The Ravens are having a hell of an offseason after a great run in 2019. The Ravens added 2 potential stars in the draft via Patrick Queen and JK Dobbins, Lamar Jackson (enthusiastically?) acknowledged praise he received from polarizing president Donald Trump, and now we have the Earl Thomas story.
I need to know everything about this. I need the six-part Netflix documentary with the Wondery podcast to boot. When did orgies with his brother become his go-to method to blow off steam? This is all the material that Ballers needs for a one-season reboot. Are you in, Dwayne?
The details are just so perfect for our boredom without competition right now. Earl Thomas gets the standard “you drink too much” talk. Like, come on, it’s quarantine, what else is one supposed to do? He decides that group sex with his biological brother is just what he needs to forget about it all. His wife, knowing that he is up to no good, finds him via his Snapchat location (turn it off man), then grabs the strap and a couple of friends to set him straight. This Ballers script writes itself. His wife barges in, Earl dials out to The Rock. Spencer Strasmore answers his phone, “Yo Spence, I have a serious problem! My wife is craaaazy!!!” Spencer hastily blows off whatever zoom meeting he’s in about saving the 2020 NFL season, jumps in his Porsche and hollers “send me your location!” Earl fires back, “check my snap!” I could go on for pages about this, but without much happening in the sports world, I should probably save some sporadically useful material. But I do want to dive into Mark Andrews for the 2020 season.
Mark Andrews broke out in a big way in 2019 like a lot of fantasy analysts thought that he would. Andrews finished as the TE5 in PPR scoring. He was the final of the 5 tight ends to finish with at least 200 fantasy points. By the way, 2019 was the first season since 2015 that 5 tight ends finished with at least 200 fantasy points. Miss you, Gary Barnidge.
Andrews didn’t come close to playing every snap, but he still managed to catch 10 touchdown passes from Lamar Jackson. Andrews averages 14.3 yards per reception in his career, that’s pretty impressive. Andrews also led the Ravens in red zone targets (15) in 2019 and 8 of those targets have been vacated with the departure of Hayden Hurst.
Outside of Hayden Hurst leaving, there is another factor that favors Andrews in 2020. To minimize risk and increase longevity of Lamar Jackson’s prime, Jackson wants to run less and throw more. This bodes well for Andrew’s future opportunities to get the ball in his hands. Andrews should now be more of a starting tight end than a situational one after Hurst’s departure.
Mark Andrews’ ADP is at the end of the 3rd round right now. I think that this is a reasonable price considering that I think that his stat line could look something like 77/1,100/12. I could even see the receptions being higher without feeling too out of pocket. After drafting a running back and wide receiver in the first two rounds, I don’t see an issue with taking a chance on Andrews in the 3rd round. He has a pretty high floor and a very high ceiling.
