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2026 Fantasy Outlook

Zay Flowers

WR · Ravens

Ravens

WR1, Year 4

WR20

ADP (46 ovr)

187.7

Proj Half-PPR

Proj Rec

1,103

Proj Rec Yds

Flowers was the PPR WR7 in 2025, and his target share hit 29%, the third year running that every share metric climbed and nobody else on the roster came close. The scoring never caught up. That's 5 receiving touchdowns for a third straight season, even with the yardage rising. Most of the problem is the red zone, where 12 targets went for negative EPA. Corners crowded him more as the year went on, and he kept producing anyway.

The big 2026 change is the play-caller. Declan Doyle is 29 and has never called plays before, and he takes over from Todd Monken with a Payton-tree offense built on play-action (he wants it near 32%, up from 24%), heavy motion, and more snaps under center. Flowers is already one of the better play-action targets in the league, so that shift works in his favor. The room got thinner around him: Hopkins, Likely, and Kolar left with 90 targets between them, and DeCosta has said Baltimore will lean into three- and four-receiver sets. Lamar Jackson is the hedge. His finish to 2025 was a clear step down after the hamstring, with his red-zone passing falling apart and his designed-run rate cut in half, which takes some of the teeth out of the play-action Flowers depends on.

QB Quality

Lamar Jackson is a two-time MVP, but the version that ended 2025 was a diminished one after the hamstring. The deep ball still worked. His deep-attempt EPA stayed among the league's best, which lines up with where Flowers does his own damage downfield. Play-action ties the two together, and Flowers ran 28 play-action targets at strongly positive EPA with Doyle wanting more of it. The soft spots are the red zone and third-and-short, where Lamar's passing cratered after the injury, and those happen to be the same places Flowers hasn't converted.

Playcall

Doyle borrows the Payton-tree concepts he ran in Chicago: under-center looks, more play-action, motion on nearly every snap, and a screen game Baltimore hardly touched. Flowers' best route is the intermediate crosser (his in/dig work graded in the 90th percentile and stayed positive on every down), which is the part of the tree Doyle wants to grow. The catch is that Doyle has never called plays in a real game, so the in-game sequencing is a genuine unknown, and he's replacing a coordinator who had Baltimore first in total yards two years ago.

Competition

Mark Andrews

TE1, target hierarchy #2 at 17% share

AGING-TE1

Andrews and Flowers combined for 45% of Baltimore's receiving yards in 2025, but the gap is Flowers' at ~30% weekly target share to Andrews' ~17%. At 31 with a career-low 422 yards and +1.55 EPA (down from +50.10 in 2024), Andrews is declining rather than pushing for alpha share.

Rashod Bateman

Nominal WR2, cratered to 19/224/2 in 2025

X-RECEIVER

Bateman spiked to 45/756/9 in 2024, then collapsed to 19/224/2 the next year. His career EPA arc frames 2024 as the outlier (+44.98, 13th, then -1.68, 176th). Entering Year 6, he's the field-stretcher opposite Flowers but hasn't held that role two seasons running.

Ja'Kobi Lane

R3 2026 rookie, 6-4/208 red-zone target

RZ-ROOKIE

DeCosta drafted Lane as a red-zone jump-ball threat, the exact area where Flowers hasn't converted. He carried 11 drops at USC, so the hands are a question, but if he takes the goal-line package he directly caps Flowers' touchdown path.

Elijah Sarratt

R4 2026 rookie, big-slot from Indiana

SLOT-ROOKIE

Sarratt profiles as a big-slot receiver and scored 15 touchdowns in the 2025 College Football Playoff run. He competes with Lane for the WR3 snaps behind Flowers and Bateman.

Devontez Walker

Deep-only specialist, 8 targets in 12 games

DEEP-DEPTH

Walker (R4 2024) is a vertical specialist at a 24.5 aDOT who saw just 8 targets across 12 games in 2025. He's a situational field-stretcher, not a volume threat to Flowers.

Scheme Fit

Play-action deployment fits Doyle's install

Intermediate crossers are his best route

Vacated targets funnel to a proven alpha

Red-zone conversion is the standing hole

Hitch/curl is the trap route

Lamar's post-hamstring form is a drag

Key Variables

Does the touchdown count finally move? 5 receiving TDs in each of three seasons despite volume climbing, with Lane drafted to work the goal line Flowers hasn't owned.
Does Doyle's play-action and motion expansion actually land, given he has never called plays on a game day?
Does Lamar's post-hamstring mobility return? Designed runs fell 16% to 7%, and a diminished rushing threat tightens Flowers' intermediate windows.
Does Flowers capture the vacated 90 targets to reach 130+, or do the 2026 rookies and a Bateman bounce-back split them?

Fantasy Range

Bull

WR5-8

130+ targets on expanded share and Doyle's red-zone install converting 5 TDs into 7-8.

Base

WR15-18

Share holds near 29%, ~85/1,150 line, touchdowns tick up only modestly.

Bear

WR20-24

Doyle's install stalls, the TD cap holds at 5, and Lamar stays diminished.

Health

Flowers played all 17 games in 2025 at a 90% snap share, and health hasn't really been a recurring issue. The one real absence was a Week 18 knee injury in 2024 that knocked him out of the playoff run. His file also carries a rookie-year concussion, a fifth-metatarsal stress fracture that needed surgery, and a rib contusion, none of which cost him much time. He missed part of June's mandatory minicamp, but nothing was attached to it and Baltimore expects him full-go for camp. The one thing worth tracking is a 5-9, 182 frame carrying 90%-plus of the snaps.

Take him at his WR20 price for the yardage floor, and watch the August red-zone package: if Flowers rather than the rookie Lane is working the goal line, he's worth a bump toward WR12.

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