The Baltimore Ravens have one of the best young wide receivers in the league in Zay Flowers, and in a video he posted on X, he revealed what he’ll be doing in 2025-26 to completely change up his play style to hopefully be a more dominant presence on the field.
Ravens WR Zay Flowers Hears The Criticism
With the 2025 NFL season nearing, Flowers took to X to film a quick 30-second video to let his fans know that he’ll be running straight more inside of cutting when he has the ball in his hands.
“… I’m runnin’ straight this year, y’all. I’m runnin’ straight. No more cuttin’,” Flowers begins, followed by a laugh.
“They say I bet cuttin’ too much… I’d rather cuttin’ than be sorry,” Flowers continued.
Ravens WR Zay Flowers
“I’m running straight this year, y’all! I’m running straight. No more cutting” pic.twitter.com/ksvrCtH2B6
— Kevin Oestreicher (@koestreicher34) June 30, 2025
He mentioned “how big” his opponents are, so cutting allows him to get away from them. This makes sense, as Flowers is listed at 5’9″ and 175 pounds.
Through his first two seasons in the NFL, Flowers has dealt with a few injuries, including a cut on his right hand, an ankle injury in Week 7 of the 2024-25 season, and a sprained LCL against the Cleveland Browns in Week 18 of that same season.
As head coach John Harbaugh pointed out, Flowers didn’t require surgery.
Last season, Flowers saw 18.8% of his targets go for 20+ yards downfield. Additionally, 33% of them were 10-19 yards downfield. As for passes 0-9 yards or behind the line of scrimmage, 48.2% landed there.
He ran out of the slot on 38% of his snaps and had an average target depth of 10.7. Among wide receivers with at least 100 targets, his 10.7 mark is tied with Ladd McConkey and Jakobi Meyers. Flowers also averaged 2.25 yards per route run, which is 13th among receivers with at least 100 targets in the NFL.
Flowers said something similar about this in January after someone posted on X, saying, “I love Zay Flowers, but sometimes he’s just gotta run straight. You don’t needa tryna snatch ankles every rec. That was a TD.”
Flowers quoted it and responded, “You right lol, vision be moving too fast for everybody around. I React to quick sometimes, but I got to you lol”
The former first-round pick is extremely shifty and tricky to tackle with the ball in his hands, but he could be onto something here. This is certainly something to watch for this season.
Perhaps he’ll improve from his four touchdowns last season.
