a 30% target-share alpha who scored only five times; the touchdowns regress up.
Zay Flowers 2026 Season Preview — the clean profile in a TD-light range
Show notes & transcript▾
Zay Flowers quietly became a thirty-percent-target-share alpha on the best rushing offense in football — and scored only five times doing it. That gap is the value. The Muffed 2026 preview on the cleanest buy in this batch.
The season: twelve hundred eleven yards on eighty-six catches, a thirty percent target share and thirty-six percent of the air yards, all seventeen games — genuine alpha usage on a run-first Ravens team that fed Derrick Henry sixteen touchdowns. WR13 per game. The signature was a Week 18 catch-and-run at Pittsburgh: a twenty-four-yard throw he turned into a sixty-four-yard touchdown, forty of it after the catch. The talent is obvious; the volume is locked.
The arc is a steady climb: twelve-nine, twelve-three, fourteen-three. No spike to fear — just a young alpha trending up in usage and production.
Here's why it's a buy. The thing that repeats — targets — he has in bulk, thirty percent of a healthy offense. The thing that doesn't repeat is touchdowns, and his is suppressed: five receiving scores on a hundred eighteen targets and twelve hundred yards is a low rate, the kind that regresses up, not down. His touchdown share, at fifteen percent, is well under the fade line. You're buying a rising alpha at the floor of his touchdown variance — the same structure that made Jefferson and Lamb buys, one tier down.
The situation is pure upside, per the reports: Baltimore brought in a new coordinator, the offense is reportedly going to play faster and throw more, and Lamar Jackson publicly said "we need Zay." More volume on an already-thirty-percent share, with positive touchdown regression baked in, is the bull case writing itself. The honest caveat: it's still a run-first offense that fed Henry sixteen touchdowns, so the scoring ceiling has a real cap.
The price: pick thirty-six, the fifteenth receiver. Verdict: LEAN — underpriced. He finished WR13 on sticky volume with the touchdowns due to climb, and he's priced WR15. The counter: the Henry-led run script limits the absolute ceiling, so this is a steady-riser value, not a league-winner upside play. But at WR15, the clean profile is worth more than the price.
September watch: the touchdown rate — five scores has nowhere to go but up if the offense throws more; and the pace under the new coordinator. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 86 catches for 1,211 yards, 5 TDs on 118 targets; 62 rushing yards, 1 rushing TDs (17 games)
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2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Zay Flowers 2025 Season in Review
WR7 on the season — 17 games, 14.3 PPR/game
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Zay Flowers 2025 Season in Review
WR7 on the season — 17 games, 14.3 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Zay Flowers finished 2025 as the number 7 wide receiver in total PPR scoring but only the number 13 wide receiver in PPR per game — and that gap tells you almost everything about his year. He played all 17 games. That's the unsexy superpower that vaulted him into the top ten even though his weekly average sat outside the position's elite tier. Flowers was the undisputed number one on a Ravens offense that leaned run-heavy — Derrick Henry smashed 307 carries for 1,595 yards and 16 scores, and Baltimore's rushing expected points added ranked first in the league. So Flowers wasn't catching passes in a volume aerial attack; he was the one guy Lamar Jackson kept feeding in a pass game that struggled. Baltimore went 8 and 9 and missed the playoffs, and Flowers's line — 86 catches, 1,211 yards, 5 receiving touchdowns plus a rushing score — is the line of a true number one carrying the route tree on an offense that didn't always cooperate.
Now let's dig into the numbers behind that ranking. Flowers averaged 14.3 PPR points per game on 118 targets — a 30 percent target share, elite territory for a primary wideout and the foundation of his floor. His air yards share sat at 36 percent, so he wasn't just a volume guy underneath; he was the downfield engine too. The efficiency held: 14-plus yards a grab, plus 62 rushing yards on 10 carries at 6.2 a pop. But the per-game rank of number 13 starts to make sense once you see the variance — this was a boom-or-bust spine wrapped in a 17-game availability blanket. Four games at 20 PPR or better, including a 29.8-point finale and a 28.1-point opener. Four games under 12, including a 0.6-point disaster against the Bengals in Week 13 and a 3.3 against the Lions in Week 3. The touchdown count drags the per-game number too — only 5 receiving scores on 118 targets is light for a target hog, and Baltimore's red-zone touchdown rate of 59.7 percent ranked just 22nd in the league.
The play that captures Flowers's season came in Week 18 at Pittsburgh — third and 1, ball at the Steelers' 34, Ravens down 17 to 20 in the fourth. Jackson dropped back in shotgun and threw deep left to Flowers, who turned a 24-yard pass into a 64-yard touchdown, picking up 40 after the catch on his own. Plus 6.6 in expected points added on a single snap. That's Flowers in miniature — the number one target on a run-first team, asked to win one-on-one in a high-leverage spot, and delivering an explosive that semifinal and final managers felt directly. The Ravens still lost. They still missed the playoffs. Flowers still posted 29.8. That's the season.
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