Mark Andrews

Andrews made the leap from good to elite in his fourth NFL season, blowing away his career highs with 153 targets, 107 catches and 1,361 receiving yards, each of which led tight ends. He also tied for the league lead at the position with nine touchdowns, giving him 26 scores the last three years. More impressive, his outstanding production came during a season in which Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson missed five full games and most of a sixth. The Baltimore offense remains run-first, but that was less true last season, and Andrews is now the unquestioned top option in the passing game after wide receiver Marquise Brown was traded to Arizona on draft day. Andrews is a proven contributor in the red zone, where he has a league- high 20 scores since 2019 and led all TEs with 22 targets last year. When the Ravens fall behind, Andrews usually sees a steady diet of passes thrown his way, and if they’re ahead there’s a good chance he scored to put them there. No tight end has had consecutive seasons of 1,300-plus receiving yards, so it might be a bit much to ask for a repeat from Andrews after he posted the third-most yards by a tight end in league history. But he could see a slight drop in production and still wind up as the top tight end in fantasy, or at least close to it.

Andrews followed his breakout 2019 with a solid but unspectacular 2020, taking a step back along with the rest of the Baltimore offense. Although he finished TE3 in points per game and TE5 in cumulative scoring, Andrews was much closer to the mediocre pack at his position than he was to Travis Kelce or Darren Waller at the top. When it came to making big plays downfield or in the red zone, Andrews was right there with Kelce, Waller and George Kittle the last couple seasons, averaging 12.7 YPC and scoring 17 TDs. But while those other guys got big-time volume, Andrews averaged 6.4 targets, playing only 44.1 percent of Baltimore’s offensive snaps in his 15 games in 2019 and 65.0 percent in his 14 appearances in 2020. The lack of a three-down role could be attributed to either durability or blocking concerns, but either way, Andrews' snap shares barely changed after fellow tight end Nick Boyle suffered a season-ending injury in Week 10 last year. All of that may keep Andrews' target ceiling around 100, but it's not like his talent is going to waste as the seam-stretcher and red-zone weapon in Lamar Jackson and Greg Roman's run-first offense.

Andrews made good on the promise of his late-season rookie surge, breaking out in 2019 as the top receiving weapon in the NFL's highest-scoring offense. Of course, it was also the league's most run-heavy offense, which explains how he fell a tick shy of triple-digit targets despite accounting for 23 percent of the team total in his 15 active games (he sat out a meaningless Week 17 contest). Andrews was a true statistical anomaly, finishing fourth among TEs in target share and fifth in total targets but only 35th in snaps (467, 44.2 percent share). It might be argued that the modest snap counts actually worked in his favor, with Andrews handling minimal blocking work while regularly taking the field for passing downs. On the other hand, there were at least two or three games where his modest workloads appeared to be related to nagging foot, ankle or knee injuries. With no report of surgery being needed during the offseason, Andrews is locked in as one of the preferred targets for reigning MVP Lamar Jackson, who enters his age-23 season with the potential for continued development as a passer. Andrews probably can't sustain the outrageous per-snap production from last season, but he can make up the difference with more playing time now that former backup Hayden Hurst is off to Atlanta and out of the Ravens' picture.

We had some fun with Baltimore's tight end hoarding on the eve of the 2018 season, and that over-collection might have kept a good man down for much of the year. Andrews only saw 50 targets in 16 games as a rookie - perhaps it was because Hayden Hurst was selected two rounds in front of him - but he smashed when called upon with 11 yards per target. (O.J. Howard was the only tight end with a better mark and more than 20 targets.) Andrews at least was part of the team's mix come playoff time, leading Baltimore in targets during its wild-card loss to the Chargers. Andrews posts these flashy downfield numbers because he's more of an oversized wide receiver on the field. He ran over half of his routes last year from the slot, which is critical for two reasons: it generally frees him from any blocking assignment, and it's easier to get a clean release off the line without the burden of a hand in the ground. Last year, the Baltimore crowding had us reluctant to buy into any of the Ravens tight ends, but the impressive rookie season puts Andrews high up on the 2019 sleeper list.

Andrews was the second tight end selected by the Ravens in the first three rounds and is an extremely interesting prospect when projecting his skills to the modern NFL. He's built like a standard in-line tight end at 6-5 and 256 pounds, but Oklahoma's spread scheme used him as a mismatch out of the slot rather than as a blocker. Thus, Andrews will have a learning curve in becoming a complete NFL tight end. Andrews' athleticism and pass-catching ability are his selling points and the traits that could make him a success at this level. He averaged over 15.0 yards per reception each of his three years at Oklahoma and his success as a big slot man can make one dream on an Evan Engram-type of trajectory. The Ravens will need to be innovative in creating a similar role for Andrews because it's tough to otherwise see him cracking the early-down rotation with Nick Boyle and first-rounder Hayden Hurst also in the fold.