Welcome to our fantasy football Breakouts, Busts, and Locks, a series on RotoBaller where our writers look at three key players on each NFL team. Today, we're talking about the Baltimore Ravens.
With a new offensive coordinator, cast of weapons, and a healthy Lamar Jackson back at the helm, what can the Ravens do this season?
Below, you'll find a fantasy football breakout candidate, a fantasy football bust candidate, and a safe fantasy football pick for the Ravens based on current ADP for fantasy football drafts in 2023.
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Fantasy Football Breakout: J.K. Dobbins
It’s about time for a J.K. Dobbins breakout. The 24-year-old enters a 2023 contract year, which is always an added bonus for fantasy purposes. The Ravens roster one-dimensional backup in Gus Edwards as Dobbins’ main competition for backfield touches, surprisingly ignoring the position both in free agency and the NFL Draft. Dobbins' superior explosiveness should allow him to handle the vast majority of carries in Baltimore’s superb rushing attack with Lamar Jackson back under center.
Let’s rewind to 2020 when Dobbins was selected as a second-round pick. The Ohio State product was an upside late-round fantasy investment that year playing behind veteran Mark Ingram II. The incumbent vet sustained a Week 6 high-ankle sprain, serving as the impetus for Dobbins’ initial breakthrough as he ran away with the team's featured-runner duties despite only starting one game.
While the rookie's snaps fluctuated, Dobbins' numbers spoke for themselves. The youngster scampered for 113 yards in Week 7 of the season and closed the campaign by rolling up a league-winning 82.5 rushing yards on just 12.7 carries per game with seven touchdowns over his final six 2020 contests. His exciting end hyped Dobbins as a second-year 2021 breakout candidate, but an untimely preseason ACL tear would unfortunately put those hopes to bed.
Fast forward to 2022, and Dobbins' most recent campaign warrants a big asterisk as Baltimore played it very slowly with the tailback on his way back from ACL rehabilitation. The third-year back's stop-and-go season caused him to miss 10 games throughout in getting Dobbins fully back to speed.
Excluding a Week 6 game where Dobbins' knee “locked up”, the efficient ball carrier recorded at least 40 total yards in eight other full outings. Dobbins looked a bit sluggish out of the gates during his initial four bouts for 40.5 rushing yards per game. He really got going after sitting out Weeks 7 to 13, rumbling for 99.3 rushing yards on only 14.3 carries per day over his concluding five games.
The hyper-efficient runner boasts 5.9 yards per carry over his career with blurring evasiveness and dynamic breakaway ability. Dobbins reminds me of another Miles Sanders, who sprinted to 5.1 YPC across his first three years before a total fourth-year breakout during his first fully healthy season as a lead back. A similar trajectory could be in store for Dobbins in 2023. Treat him as a high-ceiling, low-floor RB2 with touchdown dependency considering Dobbins averages a lone catch for seven yards over his 23-game career.
Fantasy Football Bust: Zay Flowers
It would have been pretty easy to go with 30-year-old Odell Beckham Jr. off his second ACL tear in this slot, but let's go against the grain a bit since we're basing our picks here on ADP. 2023 first-round rookie Zay Flowers holds a ton of upside; I want to be high on the youngster in a potentially aggressive passing game with new offensive coordinator Todd Monken. However, Flowers might represent the weakest ADP value out of him, Beckham, and Rashod Bateman.
Each of these receivers is positioned to start in three-WR sets as volatile WR3 fantasy options to begin the year. In FFPC drafts, however, the professionally-unproven Flowers (108.8) is going closely with Bateman (108.6), who generated 19 yards per catch in 2022. Beckham falls under the radar a bit at 121.5.
It's fair to wonder whether Flowers could be 2023’s version of Jahan Dotson or Skyy Moore. These parallels are drawn in comparison to size, play style, and draft capital. Dotson at least demonstrated a regular knack for finding the end zone as a rookie, but Moore was a complete bust from the get-go in his first year.
Flowers registered PlayerProfiler’s 56th-worst athleticism score out of 72 graded wideouts in the 2023 class. The Boston College product displays shiftiness and catch-and-run prowess, but his senior-year 13.8 yards-per-reception average is fairly ordinary based on college figures. 2022 was the first year out of four in which Flowers exceeded a 53% catch rate, calling into question his ability to secure passes both in traffic and down the field.
The 22-year-old would need to run circles around Beckham, who is being paid up to $18 million this year, to pay off his pricier ADP. I’m aiming for Beckham as a cheaper flier in this revamped attack. If forced to pick between Flowers and Bateman, I'm siding with the latter, who should be fully over his LisFranc injury no later than the second half of the season. Searching for the cheapest ADP cost seems like the proper course of action here. Flowers could be fourth on the target tree with Mark Andrews obviously absorbing most of the looks.
Fantasy Football Lock: Lamar Jackson
Since I took a bit of a leap of faith choosing Flowers as a bust, I'll opt for the shoo-in with this one. Fresh of bagging a five-year, $260 million contract extension this offseason, Lamar Jackson can fully set his sights on the 2023 season with that elephant in the room finally put to bed. The former NFL MVP has yet to recapture his wild 2019 passing efficiency (83.0 QBR), but Jackson has remained a fantasy cheat code as an every-week, matchup-proof QB1.
The improvising quarterback has run for at least 63 yards per game (54 games) since he became the full-time Ravens starter in 2019. Since Jackson's MVP spectacle that year, he has notched an overall QB8 season or better despite averaging only 203.9 passing yards over this span. Jackson signifies as good a bet as any player for 2023 MVP honors with a potential uptick in pace with pass-happy OC Todd Monken now calling plays in Baltimore this year.
After a scintillating three-game start to 2022 with 749 passing yards, 10 passing touchdowns, 243 rushing yards, and two rushing scores, Jackson quieted down considerably during his final eight games. The 26-year-old posted just 185.3 passing yards per game with seven total scores from Weeks 4 to 12 before a Week 13 PCL sprain ultimately ended his campaign.
Jackson's 64 rushing yards per game during this cool-off maintained a low-end QB1 status despite falling short of 200 yards through the air in four of these eight outings. It’s just a testament to how high the fantasy showstopper's floor truly is. Don't let that take away from how extraordinary the former All-Pro's ceiling was, either.
Jackson has also been top four in fantasy points per dropback each year since 2019. Even if the scrambling signal-caller can’t make a leap as a thrower, 2023 easily features the best supporting cast of Jackson's entire career. Jackson is regularly coming off the board two rounds later (50.2 FFPC ADP) than fellow elite QB1s Patrick Mahomes (28.2), Jalen Hurts (28.5), and Josh Allen (31.1) in 10-team settings this summer. Yet, Jackson should be regarded as interchangeable with any of those field generals near the end of Round 3.
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