Sleepers, Busts and Bets: The 2022 Baltimore Ravens

Daniel Kelley and Jeremy Popielarz continue with the 2022 Sleepers, Busts and Bets series to preview all 32 NFL teams for the upcoming year. Next up: The Cleveland Browns.

Daniel and Jeremy will list their picks with confidence in “The Answers,” Then expand upon their picks with more details reason in “The Explanation.”

The Answers

Favorite Sleeper

Kelley: Devin Duvernay
Popielarz: Tylan Wallace

Biggest Bust

Kelley: J.K. Dobbins
Popielarz: Mark Andrews

Boldest Bet

Kelley: Lamar Jackson Finishes as the QB2
Popielarz: Rashod Bateman is a Top-15 PPR WR

The Explanation

Sleeper

Kelley: Devin Duvernay

Rashod Bateman is the popular sleeper among the Ravens’ pass-catchers, and not unfairly, as he’s set up to be the team’s No. 1 receiver all year. But pending Baltimore adding another receiver between now and Week 1 (which, to be clear, is 100% a possibility), Devin Duvernay is extremely set up as a No. 2. That role isn’t a high-ceiling one, to be sure, but it’s one that offers fantasy viability, particularly in best ball leagues, which is where this sleeper pick really comes into play.

Bateman had 67 targets last year, compared to only 47 for Duvernay. But when they got in close, that flipped, with Duvernay getting 8 targets in the red zone (4 in the end zone) compared to 6 (and 3) for Bateman. With Marquise Brown (16 red-zone targets), Devonta Freeman (9), Sammy Watkins (4) and Latavius Murray (4) all gone, there is plenty of red-zone work up for grabs. Sure, maybe Mark Andrews gets even more of the looks in close, but he can’t command everything. If Duvernay gets the other available red-zone work over Bateman, he’ll have a handful of spike weeks that will really help a best ball team as a last-round pick. 

Popielarz: Tylan Wallace

The second wide receiver taken by the Ravens in the 2021 NFL Draft, Tylan Wallace has been overshadowed by Rashod Bateman. All the talk this offseason has surrounded Bateman — and for good reason — but there are still glaring holes at the team’s WR2/WR3 positions. This is where Wallace comes into play. He is currently battling with James Proche and Devin Durvenay for a role in this Ravens offense. Both Wallace and Proche had over 3,000 yards and 25 touchdowns in their college careers. However, Wallace averaged over 16 yards a reception, producing three consecutive 900-yard seasons despite only playing 38 games. He showed off his ability to win at the catch point and win through physicality often at Oklahoma State. That’s a much-needed part of this offense. As the second option in this offense, his upside and floor are likely capped due to the run-heavy scheme, but if the Ravens begin to spread the ball around a touch more Wallace can carve out weekly flex value for fantasy managers. 

Bust

Kelley: J.K. Dobbins

From a talent perspective, there’s no real reason to think J.K. Dobbins (if healthy) is significantly worse than fellow 2020 second-rounders D’Andre Swift, Jonathan Taylor or Cam Akers. But his situation just doesn’t scream big-time fantasy value. In Lamar Jackson’s three seasons as the full-time starter, Ravens’ running backs have totaled a league-low 207 targets, one of only four teams (along with Seattle, Pittsburgh and the Rams) under 250 and less than half of the league-leading 469 for the Chargers.

Devonta Freeman last year is the only Ravens back in the last three years to even reach 30 targets, and 17 of his targets came in games Jackson missed or left early. Last year, the top 30 PPR backs averaged 53.3 targets, with only four (Nick Chubb, Damien Harris, Derrick Henry and Elijah Mitchell) coming in under 37. None of those backs had a big-time rushing quarterback to contend with, and that’s even before you consider that Gus Edwards is also around in Baltimore. And of course this all assumes Dobbins is back healthy and 100% from the start of the year, which increasingly doesn’t appear likely. There are far too many worries about Dobbins for his current RB21 draft price. He shouldn’t be going in the top 30 backs.

Popielarz: Mark Andrews

Mark Andrews is a phenomenal talent and deserves all the targets he receives, but last season’s overall TE1 finish may have been a fluke. He saw a career-high 153 targets in 2021 — per the FTN Fantasy advanced receiving stats, 22 of these were in the red zone, with 9 converted for touchdowns. Of those 153 targets, 118 were first read targets, second on the Ravens. This was all with Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards and Marquise Brown all missing time, leaving Andrews as the only true target for chunks of the season. With a fully healthy offense expected in 2022, there will be more mouths to feed, likely reducing Andrews’ target share. That would settling him back down closer to 100 targets, similar to his 2019 season where he finished as the TE5 with 209 PPR points. Also, we can expect the Ravens to look Dobbins’ way in the red zone more in 2022, something they did a lot at the end of the 2020 season. That would take away from Andrews’ touchdown total and limit his fantasy upside. For someone coming off a TE1 season and still being drafted as the TE2, a top-five finish (or worse) would be bust-level, even if he still finishes as a fantasy starter.

Bet

Kelley: Lamar Jackson Finishes as the Fantasy QB2

Lamar Jackson was on pace for his third straight 1,000-yard rushing season last year even without making adjustments for his 10-snap Week 14. His touchdown percentage, which was almost certainly unrepeatably high at 9.0% in his MVP 2019, has overcorrected and sat at 4.2% last year, and he only scored 2 rushing touchdowns after back-to-back seasons with 7 each. Give him health and even a little bit more touchdown luck, and he should have no trouble rising back up to the elite of the elite in fantasy scoring.

Popielarz: Rashod Bateman is a Top-15 PPR WR

This may seem a tad bullish, but we saw Marquise Brown light up the fantasy community last season, steadily finishing in the WR1 ranks until Week 11. In that time, he reached as high as the WR6, averaging over 17 PPR points per week. After Lamar Jackson officially hit the inactive list in Week 13, Brown slipped down the ranks, ultimately finishing as the WR22. Heading into this season, Jackson is healthy and has Rashod Bateman as his new No. 1 guy. We should expect to see Bateman hit the 146-target mark Brown reached last season, and he could even exceed it if Jackson stays healthy for all 17 games. Last season, Bateman averaged 8.6 PPR points per game, but also put together six weeks with double-digit points. He had four games of eight or more targets and produced double-digit fantasy points in all of them.

If Bateman does see 8-plus targets a game in 2022, there’s no reason to expect anything less than a top-15 finish from him, especially if he finds improved touchdown luck after scoring only once on 67 targets in 2021. Prorate Bateman’s 13.5-point PPR average from his four games with big targets over 17 weeks, and you get 229.5 PPR points. That would have been the WR21 last season. Add in a few more touchdowns and blow-up games along the way, and he can easily produce an extra 14 points to get himself into the top 15.