The school of hard knocks arrived at ball so hard university today when the news broke that Baltimore Ravens LB Terrell Suggs tore his achilles and is likely out for six months. Suggs said he expects to return midseason.

Suggs is a star defensive player and was recently awarded the Defensive Player of the Year. He is known for his tough, rock’em, sock’em playing style and his absence creates a huge hole that the Ravens need to fill.

It is hard to find a silver lining in this situation, but is it still early, the start of the season is five months away and they have plenty of time to solve this problem. Last week they drafted Alabama LB Courtney Upshaw who now is even more likely to become a starter this season.

There is already talk of who else the Ravens can pull in to help fill the hole and right now it is anyone’s’ guess as to who that player would be.

Suggs was a major force on the Ravens defense last season, he had career-high 14 sacks and two interceptions.

The Ravens released a statement via their Tweeter feed to say:

“We are in contact with Terrell. He will see a specialist early next week, and we’ll know more at that time.”

It is still too early to know the extent of his injury and the prognosis, until then the Ravens will need to plan for the worst case scenario and find a way to fill the void that Suggs’ injury created.