This week, fellow RSR writer Adam Bonaccorsi debuted his weekly column titled Purple Patrol. Each week, I will be providing my rebuttal to Adam’s take. Twitter likes to call it the “Legion of Gloom.” I call it life without purple sunglasses. Whatever you call it, it’s reality.
This week, Adam’s article focused on the Ravens WR group and specifically Devin Duvernay and the game he had. First of all, I want to say that all offseason, that I felt the cries for the Ravens to sign a veteran WR were over the top. It’s not that I felt the Ravens had some great group, but it’s that I’m tired of signing the over-hyped but not-really-good vet receivers.
By that I mean, I am OK with the Demarcus Robinson signing. He was cheap and doesn’t need to be relied on, but when you are signing guys like Willie Snead and Sammy Watkins, you are counting on them to be a big part of the offense and, more importantly, it means less development for the guys you are drafting.
That is why I didn’t want to sign a middling guy. Those guys aren’t moving the needle and they are blocking young guys. What I find so ironic about the Ravens twitter verse is that they complain all day long about the Ravens not being able to develop WRs but yet they want to block them. There is no logic there.
With all of that said, I think Adam is getting ahead of himself. Duvernay didn’t establish anything on Sunday. What he did do was start the idea of Lamar Jackson having more and more confidence in throwing him the ball. He showed he can make tough catches, get some separation and run the right route. That is important, but we need to see a lot more of it before we anoint him or anyone else as a very good secondary option in the passing game.
My guess is that we will see Mark Andrews and Rashod Bateman get a lot of targets as the season goes on and the next in line will change week to week. James Proche and Tylan Wallace missed a lot of camp, so they are probably behind right now. Isaiah Likely didn’t do anything but drop the ball, but I think that will change as well.
One thing we need to remember is how ecstatic the Ravens were on draft day to get Duvernay. They obviously really like him and I assume they liked him more than just as a guy to return kicks or else, they drafted him too high. So, maybe he will be WR2 and not just by default. Maybe he will actually be a true #2 WR…but its way too early to say that.
Let’s see how Duvernay builds off of this game. Let’s see if Lamar is building and gaining confidence in him. Let’s see if Duvernay can establish himself as that definitive 3rd guy in the offense. I have been looking forward to watching this group and seeing who will and will not step up.
But let’s give them some more game time and a larger sample size before making any strong proclamations.
