The Baltimore Ravens had a heckuva season. Everything worked out for them in the run game with Derrick Henry joining Lamar Jackson to make one of the most potent QB-RB duos in the NFL. Unfortunately, the passing game didn’t have the weaponry to come along with them. Luckily, the defense was able to come together at just the right time to get them the AFC North title. With them setting up to face the Steelers for the third time this season, what should we remember about their 2024 regular season for 2025 fantasy football leagues?
Lamar Jackson: Pocket Passer?
At 27 years old, after winning two MVPs, Lamar Jackson maybe, hopefully, silenced the critics. He threw for 4,172 yards, and 41 touchdowns on the season (and only 5 QBs threw for 4000 yards). Both were career-highs, and he joined Joe Burrow and Baker Mayfield as the only quarterbacks in the league to have 4000+ passing yards and 40+ passing touchdowns. The major feat here? Jackson did it on 474 pass attempts. While that marked a career-high for Jackson, it was 96 fewer passes than Mayfield and 178 fewer passes than Burrow. He pulled this off while throwing the ball the sixteenth-most times in the league. He offset that by leading the NFL in both touchdown rate and yards per pass attempt.
Lamar Jackson was the most efficient quarterback in the league in those two metrics, thanks to his ability to scramble and make plays. But, according to FantasyPoints’ Data Suite, he also carried the second-highest yards per attempt while in the pocket, and he had the fourth-most touchdowns (and the best TD:INT ratio at 29:4) from the pocket while boasting the highest quarterback rating in the league.
Mark Andrews: Our Touchdown-Scoring King
There’s no sugarcoating it: being a Mark Andrews manager was a tough road in the season’s first four weeks. He had two goose eggs and was averaging 2.3 targets, 1.3 receptions, and 16.3 yards per game. He was on track for 276 receiving yards, which would have put him behind guys like Theo Johnson, Grant Calcaterra, and Ja’Tavion Sanders. After that point, however, he averaged 4.6 targets per game, catching 3.8 for 46.8 yards per contest and 11 touchdowns in 13 games. His 795-yard pace would have put him with the sixth-most receiving yards, ahead of Sam LaPorta. In fact, after the first four weeks of the season, Mark Andrews averaged the eighth-most yards per game, while scoring all eleven of his season-leading touchdowns. Andrews turned into a high-end blob tight end, averaging just above the 4/40 baseline we look for, but his touchdowns were immensely bankable. After week four, Andrews had nine end zone targets, which ranked third at tight end, just two behind the leader (David Njoku).
Why does week four matter? The average recovery for soft tissue injuries generally sustained in a car accident takes about 7-8 weeks to heal. Mark Andrews was involved in a car accident on August 15, 2024. Week 5 was about 7 weeks after that.
Derrick Henry: An Old Man Running Circles Around Your Favorite Team
Derrick Henry finished the season with 325 carries, 1,921 yards, and 16 rushing touchdowns. He was incredible and created a potent one-two punch with quarterback Lamar Jackson in the running game. His 113 rushing yards per game did not lead the NFL, but he did lead the NFL in a different completely nutty statistic, in context: Derrick Henry had 9 carries of 30+ yards on the season. The Jets, Raiders, Dolphins, and Giants all had 9 or fewer carries of 30+ yards as a team. He also had 3 50+ yard carries on the season, which was as many or more as eleven different teams.
Henry wasn’t just a big play machine, he also notched 9 100+ yard games. That ranked _ in the league, with ___ having more than 100+ rushing yard games. But, at 30 yards old, he was just one game off of Walter Payton’s record of 10 100+ rushing yard games at age 30 or older. Payton and Henry join two other backs in NFL history with at least 9 games of 100 rushing yards in their age 30 or older season: Emmitt Smith and Curtis Martin. There were only 11 such games from players in their 30s this season: 9 from Henry, one from Ameer Abdullah, and one from… Taysom Hill.
Zay Flowers Wilted Down the Stretch
Zay Flowers started the season off hot, averaging 7.4 targets, 5 receptions, and 73 yards per game. That’s a 17-game pace of 127 targets, 87 receptions, and 1,235 yards. This productivity is where many of us cemented our opinion of Zay Flowers: high volume, low yards per target; Old Bay Jarvis Landy. Then, something flipped. The Ravens drastically changed his usage. Even if you remove his two-target week eighteen injury game, Zay Flowers averaged 6.7 targets, 4 catches, and 56 yards per game. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference until you pro-rate that over a whole season: 66 catches for 954 yards. Zay Flowers’ 2024 season was a tale of two players: Brian Thomas Jr. (87 receptions for 1,282 yards), and Darnell Mooney (65 catches for 998 yards).
This was no coincidence, as the Ravens’ defense was horrid in the first half of the season, averaging 24.3 points per game allowed to opponents in Zay Flowers’ hot run. After that point, the defense locked in, allowing 17.8 points per game after week ten. The Ravens just didn’t need to chase points, so they didn’t need to push the issue with Zay Flowers. So, they didn’t. His fantasy points cratered as a result.
Yeah Bud, Sure. (Isaiah) Likely Story
As a latent Isaiah Likely Truther, let me tell you: week one absolutely ripped. Likely obliterated the Kansas City Chiefs, who forgot that tight ends existed in the first few weeks of the season. He finished with 12 targets, 9 receptions, 111 yards, and a score. And if you remember, he was a toe away from finishing with 10 catches a few more yards, and two touchdowns. Things turned terrible for Likely from there, averaging 3 targets for 2 catches, and 24.4 yards per game. He finished the season hot, scoring three touchdowns in his last five games, but his week one was mostly a mirage. But, the week one outburst showed that the Ravens are willing to focus on Likely if given the opportunity.
Why does this (Likely) one-week wonder matter (pun intended)? I have a fun little tidbit for you, should anything happen to Mark Andrews: the Ravens passed the ball to the tight end at the fifth-highest rate in the league, with a whopping 30% of targets going to the position. Should anything happen to Mark Andrews, then Isaiah Likely is a must-add tight end.
