Once in a while, a new popular expression seems to come out of nowhere, and then, almost overnight, it’s excessively overused. Right now, we’re in that stage with “deserves his flowers” or “should get his flowers.”
And given how well the Baltimore Ravens offense performed tonight in a dominant Wild Card round victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, they deserve their flowers without their top wide receiver (you know his name).
They may get WR1 Zay Flowers back from injury next week in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs. We’ll have to wait and see what develops regarding his knee sprain recovery during the week.
However, the Ravens offense performed just fine without Flowers on Saturday, racking up over 300 yards of total offense and a 21-0 lead by halftime.
They ended up winning 28-14, although the final score does not tell the game’s true story as much as the 464-280 yardage disparity did.
With Flowers out, seven players caught a pass, with quarterback Lamar Jackson spreading the love around.
At least for the night, Rashod Bateman was the new WR1, and he opened the game’s scoring with a 19-yard touchdown in the first quarter. Counting this game, the Ravens are now 9-0 this season in games where Bateman scores.
Isaiah Likely, who started his season on the right foot with a big game in the season opener at Kansas City, also positively began the postseason.
Tonight, he led the Ravens in receiving yards with 53.
Justice Hill, who had been regarded by some as an injury doubt for this game, caught Jackson’s other touchdown pass. With six carries and four receptions, he had 10 total touches.
And the seldomly used Nelson Agholor and Tylan Wallace each played 20+ yards tonight.
Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry get the headlines, and very much deservedly so, but it takes a whole team to win decisively like this. And when your top receiver is sidelined, you need role players to fill the void.
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