — but the Ravens saw the arm talent, and let’s be honest, that arm is legit. They kept him around on the squad to marinate and clean up the decision-making. That’s what the practice squad is for, folks.

And the newest member of the club? Joe Fagnano, summer of 2025. Undrafted kid comes out in the preseason opener, goes 22-of-28 for 224 and a touchdown, operating like he’d been in the league five years. But with the Ravens never inclined to burn a 53-man spot on a third quarterback, the writing was on the wall — and the practice squad was the landing spot everybody saw coming.

The through line here isn’t complicated. This organization has long rolled with two quarterbacks on the active roster and a developmental arm in the bullpen. It’s why the emergency third QB rule and those elevation limits matter more in Baltimore than just about anywhere else. Some teams hoard quarterbacks. The Ravens grow them in the greenhouse.

Practice Squad 411

Many fans will attach themselves to preseason heroes like Fagnano and see them as diamonds in the rough. The belief being if they aren’t protected, the Ravens, in this case, will lose out on a developing star. So with that in mind, I thought I’d share some tools available to Eric DeCosta and Jesse Minter to manage the roster in a way that might allow them to keep Fagnano around without keeping him on the final 53. This is equates to manageable risk, but risk nonetheless.

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