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Jamison Hensley, ESPN Staff Writer
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Lamar Jackson will be without his top target at the start of the postseason.
Pro Bowl wide receiver Zay Flowers was ruled out for the Baltimore Ravens‘ wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night. Flowers injured his right knee in Saturday’s regular-season finale and did not practice all week.
Moments after Ravens coach John Harbaugh made the announcement Thursday that Flowers wouldn’t play, the former first-round pick walked through the locker room wearing a brace on his injured knee.
“We’ll move forward with the guys we have,” Harbaugh said, “and we’re excited about the guys we have.”
This marks only the second game that Flowers has missed in his two-year career. The loss of Flowers, who led Baltimore with 74 catches for 1,059 yards receiving, is a significant one for the NFL’s No. 1 offense.
The only other Ravens wide receiver who caught more than 15 passes this season is Rashod Bateman, who had 45 receptions for 756 yards and nine touchdowns. When Baltimore was without Flowers in the second half Saturday, Bateman made three catches for 51 yards and a touchdown.
“The situation that we have on our hands, it doesn’t change anything about me and my role and what I got to do,” Bateman said of Flowers’ absence. “My job is to go out and make plays no matter who’s on the field. So, it might look a little different as far as where I’m at [lining up on the field]. But overall, we got a football game, and I got to go play ball.”
A first-round draft pick in 2023, Flowers is one of the most dangerous Baltimore players with the ball in his hands. His 463 yards after the catch this season are the most by a Ravens player in 12 years, when running back Ray Rice totaled 472 yards after the catch in 2012.
But Harbaugh believes it will be a collective effort to absorb the loss of Flowers. Nelson Agholor could receive more snaps at wide receiver, and tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely could see more targets.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons,” Harbaugh said. “Lamar will distribute that thing the way he sees fit play to play.”
Flowers was injured about three minutes into the second quarter of last Saturday’s 35-10 win over the Cleveland Browns, when he was falling forward on a 12-yard catch. His right leg whipped against Ravens guard Andrew Vorhees just as Browns linebacker Mohamoud Diabate hit Flowers’ right knee. He did not return in the second half.
Last week, Flowers became the first player to make the Pro Bowl as a wide receiver in the franchise’s 29-year history.
“He’s locked in on his rehab,” Harbaugh said of Flowers. “Every time I walk in there, he is in there working on it and we’ll see how it looks next week.”
Source: www.espn.com