Ravens WR Odell Beckham has been ruled out for the rest of Sunday's game vs. the Bengals with an ankle injury. We'll update his status when we know more. Zay Flowers, Rashod Bateman, and Nelson Agholor will operate as Baltimore's top three WRs the rest of the way.
Ravens WR Zay Flowers drew 10 targets among QB Lamar Jackson's 22 pass attempts in Sunday's easy victory over the Texans. Flowers caught nine of them for 78 yards (8.7 yards per catch). Rashod Bateman and Odell Beckham Jr. garnered 3 targets apiece, tying RB J.K. Dobbins for second on the team (and Dobbins went down in the third quarter). We'll see whether target distribution continues to look similar. Flowers at least looks like the clear top choice among Baltimore wideouts for Week 2 against Cincinnati, though.
Ravens TE Mark Andrews (quad) is officially inactive for today’s game vs. the Texans. That leaves Isaiah Likely as Baltimore’s lead TE. In two games without Andrews and with QB Lamar Jackson last season, Likely registered a 20% target share and receiving lines of 7-77-1 and 1-24-1. He’s in a new offense this year with more target competition for Baltimore’s WRs. But Likely still looks like a lower-end TE1 option for Week 1. Andrews’ absence also moves Rashod Bateman, Zay Flowers, and Odell Beckham up the WR rankings.
Ravens WR Zay Flowers' impressive August has continued in joint practices against the Commanders this week. “He showed me he can do it against anybody else, not just our team,” QB Lamar Jackson said after Tuesday's practice. “He was making some crazy moves, great route running, great in and out of his cuts, and he was catching the ball, so he was looking pretty good out there." It continues to look like Flowers is ready to make an immediate impact -- and potentially even lead Ravens WRs in fantasy points this season.
On Monday, the Athletic's Jeff Zrebiec wrote a glowing endorsement of Ravens WR Zay Flowers. Zrebiec pens, "It's hard to watch Flowers torch cornerbacks in one-on-ones with his quickness and suddenness and get targeted regularly in full-team sessions and not conclude that he'll have a significant offensive role." This report comes mere days after NBC's Peter King called Flowers his "most impressive rookie I have seen in six camps" he's visited this offseason. The former Boston College standout sits barely within the top 50 at the WR position in ADP. However, that may change as long as this drumbeat grows louder and teammate Rashod Bateman continues to miss time recovering from foot surgery. The Ravens' offense stands to throw the ball with greater frequency under new OC Todd Monken. If Flowers is one of the main focal points of this attack, he'll be a great value pick in 2023 drafts. See where Flowers slots in our current WR rankings.
NBC's Peter King made the Ravens the sixth training camp he has visited this week and had this to say afterward: "The most impressive rookie I have seen in six camps in Zay Flowers. Why? He lines up across from a corner, and unless they literally interfere with him or hold him, he has tremendous separation on almost every cut." Flowers remains low in WR4 territory in ADP. That's higher than he currently sits in our WR rankings, across formats. But we expect the Baltimore offense to lean a lot more toward the pass than it has in the past. We can only guess at just how high that pass rate will climb. And we can only guess at how a renovated WR corps will spread the target shares. There's plenty of room for Flowers to outperform our ranking and his ADP. We're in on him as a player and the Ravens as a high-upside offense this year.
ESPN analyst Matt Bowen expects the Ravens to play at a faster pace this season. That wasn’t the case last year; Baltimore ranked bottom-5 in plays per minute (1.63) and no-huddle rate (4.4%). “They decided last year under [OC Greg] Roman they were going to control tempo by slowing it down,” Bowen said. “[It was] a lot more condensed formations; they had much different personnel than you’ll see this year. [Fullback] Patrick Ricard last year played a critical role in that offense; I don’t know that he has a pivotal role this year with what I expect to see out of Monken." Bowen, a former NFL safety, shared more on his forecast for the 2023 Ravens. “This year, and I have old playbooks of Todd Monken, is a lot more spread, a lot more trips, a lot more empty," he continued. "What they’re trying to do with pace of play is to be more aggressive and control tempo in terms of creating more tempo.” We detailed more of Monken’s impact in a new article on NFL Coaching Changes. Overall, we’re bullish on this offense making considerable improvements.
The Ravens selected Boston College WR Zay Flowers with the 21st pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Flowers dealt with some bad QB play in college. His raw numbers were solid: 2,715 yards and 26 TDs over the past three seasons. But Flowers looks much more impressive from a market-share perspective. He accounted for 32.7% of his team’s receiving yards over the last three years and a whopping 45.6% of the receiving scores. He’s a fun watch on tape: an explosive route runner and dynamic after the catch. The knocks against Flowers? He’s undersized at 5’9, 182 pounds with second percentile arm length. And he’s a four-year college player who will turn 23 in September. The ceiling feels a bit capped here – at least for 2023. Baltimore’s no longer hurting for pass catchers with Mark Andrews, Rashod Bateman, and Odell Beckham. Flowers projects outside the top-50 in year one.
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