The Baltimore Ravens enter the 2023 offseason with numerous needs on both sides of the ball. Free agency is one avenue for them to address them, including at the wide receiver position — where the Ravens will undoubtedly be in the market for new talent.
Let’s take a look at one potential player they could target in free agency — wide receiver Jakobi Meyers from the New England Patriots.
Age: 26 years old
Experience: 4 seasons
2022 stats: (14 games) 67 receptions on 96 targets, 804 receiving yards, 12.0 yards per catch, six touchdowns
Spotrac Value: 4 years, $50 million ($12.5 million annual average)
In 2019, Jakobi Meyers went undrafted out of North Carolina State. He was scooped up by the New England Patriots and has since finished as the team’s leading receiver in each of the past three seasons, totaling over 200 receptions and nearly 2,400 yards combined.
Now, Meyers is a pending free agent and is due for a significant pay raise after raising his value recently.
Meyers posted a career-high 866 yards with 83 receptions in 2021. This past season, he recorded a 804-yard, 67-catch campaign with six touchdown catches. Had he not missed three games, Meyers almost surely would have had a career-best season and possibly exceeded the 1,000-yard receiving mark. His 57.4 receiving yards per game were the highest single-season mark he’s had.
The 26-year-old played over 76% of the Patriots’ offensive snaps in three straight seasons since 2020. Catching passes for several different quarterbacks over that span including Cam Newton, Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe and others, Meyers has managed to produce.
At 6-foot-2, Meyers is a possession-type wideout. 236 of his 804 receiving yards in 2022 came after-the-catch, which ranked No. 79 in the NFL among all pass-catchers. He’s not a speedster nor a huge scoring threat, with only eight career scores — six of which came last season.
Jakobi Meyers remains the most underrated receiver in the league. pic.twitter.com/jFuIiPzdbu
— Dave Kluge (@DaveKluge) January 8, 2023
However, Meyers has a career catch rate of 68.3% and has 37 or more first down receptions during the same previous three-year period. Perhaps his greatest attribute has been consistency, which proved valuable for a Patriots’ receiving core lacking high-end talent.
Similarly, the Ravens wide receiver corps is also devoid of high-end talent. So, Meyers would in theory be an instant upgrade at the WR2 slot in Baltimore.