Zay Flowers — Week 1: A Hundred Fifty by Halftime, Then the Sideline
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Flowers caught five of six targets for a hundred fifty yards and a fifty-four-yard touchdown, all of it before halftime. He went to the sideline with a hamstring injury and did not return, per Ryan Mink at BaltimoreRavens.com. His six targets were worth plus thirteen expected points, the most of any player on either team, in a 41–23 win over the Colts.
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Zay Flowers's first catch of the season was a 49-yard throw to the Indianapolis two. First and 10 at the Baltimore 49, 10 27 left in the first quarter, Ravens down six to nothing after a missed extra point: Lamar Jackson deep left, 21 yards in the air, and Flowers was tackled at the two by Walley. That play was worth +3.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and +8 and a half points of win probability, which is what a play was worth in the chance of winning the game, the largest single swing of any Ravens offensive play on Sunday. Two snaps and a false start later Jackson ran it in from the five.
Then he kept doing it. 17 yards short middle on first and 10 from the Baltimore 38 late in the first. An incompletion deep middle on second and 12 at the Indianapolis 47, and then, on third and 12 from the same spot, 18 yards deep right to the 29. The touchdown: second and nine at the Baltimore 46 with seven oh four left in the half, short middle, seven yards in the air, 54 yards to the end zone, +5 expected points, for a 21 to six lead. And a 12-yarder short left on second and seven with five 57 left in the half, to the Indianapolis 32. Six targets, five catches, a hundred 50 yards, 91 air yards, one touchdown, +13 expected points on the targets. The 49 and the 54 were two of the three longest plays either offense had all day; the third, Chris Moore's 53, came after Flowers had left.
His last target came with five 57 left in the second quarter. The play-by-play carries no injury note on it; the reporting does. Per Ryan Mink at BaltimoreRavens.com, Flowers went to the sideline, took his helmet off, and did not come back, a hamstring injury, and he did not play in the second half. The Ravens threw eight times after halftime, and none of the eight went to him. Before it he had six of Baltimore's 18 first-half throws, tied with Mark Andrews for the team high on the day.
Back in June the preview's read on Flowers was a WR7 season built on a 30 percent target share, a clean profile whose five touchdowns had underperformed the volume. One half on Sunday said the volume is still his — six of 19 — and produced a touchdown from 54 yards out. What happens next is a question about the hamstring, and this show will not guess at it. Baltimore is home to the Saints on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Zay Flowers's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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