Tyler “Snoop” Huntley is a soft-spoken, frequently smiling, mostly unassuming Southeast Florida kid with a single-minded focus on the field: to win. He has shown, with limited opportunities, the ability to make it happen.
So while he’s not Lamar Jackson — there is only one — he is at least built from the same stuff.
It is no surprise, then, that the Ravens QB1 and QB2 are close. They share side-by-side space in the locker room, seats on the team plane during road trips, and even, sometimes, a ride on a green John Deere gator at the Ravens practice facility in Owings Mills.
To the outside world, going from Jackson, a league MVP, to Huntley, who went undrafted, might seem like a significant change. The Ravens, though, say there’s little difference — and they will be challenged to prove it over the coming weeks.
When the Ravens (8-4) play the rival Steelers (5-7), winners of two straight, in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Jackson will almost certainly be out with what ESPN says is a sprained PCL in his left knee that could keep him off the field for a few weeks. Huntley will make his fifth start at quarterback for Baltimore, and a playoff berth is increasingly hanging in the balance.
Jackson and Huntley’s relationship actually goes back nearly a decade, most prominently to an epic district high school championship game in October 2014 when Huntley’s Hallandale Chargers in Florida beat Jackson’s Boynton Beach Wildcats in a back-and-forth 38-36 classic that ended Jackson’s high school career. Jackson still talks about that game; Huntley was a year younger and out-dueled him under the Friday night lights. It also foreshadowed their future.
All these years later, there might not be a more perfect one-two quarterback combination on an NFL roster, certainly among the type with the dual-threat running and passing skills of Jackson, the youngest-ever Heisman winner, and Huntley, a former star at the University of Utah. Ravens guard Kevin Zeitler went so far to tell The Baltimore Banner of his trust in Huntley, “He can do anything Lamar can do.”
In relief of Jackson on Sunday, Huntley showed his mettle, Jackson-esque abilities and, as tight end Mark Andrews said, what he’s “learned from Lamar.” Huntley led a 91-yard game-winning drive in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, eventually scoring a two-yard go-ahead touchdown with 28 seconds left to give the Ravens a 10-9 win over the Denver Broncos.
(Huntley told reporters after the game that he planned to visit Jackson at home to check on how his friend was doing with his knee. “Got to make sure my boy is OK,” he said.)
The situation is remarkably similar to what the Ravens faced this time last year, which could be good or bad. Last November, Huntley led the Ravens on a game-winning 72-yard drive against the Chicago Bears when Jackson was sick, then started three of the Ravens’ final four games after Jackson’s season ended early because of a bone bruise in his ankle.
But the Ravens lost all of those games, and ended 2021 on a six-game losing streak. They infamously fell from first overall seed in the AFC to out of the postseason entirely.
Yet Huntley — a wiry third-year pro who led Utah to a Pac-12 title game as a senior — proved to be an effective fill-in, and the Ravens offense didn’t look substantially different. He kept the Ravens competitive in each of his appearances, went toe-to-toe with Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers in a one-point loss, and gave the Ravens a chance in another one-point loss to the Los Angeles Rams, who went on to win the Super Bowl.
Most importantly, given this week’s opponent, he also got a first-hand taste of the AFC North’s (and arguably the NFL’s) most bitter rivalry. Huntley threw two interceptions in the Ravens’ 16-13 overtime loss to the Steelers in Week 18 that officially eliminated the team from playoff contention.
Despite all these storylines, Ravens coach John Harbaugh tried to downplay any of the narratives being discussed this week.
“He’s played well when he’s been out there,” Harbaugh said of Huntley. “They [our guys] see him practice every day, they see how hard he works, and they know he’s talented. So, he’s the guy, and that’s it. You guys are going to make a way bigger story about it than we are; I know that. We’re going to play the game on Sunday, and Tyler [Huntley] is practicing today and had a good practice, and that’s really where we’re at.”
For all the generational talent, 2019 NFL MVP trophy and attention that Jackson has, relatively little changes for the offense with Huntley in his place. That’s by design, since the Ravens signed Huntley as an undrafted free agent back in April 2020. It was a similar idea with having recent former backups Trace McSorley and Robert Griffin III on the roster behind Jackson.
Huntley runs well enough to evade NFL defenders. He might not have the one-of-a-kind explosiveness that Jackson has when he’s healthy, but Huntley is certainty a better runner than many pro quarterbacks. He showed that in particular in the 31-30 run-and-shootout against Green Bay last season. In three quarters of action Sunday, he led the Ravens in rushing with 41 yards against the Broncos. Last year against the Steelers, in addition to throwing for 141 yards, Huntley rushed for 72 yards, becoming the second quarterback in NFL history to rush for at least 40 yards in each of the first four starts of his career. Jackson was the first.
“They’re one of the few teams that have major quarterback mobility that have done a consistent job of making sure that that mobility isn’t lost when their starter goes down,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “We’d better minimize that component of play. It’s the signature of the Ravens attack.”
And, perhaps like Jackson, Huntley might be most effective throwing short and intermediate passes, as he showed coming on in relief Sunday too. Against Denver, 16 of Huntley’s 27 completions were for 10 yards or less.
Ravens rookie center Tyler Linderbaum doesn’t want to give away any state secrets, but, yes, he said, the offensive playbook is the same no matter if he’s snapping the football to Baltimore’s superstar quarterback or his lesser-known backup.
“Snoop’s been in the system for quite a while now,” Linderbaum said in the Ravens locker room on Sunday.
Maybe most important is that last part. Huntley’s earned the trust of his teammates in general. In fact, this summer Huntley was the first quarterback the Ravens rookies and free agents worked with during voluntary organized team activities — or “OTAs” — that Jackson did not attend.
“I didn’t know what the heck I was doing while learning the offense, and he brought me along,” right tackle Morgan Moses said. “You see him in the huddle, you see him on the sidelines, during practice, talking to guys. Guys respect him. They respect his craft, what he brings to the table, and how he approaches the game. When you have that set of tools, it goes a long way.”
They will definitely need those tools Sunday. Harbaugh said on Monday that “it’s not impossible” that Jackson would play against the Steelers, but he hasn’t practiced this week, and Huntley has taken all of the first-team reps in drills the past two days. Additionally, the team signed another quarterback, Brett Hundley, to the practice squad this week and he could be elevated to the active roster for Sunday.
And while the Ravens have faith in Snoop, the troubled final weeks of last season loom over this team. Huntley was good last year, but the end of the season was painful — and the similarities this year are too similar to ignore.
Five regular season games left. Injuries all over the place. A tight division race. Not to mention four games against division opponents, including two against the Steelers, whom the Ravens haven’t beaten since 2019, and one on the road against the Cincinnati Bengals, whom the Ravens are tied with atop the AFC North. The Ravens might have to lean on their defense and run game. But whatever happens, they know they have a quarterback they believe in. As Linderbaum put it: “Snoop’s a baller.”
That nickname, by the way, doesn’t have a complicated backstory: Huntley told his teammate Marlon Humphrey on an Instagram Live video earlier this year, “Long story short, I was skinny with long hair. Got the name Snoop.”
“He’s the man,” said Zeitler, whom Huntley ran behind for the game-winning touchdown against the Broncos. “He’s played a lot. Going back to last year, he had us in every single game. With him back there, we aren’t worried. Tyler can lead us and let us do good things the rest of this year, or however long we need him.”
Corey McLaughlin is a veteran writer and editor who has covered sports in Baltimore for a decade, including for Baltimore magazine, USA Lacrosse Magazine and several other publications.
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