Most improved position groups during the 2023 NFL offseason

Receiving corp – Baltimore Ravens

Additions: Odell Beckham Jr., Nelson Agholor & Zay Flowers

Subtractions: Demarcus Robinson, Sammy Watkins, DeSean Jackson & Josh Oliver

Ravens wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr., Nelson Agholor and Zay Flowers

I don’t believe many casual fans realize how dire the receiver situation for the Ravens has been these last couple of years. Other than Marquise Brown doing it twice – who was traded to Arizona during last year’s draft – no player other than Mark Andrews has caught 50+ passes in any of Lamar Jackson’s four seasons as a full-time starter.

While Baltimore did want to utilize heavy personnel extensively under former OC Greg Roman, the fact that fullback Patrick Ricard – in the year 2022 – was on the field for 63.7% of offensive snaps, tells you about the state this group of skill-position players was in.

I’d say Demarcus Robinson is a solid WR2/WR3, but he was clearly the primary target for this unit once Rashod Bateman went down with a foot injury. Sammy Watkins was on his third team in as many years, being signed on December 20, once the Packers released him (after the Ravens had already let him walk in free agency). DeSean Jackson was brought in off the couch in Week 9 and Josh Oliver was a solid TE3 for this group, but certainly expendable with what Isaiah Likely showed as a rookie and the fact they drafted Charlie Kolar a few picks earlier in that draft. You pay up for OBJ, draft Zay Flowers in the first round and get Nelson Agholor on a bargain deal? That completely changes the picture.

With the backgrounds on the subtractions already out of the way, let me get straight to Odell here. Do I believe his service for this season on the field are worth 15 million dollars, coming off his second torn ACL in the pros? – Probably not. Yet, considering what the rest of the free agent market looked like at wide receiver, you needed to pay up if you wanted the only guy with superstar caché.

Now, he hasn’t been that type of player since 2019 at least, but up to that point, he put up over 1,000 yards in each of the prior six seasons, other than when he broke his ankle in 2017. The injuries have certainly taken away some of the explosiveness, but Odell still boasts a career mark of 2.13 yards per route run and as the number two in L.A.

The Rams used his ability to win in contested catch situations (63.2% rate in 2022), in particular as a goal-line threat, when he scored seven TDs in 12 total games and he was off to a fulminant start in Super Bowl LVI. And for the full season, his average separation gained at 2.6 yards was just 0.1 yards behind the likes of Stefon Diggs, A.J. Brown, Mike Evans and D.J. Moore.

He’s still one of the best receivers on slants, post-routes and double-moves that we have in the game and will be a great technician to learn from for those young pass-catchers in Baltimore. His effect was already felt, as it represented a sort of bridge between Lamar and the organization, in order to finally lock down that big contract.

As for Nelson Agholor, he was actually the first in line in terms of the offseason additions they made. A big reason he signed in Baltimore for this year at just 3.25 million – a third of what the Patriots paid him annually on his prior contract – was that he thought he could see a heavy target share.

In a more specific role is where you’d think he can excel more so and while his two years in New England weren’t overly productive, he’s earned elite PFF grades on passes of 10+ and 20+ yards respectively in each of the last three years. Now, by drafting another guy in the first round and Bateman coming back from injury, Agholor should be WR4 on this squad, and he’s a high-quality option.

Let’s now get to the name I’m most excited for, however – Zay Flowers, my WR1 in this previous draft. Despite being part of an underwhelming Boston College program with highly inconsistent quarterback play, he stuck around four years before leaving as their all-time leader in receiving yards (3056).

There’s room for improving his ability to manipulate defenders in off-coverage, but if this kid cleans up his focus drops, he has the chance to win at all three levels and scare defenses to go the distance on any given play. Zay has easy acceleration off the line and was routinely deployed as a vertical threat to pull away coverage, yet he still put up a yards-per-route-run mark of 2.15 or better in each of his three seasons as a starter.

Last year he hauled in 12 of 27 passes of 20+ air yards for 500 yards and four TDs. And while he’s not the biggest guy at 5’9”, he has bulked up to 183 pounds during the pre-draft process and actually had a 58.3% contested catch rate as a senior. That’s along with being able to take a shallow crosser towards the opposite sideline and run away from the pursuit, how he can stick his foot in the ground to make people miss in the open field and his underrated power to bounce off glancing hits without much delay.

Now with Todd Monken taking over as offensive coordinator, I think we see a pretty dramatic shift. Not only in terms of using a lot more 11 personnel but also in terms of the passing concepts, with a much better understanding for putting defenders in conflict and using the newly-acquired pieces at his disposal, to have options on all three downs (thanks to how interchangeable those guys could be in terms of alignment and route depth).

Honorable mention: New York Giants