Welcome to the AFC North version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Baltimore Ravens. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Baltimore Ravens in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	-8.11 –
4th Down Go For It!	15.53
Target GINI	0.5895
Rushing GINI	0.7512
Plays/Game: Offense	62.3

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue and doesn’t have a symbol, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

Considering how similar Baltimore’s 2024 and 2025 squads are, it makes formulating expectations pretty straightforward.

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Lamar Jackson	QB1
Derrick Henry	RB3
Justice Hill	RB39
Zay Flowers	WR23
Rashod Bateman	WR35
Mark Andrews	TE5
Isaiah Likely	TE16
Justin Tucker	K13

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Justin Tucker, Nelson Agholor

Added: DeAndre Hopkins

If it seems like not much has changed for Baltimore over the offseason, well, that’s because it hasn’t. They switched up their long-time kicker and their WR3, but that’s about it. 

Baltimore returns 4 of 5 starters along their offensive line as they carry on their theme of continuity. LG is a genuine question mark for the Ravens, but the 4 returning starters should buy them time to get it figured out.

Baltimore’s coaching staff remains unchanged from ’24 to ’25, so we don’t expect much, if anything, to change schematically.

Looking Ahead to the Baltimore Ravens in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Lamar Jackson	5
Derrick Henry, Justice Hill	5
Zay Flower, Rashod Bateman, DeAndre Hopkins	2
Mark Andrews	3
Tyler Loop (R)	1

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Lamar Jackson	QB1
Derrick Henry	RB4
Justice Hill	RB50
Zay Flowers	WR21
Rashod Bateman	WR59
DeAndre Hopkins	WR78
Mark Andrews	TE8
Tyler Loop (R)	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	@ Buffalo	W
2	Cleveland	W
3	Detroit	W
4	@ Kansas City	L
5	Houston	W
6	Los Angeles Rams	W
7	BYE	–
8	Chicago	W
9	@ Miami	W
10	@ Minnesota	L
11	@ Cleveland	W
12	New York Jets	W
13	Cincinnati	W
14	Pittsburgh	W
15	@ Cincinnati	L
16	New England	W
17	@ Green Bay	L

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 12-4

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Ravens

“Lou, you didn’t rank Tyler Loop!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. That Baltimore won’t have Justin Tucker kicking this year will be jarring for us, but rookie Tyler Loop should get plenty of scoring chances thanks to Baltimore’s potent offense.

“Oh, you expect us to throw the ball? Well, we’re gonna run the ball even harder!” When your QB rushes for the equivalent of RB33 on the year in addition to your two top 40 scoring RBs, you can get away with things like that. That Baltimore had the QB1, RB3, and RB39 made it borderline miraculous that their pass-catchers did much of note at all. Yet even though they lacked high-end finishes, the Ravens still boasted usable fantasy assets at both WR and TE.

While I can’t say that I trust the Ravens’ WRs, my confidence ranking is largely based on how often they run. It’s difficult to rely on them when there may only be ~20 targets to go around in a game. While Flowers should continue to garner a greater percentage than any other, it’s hard to imagine he exceeds the 10-target threshold in more than a handful of games.

Normally, we should be scared off when a coach pulls an RB off the field on 3rd downs, obvious passing downs, and the final two minutes of halves. It’s a testament to the quality of Baltimore’s running game as well as Derrick Henry’s seeming immortality. While Saquon Barkley got all the headlines in his quest for 2k yards, Henry himself barely fell short of that mark with 1921. It’s never a great process to predict near-historic production. While I don’t expect it, I don’t expect him to fall short of it by much. 

If There is a League Winner In Baltimore, it’s…

A shame. Because you’re looking in the wrong place.

I don’t say this to be overly harsh; it’s simply a statement of fact. Baltimore is great at having depth filled with niche role players, but they’re not great at having depth filled with talent who just need a chance to shine. The closest would be TE Isaiah Likely, who we saw blow up Week 1 of ’24 before he was relegated to obscurity once again. Even then, it would take something happening to Mark Andrews, as well as probably Zay Flowers, for Likely to approach that league-winning status. That’s a lot of boxes to check to meet that upside.

This doesn’t mean Likely isn’t worth drafting, just to be clear. Just go in with eyes open.

Deep League Draft Target

After ripping apart his knee at the end of 2023, Keaton Mitchell made it back for a cup of coffee in 2024, which was in and of itself a bit of a marvel to me. Now, a full 18 months post-injury, Mitchell has stuck with the Ravens roster; something in and of itself that is rather remarkable. While we don’t expect the Ravens to use him as consistently as Justice Hill, Mitchell’s calling card is being absolutely electric whenever he touches the ball. He’ll never be a guy who gets 20 carries in a game. However, he can approach 15 touches – combination receptions and rushes – and 100 yards as upside thanks to that explosiveness. No, really, he’s super fast.

Mitchell is currently sitting at 241 overall and RB76 per FantasyPros ADP information. He’s not absolutely free, but he fits as a late-round dart throw in deep leagues.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.