"Ravens wide receiver Derrick Mason said Wednesday that he did not re-fracture his right pinky finger in the same spot against the Atlanta Falcons.

He broke it in a new place, he said, and there's nothing doctors can do to help it heal.

He already has a pin in his finger; it was inserted after he hurt it earlier this season.

"There's nothing they can do this time," Mason said. "It's just something that's going to have to heal on its own."

Mason, who had his finger bandaged and in a splint during practice Wednesday, said the injury isn't going to keep him from playing this Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

"Hopefully it won't hamper me more than a couple weeks. When I'm out there, I don't really think too much about it," Mason said.

Mason said on the pain scale of 1 to 10, his finger is probably about a five.

"But by game time, it will probably go down to about a two," he said. "It just depends on whether or not I get hit on it.

For the most part, I don't feel it at all because I'm so tuned in and so focused in on what I've got to do as a player."

Ravens coach John Harbaugh said, in general, he leaves it up to the training staff and the player whether they want to try to play through an injury. But that does come with a qualifier. The player still has to be able to do his job.

"As a coach, if you don't feel like a guy can perform — if you think he's just not up to speed, even though the trainers say he can play — you're going to put the other guy [in the game]," Harbaugh said. "There are some things out there that hurt so much, a guy just can't perform through it. Other times they can. And we do have some guys like Derrick Mason that [can play through injuries]. When a guy plays so many games over so many years, you've got to assume he has a pretty good pain threshold. Derrick caught the ball well, so I think he's fine.""