Even with the mud nonetheless deciding on the conclusion of the Ravens’ season, staff brass want to their future, which incorporates embattled tight finish Mark Andrews.
Chatting with the media Wednesday following Sunday’s Divisional Spherical loss to the Payments, head coach John Harbaugh and common supervisor Eric DeCosta lauded the dedication and psychological toughness of Andrews, whose fourth-quarter fumble and late drop have been below a microscope following the 27-25 defeat.
“Mark Andrews is a good soccer participant, and he’s additionally a really tough-minded particular person. So yeah, he takes it arduous trigger he cares a lot,” Harbaugh, 62, mentioned. “I like Mark Andrews, Eric loves Mark, all of our gamers love Mark. Mark is a big a part of our future, we love him and we’re there for him. If anybody can take a tricky circumstance like that and deal with it with class and beauty and dignity and psychological toughness, it’s most positively Mark Andrews.”
Andrews, 29, didn’t haul in a cross from quarterback Lamar Jackson within the fourth quarter of Sunday’s win-or-go-home contest in Buffalo.
Jackson, 28, had led an eight-play, 88-yard landing drive to place the Ravens inside two factors of Buffalo.
The quarterback tried to attach for a two-point conversion with Andrews, who couldn’t maintain onto the ball in frigid Western New York, with Buffalo in the end punching its ticket to an AFC Championship matchup towards the Chiefs.
Each Harbaugh and Jackson defended the tight finish afterward.
“We’re a staff,” Jackson mentioned. “…It’s not his fault. We’re not gonna put that on Mark.”
Harbaugh said the Ravens “wouldn’t be right here with out Mark Andrews,” a sentiment he reiterated in Wednesday’s gathering.
“One among my messages to him was we aren’t the place we’re at all through the course of the season or within the recreation with out the contributions of Mark,” the longtime Ravens coach mentioned Wednesday.
Andrews is coming into the ultimate yr of a four-year, $56 million extension he signed in 2021 — three years after the staff chosen him with the 86th total choose within the 2018 NFL Draft.
Though DeCosta didn’t publicize his communications with Andrews at Wednesday’s press convention, the GM mentioned the staff will “have some selections to make” as different tight ends are additionally coming into the ultimate yr of their pacts.
Amid what’s been a difficult few days for Andrews, who didn’t converse to the media after Sunday’s recreation, Payments Mafia has provided its assist.
Buffalo followers have arrange a GoFundMe to lift cash on behalf of Breakthrough T1D, a non-profit centered on discovering a treatment for Sort 1 diabetes that Andrews helps amid his personal prognosis.
Over $70,000 has been raised as of Wednesday afternoon.