Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Chris Moore has taken a step in his second year and deserves more targets going forward.
It’s no surprise that the Baltimore Ravens’ passing attack has been horrible this year. Behind the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears, they rank third worst in the league averaging just 179.8 passing yards per game. This is with one of the highest paid quarterbacks and two veteran wide receivers who the Ravens are paying a combined $22.5 million over the course of their contracts. What the offense has had to show for it is embarrassing. Not to mention, your 2015 first-round pick has been an extreme disappointment and a healthy scratch three out of the last four weeks.
Even with the struggles, the Ravens have had at receiver this season there is a silver lining and that’s been second-year wideout, Chris Moore. Buried in the depth chart his rookie season, Moore has become a special teams standout and one of the most reliable receiving targets in the past few weeks. He’s produced in an increased role and deserves more targets going forward.
With Breshad Perriman inactive, Moore has become the third wide receiver of the group. In recent weeks, he’s been even more important than that. Moore has his best game of the season against the Steelers, nabbing three catches including a 30-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter. While Moore isn’t necessarily lighting up the stat sheet, he’s making the important catches. For a player that caught just seven passes for 46 yards his rookie season, this is a huge jump.
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For a wide receiver, improvements come with confidence. Not only confidence in catching passes and touchdowns but instilling the confidence in the quarterback throwing you the football. Joe Flacco praised Moore during a press conference today and spoke on his improvements as a wide receiver.
Joe Flacco says that we're starting to see Chris Moore find a new level. #RavensFlock pic.twitter.com/tY4ILsEH9z
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) December 13, 2017
In the last three games, Moore has caught nine passes in the ten targets that have been thrown his way. Each ball caught is more and more confidence built. You can tell Moore is improving and even broke out the FIFA style celebration after his touchdown on Sunday.
Coming into this season, we knew the Ravens weren’t going to be a pass-first team but that didn’t mean completely abandoning the pass. As great as Alex Collins has been on the ground, there still has to be an element of the passing game present to win football games. That’s just the reality of the NFL. Wallace, Maclin, and Perriman have all been extremely disappointing for a group we were told not to sleep on. It feels like they’ve fallen asleep themselves but Moore has awakened that partially.
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The passing game isn’t going to change overnight and the Ravens need to vastly improve the wide receiver position. That may be getting rid of Wallace or Maclin but that’s a topic to be discussed during the offseason. For the time being, Chris Moore deserves to be a top target the rest of the season. He’s the only wide receiver that’s shown much of anything the past few weeks and he should be treated as such.