Where’s Mark Andrews? Ravens TE discusses his diminished (so far) role

Type “Mark Andrews fantasy football” into your browser and feel the apocalyptic vibes.

ESPN: “Look away Mark Andrews fantasy managers.”

RotoBaller: “Mark Andrews role faces uncertainty.”

Reddit: “It’s time to give up on Mark Andrews in fantasy football.”

These represent a smattering of the proclamations that spilled forth after Andrews, the Ravens’ three-time Pro Bowl tight end, played just 21 snaps and caught not a single pass in the Baltimore’s 28-25 win over the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday.

Andrews just smiled Thursday when informed of this flood of skepticism. “All that’s good and stuff, but they don’t know what’s going on inside this building,” he said. “They’re not watching me every play. They’re not seeing the work I’m putting in. All good things come with time. I love being here with this team. Those things will come.”

For the record, he said he’s not dealing with any lingering injury: “I feel great. I think if you turn on the film, you see that I’m moving, doing a lot of things better than I ever have. It’s different. We’ve got a different team. But I still feel incredibly good and fast and strong. I’m the same player I’ve always been. It’s just that balls haven’t come my way.”

Never mind that the Ravens threw just 15 times as they leaned on their ground game to pound a flimsy Dallas front. Never mind that Andrews blocked brilliantly (90.2 Pro Football Focus grade) to aid that effort. Never mind that he lost the stretch run of his 2023 season to a hip-drop tackle that wrecked his ankle or that he was involved in a terrifying car accident a little more than a month ago.

Fans looked at a few simple digits — eight targets, six catches, 65 yards, no touchdowns over three games to start this season — and decided the 29-year-old tight end is no longer option No. 1 for quarterback Lamar Jackson.

From a cold remove, it’s not a wild take. Excluding games in which he was injured, Andrews was never targeted fewer than a dozen times over a three-game span from 2019 through 2023. In fact, the joke was always that no other receiver could thrive in Baltimore, because Jackson would always turn back to his No. 89 safety blanket in a pinch.

It’s not clear that’s the case anymore given the ascents of fellow tight end Isaiah Likely and 2023 first-round draft pick Zay Flowers.

But the Ravens will tell you it’s beyond premature to assume Andrews won’t deliver vintage receiving games this season. Coach John Harbaugh has said star players’ usage will go up and down as game plans change considerably from one week to the next. When asked about Andrews playing just 1/3 of the team’s offensive snaps (he was typically above 70% and often above 80% in recent seasons) against Dallas, Harbaugh pointed back to that idea.

“There’ll always be somebody that didn’t get the ball thrown to them or didn’t get many touches or wasn’t on the field as much; it’s probably going to be a part of the game plan each week, and a lot of it is how the game goes, too,” he said. “But Mark did what he was asked to do in the game — it just turned out that way. It wasn’t like he wasn’t on the pass routes — he could’ve been thrown the ball; it just didn’t come his way. The blocks came his way. He was out there blocking those guys, and he did a great job.”

Offensive coordinator Todd Monken didn’t realize Andrews played so little against Dallas.

“We were in a little bit more 22 personnel, so when Charlie [Kolar] is in or Pat [Ricard] is in, that’s only one of the other tight ends,” Monken explained. “In the other games, we were in a lot of two-minute, a lot of no-huddle, a lot more throws. All that’s part of it. We think a lot of Mark. We anticipate Mark having opportunities. He just didn’t.”

Cris Collinsworth was the top target for the Cincinnati Bengals through much of the 1980s, so he knows what it’s like to be in Andrews’ shoes.

Collinsworth, who will help call the Ravens’ “Sunday Night Football” matchup with the Buffalo Bills for NBC, suspects Andrews is still recovering from an injury, despite his statements to the contrary. “Getting injured is tough, and it creates opportunities for others,” he said. “Isaiah Likely has played very well. But, Mark Andrews is still Mark Andrews, and when he is healthy, those snap counts will go up. He has been a top-four tight end in the NFL for too long to just lose snaps, unless he just isn’t healthy yet, which is likely.”

Andrews isn’t the only elite tight end facing questions about dwindling targets. The Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce (considerably more famous and five years older than his Baltimore counterpart) has caught just eight passes for 69 yards through three weeks.

“I’m not getting caught up in getting the targets and all that,” Kelce said this week on his podcast with his brother, Jason. “I just want to have a successful offense.”

Andrews heard Kelce’s comments and echoes them.

“I really don’t,” he said when asked if he thinks about his lack of targets. “For me, it’s always been about the team. [Kelce] was spot on with that; it is about execution. Needless to say, I’m a competitive person as well. I look to help this team win games, and if I can do that any way possible, whether it’s blocking or catching the ball, I’m going to do it. I said last week, I’m just hitting my stride.”

He didn’t require an explanation from Monken or anybody else regarding his unusually small workload against the Cowboys.

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“No. If you look at the game plan we had, we went with big personnel for the majority of the game,” Andrews said. “Other than that, I was on the field. But we were moving so well. We attacked the defense with something we thought was going to work. ‘Monk’ stuck with that, and it’s all good with me.”

Andrews came to the Ravens as one member of a close-knit tight end room in which he inevitably competed for snaps and targets with his buddies, Hayden Hurst and Nick Boyle. That gave him a lens on how to fight for what’s yours without “being greedy,” as he puts it. He believes that spirit still sets the team apart from many around the league.

“There’s not a greediness to us. There’s not a greediness to anyone on this offense,” he said. “That’s rare. We want other people to succeed and at the same time, you’re competitive. I obviously want to help this team win, but [it’s about] just knowing that your time will come.”

A Ravens.com reporter then noted that he had traded for Andrews in his fantasy league.

“Let’s go,” Andrews said.