AFC North WR Corps: Baltimore Ravens
The AFC North has by far the most intriguing group of wide receivers corps in the league. Top to bottom all four teams are very interesting at the position. I’ll be covering each team of the four teams. This installment will be focusing on the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens don’t have any wideouts with no glaring red flags, however, they do have a plethora of wideouts with massive upside. The only receiver locked into a starting job is 37-year-old veteran Steve Smith.
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Smith’s swan-song 2015 season was abruptly ended by a torn Achilles, which caused him to push his retirement off and return for one last season. Through seven games last year, he had surpassed 100 yards three times with games of 137, 150 and 186 yards. He also had multiple double-digit catch games and three touchdowns. His stat line at that point was 46 receptions, 670 yards, and three touchdowns, which comes out to just under 96 yards per game and over 100 catches and seven TDs if averaged out over 16 games.
The fiery future Hall of Famer is clearly the star of the show, but his age is a concern. Especially when you hit midseason when he’s proven to hit a wall. The biggest concern I have is that Smith may be susceptible to a drastic decline around midseason. Last year we didn’t get to see because he was injured Week 8, which is another red flag. In 2014 after another hot start, he cooled down significantly after Week 6. He played well Week 17. Nevertheless, he wasn’t very good from Game 7 through 15.
If Smith does in fact fall off a cliff, it will open the door for another wide receiver to step up into a WR1 role. Michael Campanaro and Super Bowl XLIX star Chris Matthews are worth mentioning as in the mix as potential contributors, but I’ll be focusing on Kamar Aiken, Mike Wallace and Breshad Perriman. There have been conflicting reports regarding who the starting WR2 is entering Ravens camp. Both Aiken and Wallace have been declared starter by various reliable sources.
Aiken was forced into a WR1 job last season after an unprecedented rash of injuries to the Ravens pass-catchers. He certainly earned a ton of respect and proved he belonged in the NFL and on the field. Nevertheless, he also didn’t convince anybody he should definitely be a starter on a winning team. He finished 2015 with a respectable 75 receptions for 944 yards and five touchdowns. After Smith went down, Aiken caught at least five passes in every game. I few him as a the more consistent reliable third option Baltimore. Smith will be the top guy and Aiken will be behind the big-play home run threat.
The question is, who is that home run threat? We have veteran Mike Wallace who has struggled in recent years after a blazing start to his career and red shirt rookie Breshad Perriman. A first-round pick yet to play an NFL snap. I have never liked Perriman and believed he should have been a third-round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft. As great as the Ravens are as drafters, they are miserable when it comes to drafting wide receivers. The two greatest wideouts they’ve drafted in the team’s history are Torrey Smith and Mark Clayton. Need I say more?
Perriman never made it on the field last season due to what head coach John Harbaugh called the slowest healing PCL of all-time. He only rocketed up draft boards because of a superhuman pro day. He has a rare combination of speed and size at 6-foot-2, 218 pounds. The fact that he can run a 4.25 40-yard dash at his size is ridiculous. Still, there is a lot more to being an NFL wide receiver than just running fast in a straight line. He has alarming similarities as another one of these other outstanding athletes that aren’t good their positions. Guys like Cordarrelle Patterson, Justin Hunter, and Darrius Heyward-Bey.
Entering the draft he had the worst hands of any wide receiver in the draft statistically and lacks a complete route tree with polished route running skills. The former Central Florida Knights’ standout had a horrendous drop rate of 12.96 percent. These are all the warning signs of a first-round bust. There is nothing about him I like and I completely expect him to be a bust of epic proportion.
Wallace on the other hand is a guy I anticipate having a major bounce-back season. He has been in a descending spiral since departing the Pittsburgh Steelers before the 2013 season. At that point he was viewed as one of the most fear-striking deep threats in the league during his four-year tenure with the Steelers then he inked an enormous $60 million deal with the Miami Dolphins.
He wasn’t awful with the Phins. He caught 10 touchdowns in 2014 and averaged 70 receptions with just under 900 yards during his two-year stay in South Florida. Nevertheless, he wasn’t the same guy he was in Pittsburgh. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill struggled with the deep ball and it greatly hindered Wallace’s greatest strength. The two just never got on the same page. Things really fell apart last season when he joined the Minnesota Vikings though. It was by far the worst year of his NFL career.
His new quarterback, Teddy Bridgewater, looked like a young QB on the way up. Unfortunately, he showed a complete lack of ability to throw the ball more than 20 yards downfield completing just 11 of 42 passes past the 20-yard mark. He was dreadful overall even throwing the ball more than 10 yards. Needless to say, Wallace struggled exceedingly, and it was rare even to see him involved in the offense. The entire passing game as a whole was an afterthought for the most part. Wallace totaled just 39 receptions for 473 yards and two touchdowns.
In Baltimore, he has a legitimate shot to be a top option and Joe Flacco is the perfect QB for his skill set. He’s an elite deep ball passer and Wallace still has wheels. He’s a one-trick pony, but this is the perfect spot to get the most out of that one trick.
Smith should be viewed as the No. 1 wideout, although, he could slow down at some point and his injury is a concern. Wallace will be the premier big-play threat who will bounce back in a major way. Then Aiken will be a reliable set of hand that will step up when called upon just like he did last year.
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Perriman should just hope to stay ahead of Campanaro and Matthews on the depth chart. He’ll be handed every opportunity but I doubt it makes a difference.