Breakout: Tight Ends

0:00Hi folks, welcome to the episode of Film Study. This is Ken McHughsick and we're here for a new series we're starting today, the Breakout series. These are positions we think position groups or individual players it could be who we think may be better than the NFL is the NFL community is giving them credit for with the Baltimore Ravens this year. Joining me to have that discussion is Jeffrey Sue. Jeffrey, how you doing? I'm doing great thanks for having me on my head. All right, appreciate you you're spending time and and this is an interesting one because we discussed tight ends already as a concern and now in this one we're discussing tight ends as a potential source of incremental value that the rest of the NFL isn't really hip to right now. But let's let's go through these guys and you know it's a rebuilt room largely. Mark Andrews remains from before but Hibner, Quavis and Smyth, all new players. But who would you like to discuss first in terms of your expectations for them in

1:00the 2026 season? I'll start with Mark Andrews. Obviously, you know, he's been here with Lamar. He's a guy that can even Lamar have a thing and you know, he probably is he's definitely not the guy he used to be but he's still one of Lamar's favorite targets and I still expect him to at least be manageable and be able to be Lamar's friendly weapon and I project him to have some new targets and 511 receiving yards and if you do the yards per target that's 7.3. Yep. Okay, so that seems pretty reasonable. Mark Andrews coming off a career low 6.0 yards per

2:04target last year but before that he'd rarely been under 8 yards per target. He wasn't 7.5 in 2022 but otherwise, you know, 9.8 the year before that 8.9 in 23 when they had very good years and go back up he was between 8 and 11 every year between 2018 and 2021. So the yards per target figure seems like a reasonable amount of bounce back from a very poor year and he hasn't been great. I don't think he's looked great and camped so far but it should be a guy who gets some targets. I have a slightly different number but it's not much different. 75 targets at 7.5 yards per target which would be 563 yards on the season so we're in a very narrow range there. I do think that there are a lot of people around the NFL who don't really believe he's going to be in that range. So who's your next guy? Who would you like to talk about next, Jeffrey? I'll go next. I'll go on Matthew Himmler. You know, a very athletic guy. He can

3:10he can stretch you, he can stretch the defense vertically or as we saw a little in the preseason he can use his athleticism to go across the field and make plays and I think I think it's a guy that Lomo Lomo and Deca Duel will have plenty of fun with and he can do all sorts of stuff and no doubt that he will be asked to do that sort of thing. In my period of injections I have him getting 26 yards for about 215 yards and the yards per target works out to be 8.3. All right. So that's a I think a very reasonable amount. I put him a little higher than that. Part of my thinking about that was that the tight end targets that went Isaiah likely last year, they have to go to someone and I don't think they're just going to go to wide receivers. I do think the Ravens will play in positive game script so we'll see the Ravens playing with the lead

4:14and they might be passing less in total but I still have Hibner right now. After seeing in the preseason at 40 targets at 7.5 yards per target, it should be about 300 yards, be exactly 300 yards if those numbers are met. But that to me would be a pretty damn fine rookie year and I think he did show enough in the preseason. Really I had not seen it yet in camp that I can make a projection like that for him. I certainly a guy who there have been real questions about in camp. The ball has all been thrown underneath and he had a lot of problems holding onto the ball on first contact with some double catches. So not too far off on that one but again I'm the aggressive one which is an unusual position for me to be in is having the higher numbers than the guests. But I appreciate you Jeffrey for coming down on this. We're going to talk about Josh Quavis next. Played a Bama with Tyson Sin and obviously not comparing four bags but you do see some Tyson Sin as well as Lamar Jackson being able to get open in the

5:22intermediate field and when they'll play break sound when Lamar has to scramble you see Josh Quavis have that ability and in my projections and oh one note is you know can't feed everyone. It is hard to get targets for everyone so just the last two a little dip but for Quavis I have 12 targets and it works out to 97 yards and the yards per target is 8.1. Okay so I think very reasonable assumptions I have Quavis for 15 targets at 6.5 yards per target so I'm having a little lower there. I think he'll be more of an underneath zero level boot guide that they may go to and just under 100 yards 97.5 so very similar to you. Quavis is a guy who may not be active every game and that is one of the things. So if he makes

6:23himself a very valuable special teams player where he's on the offensive line of a punt team then he could be there all the time he's got to be probably also a wing on the field goal kick unit in order to get that kind of of an amount of playing time but he should he has the talent to do it it's just a matter of who are they going to sit they've got to sit five guys every week and they may be tempted to sit a tight end in a lot of games but anyway very similar projections for his receiving totals this year for Quavis how about the last guy in the row. Oh could I just one note on Quavis um uh he was um he had a 75 or higher next gen stat productive score along with Isaiah likely and Charlie Kohler coming out of college so that's one stat that I thought was interesting. A next gen production stat I'm not familiar with that but I'm now I'm going to look into it after this after that's saying so it's a it's some sort of

7:24productivity stat for um for his opportunities how he did relative to his opportunities. Let's talk about Durham's smith now he came with um Declan Doyle from Chicago and so obviously kind of like uh Javanne Gwynne has a special place on this roster it was a certain amount of certainty goes with it what what do you think about him. Came from Chicago with Declan Doyle but I didn't play I think the number I looked three recent I think the number was he played about uh 23% of the offensive stamps um you know not much as a receiver but you know the upside is even if the the receiving production is low um the threat of Loma Rajaxan and Derek Henry the gravity that they pose um you you can always find um Durham smith for some easy catches and I think that all

8:26happened you know not a lot but um if you're in there and for Durham smith I have him for 10 targets for 12 51 yards and that comes out to 5.1 yards per target. Okay I looked at Durham smith the last two years and I like your yards per target I think a lot better than mine right now the last two years he's been at 3.1 and 4.2 targets over a total of 23 sorry 4.2 yards per target over a total of 23 targets over those two years early in his career he caught the ball a little bit more and had a higher yards per target numbers careers at 6.9 um I think with Loma Rajaxan he's probably going to have a little better yards per target I think they'll get a more opportunities off play action uh to basically beating the read step of linebackers and being free over the middle of the field between level level two and level three uh which is where he could he could really feast if he's going to at all I haven't for 20 targets which is obviously twice as many as you at seven yards per target in 140 yards some of that is born out of what I've seen in camp in the last two or

9:31three weeks is just they do seem to be using them down the field a little bit and just it wouldn't surprise me if they try and break their in line playing and off down the field on some on some routes and trying to try to figure out how they can uh make a against linebackers who overread the mesh point all right Jeffery anything else to say about this group as a whole now you've you've got about two eight eight hundred and seventy five yards I've got about 1100 a lot of that you know a lot of the the efficiency of this group will still depend on touchdowns and interceptions or the balls thrown to them and during the monk in years they'd very is 30 touchdowns and one interception over 23 and 24 they're incredibly successful um I I any any other thoughts about this group that you'd like to throw out there yeah I mean you alluded to it earlier um the tight end room in my opinion was um probably the most concerning after um after ticker if you just if you hold uh

10:32weight of the um training care and purports true but um like me and a lot of Ravencans we were all very very so I was very surprised that um hidden there had that really good 61 and 61 yards five reception game I think and um Josh Kwevas uh had a decent game versus the Vikings as well so you know a lot of promise and I might be a little lower on the production but that doesn't but and I don't think that means um any like a lot less lower on them I still think they can contribute in other ways than just the yards they have let's it be it be fantastic if this group ended up being the reason why Derek Henry has another season that's you know halfway between 2000 and 24 and

11:332025 say you know if he would have another 16 1700 yard season and he's and it's a lot of it because the tight ends are really doing their job um that'd be really cool obviously and in in in those terms and we we know that I know a lot of people expect Henry to bounce back just because of Jackson's health but I think there's more to it I think that somebody really needs to pick up um a lot of the hard work that Patrick or card did for this team and the only players who were really capable of doing that are smith and Kwevas probably and and Andrews to a lesser degree um but it's it's not going to be there's nobody else to do it all right Jeffrey appreciate having you on the show uh would you like to tell people where they can contact you if they want to talk football online with you? I am active on Reddit with um you can probably find me a whole bunch of posts uh when there's practice those or games on the weeks I'll post a lot on the sandwich lower on Reddit and I'm also active on x my handle is just another sports fan okay and I'm also active on Ravens Twitter

12:41all right well Jeffrey we really appreciate you I can't tell you how much I appreciate the Reddit community and all the nice people I've met over there since I've been more active and uh really appreciate the community and some great football discussion going on there you're missing out if you're not part of that board uh other folks out there please use film study mailback at gmail.com for your questions really appreciate you as always word amount is our best form of advertising tell about one new person about this show like and subscribe if you're on youtube appreciate you very much and we'll talk to you next time on film study all new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the strawberry water melon refresher and the mango pineapple refresher with popping boba to grafted sodas like the spry berry blast with berry flavors and cold foam who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six all new drinks are here now at McDonald's refreshers contain caffeine