Ravens WR Zay Flowers won't play in wild-card game Saturday vs. Steelers
Published in Football
BALTIMORE — Ravens Pro Bowl wide receiver Zay Flowers will not play in Saturday’s wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, coach John Harbaugh announced Thursday.
Filling the void left by Baltimore’s leading receiver will also be a collective effort.
“We’ll move guys around,” Harbaugh said. “Guys will play spots based on the game plan and the ball will go where it goes based on the way it unfolds in terms of how they play us.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons and Lamar [Jackson] will distribute [the ball] the way he sees fit.”
Flowers suffered a sprained right knee early in the second quarter of Baltimore’s AFC North-clinching win over the Cleveland Browns last week, left the game and did not return. He also did not practice this week and was seen with a substantial brace on his knee in the locker room after being on crutches at the start of the week.
According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, the injury is significant enough that his availability for a potential divisional round playoff game next weekend could also be in question. Harbaugh said only that Flowers is “locked in” on his rehabilitation and that he would see how he looked next week.
Not having the second-year receiver is an obvious blow to what was the NFL’s top offense this season.
Flowers led the Ravens in catches (74) and yards (1,059) to go with four touchdowns and accounted for more than 25% of the team’s targets from Jackson, who has quickly developed a chemistry with the fellow South Floridian. Flowers had five catches for 100 yards in the most recent meeting between the Ravens and Steelers last month, which Baltimore won, 34-17, at M&T Bank Stadium.
The Ravens’ next-best wide receiver is Rashod Bateman, who has 45 catches for a career-high 756 yards and nine touchdowns. But the group is thin beyond Bateman with Nelson Agholor, Tylan Wallace, rookie Devontez Walker and Steven Sims the only other receivers on the roster.
It’s also likely that Baltimore will call up a receiver from the practice squad for Saturday’s game, though there hasn’t been a lot of production from the group outside of Flowers and Bateman.
Agholor has just 14 catches for 231 yards and two touchdowns in 14 games and hasn’t played since Baltimore’s Week 15 win over the New York Giants after suffering a concussion in that game. Wallace, who has split time between special teams and receiver, has 11 catches for 193 yards and one score. Walker, a fourth-round pick out of North Carolina, has appeared in just nine games with just 57 snaps on offense, though he did have a touchdown on his lone catch this season.
Still, Harbaugh insists it won’t affect the game plan.
“We still got all our plays that we run,” he said. “Guys will be doing them that we feel are best suited to do different jobs in this game against the opponent we’re playing.”
That could mean the Ravens will rely even more on tight ends Mark Andrews (55 catches, 673 yards, 11 TDs), who has caught a touchdown pass in each of the past six games, and Isaiah Likely (42 catches, 477 yards, 6 TDs).
They can also lean on what was the league’s top rushing attack, led by Derrick Henry’s 1,921 yards and 16 touchdowns. Justice Hill is also back after being out since the Ravens’ game against the Steelers last month with a concussion followed by illness.
Hill, along with potentially the speedy Keaton Mitchell, gives the Ravens another receiving threat as well.
“Justice is an experienced player,” Harbaugh said. “He’s been in these games before. He’s really versatile in terms of what he can do skill set-wise. He can take some of those jobs that Zay does — he’s in the backfield, he’s out of the backfield.
“It gives you a lot of options with Justice.”
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