Baltimore Gives Us Everything We Want. Including a Very Large Bill.

There is a dangerous thing that happens when we like an offense.

Eventually, we start liking everybody in it.

The quarterback is Lamar Jackson. Derrick Henry is apparently immortal. Zay Flowers keeps getting better. Mark Andrews has been catching touchdowns in Baltimore since roughly the invention of electricity.

Pretty soon the whole roster gets airport pricing.

Yes, the sandwich is $19.

No, there is nowhere else to eat.

That is Baltimore in 2026.

The AutoDraftYears model projects the Ravens for 27.2 points per game, fourth in the NFL, with the best running back environment in football.

The problem?

The market already values Baltimore as the 17th-most valuable fantasy roster.

Our model has it 30th.

And there isn't a single Raven who clears our buy threshold.

So the question isn't whether Baltimore will be good.

It's whether everyone has already paid for Baltimore becoming good again.

2025 was the season Baltimore couldn't quite rescue

It is easy to look at Baltimore's 24.9 points per game and describe 2025 as a merely disappointing offensive season.

That undersells the experience.

The Ravens started 1-5.

Then they won five straight.

Suddenly they were 6-5, alive again, and everyone could resume pretending the first six weeks had been an administrative error.

Then Baltimore never won consecutive games again.

The Ravens finished 8-9 and went into Week 18 against Pittsburgh with the AFC North and a playoff spot available. Tyler Loop missed a 44-yard field goal as time expired, Pittsburgh won 26-24, and the season ended. Baltimore's own players described the year as an underachievement.

It was that kind of season.

The more important fantasy detail was what happened to Lamar Jackson.

Jackson missed four games with injuries and spent much of the second half dealing with various physical issues. He still posted a 103.8 passer rating with 21 touchdowns against seven interceptions in 13 games.

But the rushing production disappeared.

In 2024:

915 rushing yards.

In 2025:

349.

His carries fell from 139 to 67.

For fantasy purposes, this is approximately the difference between buying a sports car and discovering the dealership removed two wheels.

Baltimore's offense fell from No. 1 in total offense in 2024 to 16th in 2025.

And yet several pieces around Lamar still worked.

Derrick Henry ran for 1,595 yards and 16 touchdowns, averaging 5.2 yards per carry at age 31.

Zay Flowers had the best season of his career: 86 catches, 1,211 yards and five touchdowns.

Mark Andrews went the other direction, finishing with a career-low 422 receiving yards on 48 catches.

So Baltimore wasn't an offense without talent.

It was an offense that never consistently operated at full capacity.

That distinction matters for 2026.

The model is betting on the machine working again

The AutoDraftYears forecast moves Baltimore from 24.9 to 27.2 points per game.

That sounds aggressive until you remember the Ravens scored 27.7 in 2023 and 30.1 in 2024.

But the model is assuming more than better health.

Baltimore ran only 54.6 offensive snaps per game last season.

The forecast: 62.4.

Pass rate rises from 45.4% to 50.2%.

That is the real bet.

And Baltimore has changed the people making those decisions.

After missing the playoffs, the Ravens hired Jesse Minter as head coach and Declan Doyle as offensive coordinator. Doyle came from Chicago, whose offense passed on 54.6% of its plays last season.

That doesn't mean Baltimore suddenly becomes Cincinnati.

Henry remains Henry.

But 50.2% looks less like a philosophical revolution and more like Baltimore moving slightly closer to normal society.

There is uncertainty here. Doyle is installing a new system and, as of this offseason, has never called plays at any level.

Still, give Lamar better health, more plays and slightly more passing volume, and 27.2 points per game becomes pretty easy to imagine.

The model's positional environments reflect that:

• QB: 13th
• RB: 1st
• WR: 13th
• TE: 9th

The 30 historical offenses most similar to Baltimore's forecast produced 3.2 fantasy starters on average, compared with 2.6 across all 320 team-seasons.

This should be a productive offense.

Which brings us to the annoying part.

Everyone else also knows Baltimore should rebound

Here are the prices:

Market and Model are ranks within the position. Edge is the model's position rank against the market's, after removing the drift that affects every player at that price — so it reads as “the model likes him this many places more than it likes the typical player who costs this much.” A call needs the edge to clear the position's bar (QB 5, RB 15, WR 11, TE 5 places), set at two-thirds of that position's own spread.

There are no buys.

This is usually the point where I feel some urge to find one.

Surely Derrick Henry?

Maybe Flowers?

Someone?

But if every team conveniently contained a sleeper, a value and a fade, we wouldn't have a model.

We'd have horoscopes.

Lamar is the difficult one

The market has Lamar QB2.

The model has him QB20.

That sounds ridiculous until you separate football quality from draft price.

Baltimore's quarterback environment ranks only 13th.

Lamar is coming off a season in which his rushing volume was cut roughly in half and his rushing yardage fell by more than 60%.

Could that reverse completely with better health?

Of course.

That is also what QB2 is charging you for.

At pick 51, you aren't betting that Lamar Jackson is good.

You are betting that his rushing returns, the new offense works, the volume improves and he creates enough separation from cheaper quarterbacks to justify the opportunity cost.

The model doesn't want to pay for all of that up front.

Neither do I.

Derrick Henry is boringly reasonable

Henry is different.

Market: RB12.

Model: RB8.

Baltimore owns the model's No. 1 running back environment.

Henry just produced 1,595 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns.

His +5 edge doesn't clear our +13 RB buy threshold, but I have no problem drafting him around cost.

This isn't finding value.

This is walking into Costco, seeing the price is exactly what you expected, and buying the enormous object anyway.

Flowers is also priced about right

Flowers quietly became the stable part of Baltimore's passing game last year.

He set career highs in receptions and yards and earned another Pro Bowl selection. Baltimore then gave him a major extension this August.

The market has him WR16.

The model: WR20.

Adjusted edge: zero.

Fine.

Increased pass volume could lift him, but you're already paying for an established lead receiver.

Andrews requires more faith than I'm willing to buy

Andrews is TE15 in the market and TE24 in the model.

The environment isn't the problem. Baltimore ranks ninth for tight ends.

The problem is the trajectory.

Andrews fell to 422 receiving yards in 2025, his lowest total in a healthy season, even as Flowers took another step forward.

There is a legitimate counterargument: Isaiah Likely left in free agency, freeing up 36 targets from last season.

Maybe Andrews gets more work.

At TE15, though, I'm not particularly interested in paying for the name and hoping the role travels backward through time.

The number I care about in September

Snaps.

The model projects 62.4 offensive plays per game.

Baltimore managed only 54.6 last season.

That is a gigantic difference.

If the Ravens are regularly living around 62 plays early in the year, suddenly the whole forecast has oxygen.

More Henry carries.

More Flowers targets.

More opportunities for Lamar.

More chances for Andrews to make me regret writing this.

If Baltimore remains in the mid-50s?

Then we're trying to divide essentially the same-sized pie among players the market has already priced for improvement.

And airport food remains expensive even when the sandwich is pretty good.

What should fantasy managers do?

I expect Baltimore to rebound.

The AutoDraftYears model expects Baltimore to rebound.

The Ravens changed coaches, Lamar should have a better chance at entering the season healthy, and the offense contains a Hall of Fame-level running back and an ascending No. 1 receiver.

None of that automatically makes Baltimore a buying opportunity.

Henry is fine at RB12.

Flowers is fine at WR16.

I don't want Lamar at QB2 prices.

I don't want Andrews at TE15.

And I am not inventing a Ravens sleeper just because fantasy content feels more satisfying when everybody gets a recommendation.

Sometimes the analysis ends somewhere less exciting:

Baltimore should be good.

Everyone already knows.

Sources: Auto Draft Years FF Model workbook — Team Data By Year, Team Stat Ranking, 2026 Team Context; Auto Draft Years 2026 consensus board (16 authoritative market sources); Player outcomes 2016–2025, Pro Football Reference via the project dataset. Team environment grades, forecasts and player model ranks are proprietary. Every figure on this page is generated from the dataset at build time; none is typed in by hand.