We already knew the Ravens were going to be without Kenneth Dixon for the first four games of the season. Now they've lost him for the season after a surgery to repair a torn meniscus. The Ravens were already a team with a huge hole in production after losing 335 targets from 2016, now they'll lean heavily on Terrance West and new acquisition Danny Woodhead at running back.
West was a surprise in 2016, totaling 1,010 total yards and six touchdowns. He'll handle the early down and short yardage work, but he also had 34 catches last season so you shouldn't expect him to be totally left out of the passing game.
Woodhead missed most of 2016 due to injury, but we've twice seen him be a monster in the passing game in San Diego. With the Ravens propensity to dump the ball off to their backs and their lack of elite receivers, I would expect Woodhead to receive all the targets he can handle. How many that is at age 32 is another story.
Let's take a look at the revised expectations for the Ravens without Kenneth Dixon.
*Rankings expressed below are in terms of expected Fantasy points. This is a part of our actual Fantasy Football rankings but not a direct correlation to my rankings. Things like injury risk, upside, etc. factor into rankings but they're not being talked about here. This is simply an expectation as the team is currently constructed.
| Player Name | Expected FP | Position Rank | Expected PPR FP | Position Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Terrance West
BAL RB
| 151.2 | #19 | 178.2 | #19 |
Danny Woodhead
BAL RB
| 127.8 | #30 | 200.8 | #16 |
Mike Wallace
BAL WR
| 133.5 | #25 | 208.5 | #33 |
Jeremy Maclin
BAL WR
| 111.3 | #49 | 176.3 | #49 |
Breshad Perriman
BAL WR
| 83.5 | #72 | 124.5 | #74 |
Joe Flacco
BAL QB
| 298 | #21 | 298 | #21 |
Breaking down the touches
One other factor to take into account when projecting touches for the Ravens is that they threw an absurd number of passes in 2016; 679 to be exact. There's no way they repeat that, right? Well, they threw it 676 times in 2015, so, maybe. Personally, I'm not comfortable projecting that many attempts again for anyone, so I've dropped the expectation down to 625. There are still plenty of footballs to go around.
The Ravens have thrown about 45 percent of those passes to running backs and tight ends over the past three years. That's great news for Woodhead, but are we really going to get excited about Ben Watson (coming off an Achilles injury?) I didn't think so. That's why I'm reducing last year's tight end targets from 152 to 120. Watson won't get enough of those to be Fantasy relevant in anything other than extremely deep leagues with multiple flexes and a tight end bonus.
| Ravens touches | ||||||||
| Player | RuSHARE | RuATT | ReSHARE | TGT | REC | TD | ||
| Terrance West | 60% | 240 | 6% | 39 | 27 | 7 | ||
| Danny Woodhead | 25% | 100 | 16% | 99 | 73 | 6 | ||
| Mike Wallace | 0% | 0 | 20% | 125 | 75 | 6 | ||
| Jeremy Maclin | 0% | 0 | 18% | 112 | 65 | 5 | ||
| Breshad Perriman | 0% | 0 | 12% | 75 | 41 | 4 | ||
| Ben Watson | 0% | 0 | 10% | 62 | 38 | 3 | ||
Of note:
- Perriman has by far the most breakout potential, but he was pretty terrible last year following an injury-plagued rookie season. This is a huge year for him.
- The expectations for West and Woodhead seem heavy, but it's counting on a full 16 game season and the Ravens standing pat at the position. Woodhead's age and injury history must be factored in on Draft Day.
The Leftovers
Chris Moore was in line for a pretty big role in the offense before Maclin was signed. There's no guarantee Maclin stays healthy or returns to his prior form. Moore isn't worth drafting, but if Perriman struggles again, or one of the older receivers gets hurt he could step in and make an impact.
There's also a role for a third running back that will be decided in camp. That battle will come down to Lorenzo Taliaferro and Javorius Allen. Neither has looked special in their past opportunities, but if West or Woodhead were to suffer an injury, they'd have instant waiver wire appeal.
