Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews highlight the Ravens' potent offense
Yahoo Sports' Andy Behrens explains why he picked Baltimore as his NFL team to draft from.
Video Transcript
[CHEERING]
ANDY BEHRENS: My team that I actually chose as the one that I was most excited to target in drafts next season is, actually, a division rival. And it's going to be--
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Oh, I know who you're picking. I know who you're picking.
ANDY BEHRENS: It's going to be the Baltimore Ravens. Man, we had a really fun Lamar Jackson season in progress before the ankle injury, right? So he suffers the injury late in the season that is not going to carry into next year. We don't have to worry about that. In Lamar's first 11 games before that injury, he was averaging 260.5 passing yards per game and over 69 rushing yards per game.
So he was comfortably on pace to give us well over 4,000 passing yards and to rush for 1,000 yards on the season. That's ridiculous. They've got JK Dobbins returning from an ACL injury. They've got Gus Edwards returning from an ACL injury. Like, we were super stoked to be starting JK Dobbins last year, right? Like, he was a second, third round pick, an ascending player.
Marquise Brown is still only 25-years-old, Rashod Bateman is only 22-years-old. Mark Andrews is coming off a monster season. He was an All Pro, a 1,300-yard receiver. They probably are going to add receiving talent, either via free agency or the draft. It's not that I think Lamar Jackson is necessarily going to be a 4,000-yard passer in the coming year when they have that full stable in the backfield. We know that they want to run the ball relentlessly. But, man, can Lamar be like 3,800 passing yards and 1,000 or 1,100 rushing yards? I think that's very much in play. I'm really excited about that offense if it's able to stay healthy next year.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Are we at the point where Mark Andrews-- I mean, would you ever consider taking him ahead of Travis Kelce?
ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah. We've got Kelce not in his first year on the other side of 30, right? So sure. I think we're close. It's going to depend on what else happens in Baltimore's receiving corps, right? There's a handful of rookie receivers they could bring in that I would get excited about. Obviously, there's plenty of vets out there that are going to be available via free agency.
So it kind of depends what else happens. But I think I'm going to project Mark Andrews for like 1,100 yards, 1,150 receiving yards, something like that. Even in seasons where he's not a volume receiver and he's not piling up yardage, he's just been Lamar's preferred red zone target. So there's a clear path for nine, 10, 12 touchdowns, right? So I think it's close. I think it's really close. And he's certainly joined that tier.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: How proactive do you draft Dobbins after a lost season? And also tied to a running game where a lot of that pie is always going to go to the quarterback.
ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah. A lot of it goes to the quarterback. And, listen, it's not as if JK Dobbins is guaranteed a full rushing workload either. Gus Edwards is still there. Gus Edwards is still under contract and they, basically, I want to say that they're knee injuries are only a week apart, right? So they're going to be pretty much on the same recovery timeline.
So if they're both back, they're going to be sharing a workload. I just thought Dobbins was such was such a spectacular runner, not necessarily even a high volume receiver. But, listen, there's no bad way to deliver something like 1,250, 1,300 scrimmage yards and a bunch of scores.
That's been the other thing about Lamar Jackson. The Ravens don't call on him like at the 1 for a bunch of like goal-to-go touchdowns. He doesn't get a lot of that. It's almost been weird how infrequently he finds the end zone himself, right? It's been the one aspect of his game as a rusher that's a little bit lacking for fantasy purposes.
So can JK Dobbins score 10 to 14 touchdowns and give us 1,200 scrimmage yards? Sure, I sign on for that right now. I don't think I'm taking him in the second round. Like, I don't think that's enough, necessarily, to reach for him in the second round, but whenever he's available in the third round sort of just outside that running back dead zone, I'm very interested.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah. I think if you include one of the playoff games, I think he had a streak of seven games with touchdowns in a row at the end of his rookie year. So it's conceivable, maybe he could be a 10, 12, 13 touchdown guy in a healthy season. So I can sign off on that.