The Baltimore Ravens lost a game that they should have and could have won for the third time this season. Now, sitting at 7-3, there are plenty of questions that need to be answered, and the team has a short week to answer them.
What are the biggest questions coming from the game?
10. Was Sunday the best game of Zay Flowers' career with the Baltimore Ravens?
One of the small takeaways from the loss that is not being discussed is that Zay Flowers had the best game of his career. It was not a career-high in yards, but it was a career-high in yards per route run at 2.81. More than that, he did it against a strong Cleveland Browns defense, and he did in ways that he has not done in the past.
A lot of the Flowers touches early in the year are manufactured. He had 30% of his targets come on screen passes. Also, Flowers downfield targets came against zone coverage.
He entered the game averaging 0.86 yards per route run against man coverage. On Sunday, he had three catches against man, and averaged 2.44 yards per route run against man. No targets came on screens or anything manufactured. He was working down the field more and getting open on his own. That is exactly what the Ravens needed to see.
Now, what can he do to raise that ceiling? Flowers has shown that he can beat man and that he does not need to be forcefed screens near the line of scrimmage. It is fine to use him in that area, but can the Ravens start to trust him to run some of these more complex routes?