BALTIMORE — Baltimore Ravens center Matt Skura has been benched after two straight games of bad snaps, a source confirmed Sunday.
Patrick Mekari, who made five starts last season after Skura suffered a season-ending knee injury, will start at center for Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans.
Skura, who is in his third season as Baltimore’s starting center, made two costly poor snaps in last Sunday’s 23-17 loss at New England. One wild snap to running back Mark Ingram in the Wildcat formation stopped the Ravens from converting on fourth down, and another errant snap to Lamar Jackson came late in the game to stop a potential game-winning drive.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh initially chalked up the bad snaps to the heavy rain in New England, but he said a day later that the issue had to get fixed.
“Are the snaps concerning us? Absolutely; that was very costly in the game,” Harbaugh said on Monday. “It’s a tough deal. That’s a hard situation, but Matt [Skura] knows he has to get those snaps back there. Nobody feels worse about it than he does.”
After the loss in New England, Skura said his family had received “hateful and threatening” direct messages on social media.
“They do not deserve to be scrutinized for something they did not do,” Skura wrote on Instagram.
This was the second game that Skura had struggled with his snaps in the pistol formation, where Jackson lines up four yards behind center. In a win at Indianapolis on Nov. 8, Skura had trouble lifting the ball off the ground in getting the ball back to Jackson. This was blamed on a cut on Skura’s thumb.
Skura, 27, made a remarkable recovery this offseason from a devastating knee injury. He tore the ACL, PCL and MCL in his left knee last November and was back for training camp eight months later.
That injury cost Skura, a former undrafted player, $1.1 million this year. As a restricted free agent, he received the low $2.1 tender instead of a $3.2 million one because the Ravens knew no team would sign him to an offer sheet because he was injured. Skura will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
The benching of Skura marks another change in a reshuffled Baltimore offensive line, which has two starters (left tackle Ronnie Stanley and right guard Tyre Phillips) on injured reserve. This marks the fifth different starting combination for the offensive line in 10 games this season. Last year, the Ravens had two different starting lineups on the offensive line the entire season.
The NFL Network was the first to report Skura’s benching.