The Ravens’ tight end decision is looking worse by the week.
Baltimore made its choice last year when it extended Mark Andrews on a three-year, $39.2 million deal in the middle of the season, a move that all but closed the door on Isaiah Likely’s future with the team. Likely eventually landed with the New York Giants, and now the gap between the two has become impossible to ignore.
Through the season, Andrews has put up 177 yards and one touchdown. Likely has been the more productive weapon, with 284 yards and four touchdowns. Then Sunday in Week 5 turned the comparison into a full-blown problem for the Ravens.
Likely delivered a huge 94-yard, two-touchdown outing. Andrews, meanwhile, finished with 28 yards and a sequence of mistakes that swung the game the wrong way.
He dropped a touchdown in the first quarter, then followed it with a fumble that led to a touchdown. Later, in the third quarter, he dropped a two-point conversion.
In the fourth, he let another pass slip away on a key third-down play.
Baltimore still escaped with a 33-30 win over the Atlanta Falcons, and Andrews did make some important plays late. But the damage was already done. Those miscues cost the Ravens 13 points, and it was hard not to look across the field, think about Likely’s breakout earlier in the day, and wonder how Baltimore let this turn into a mess.
That doesn’t mean the Ravens had no reasons for their choice. Andrews is the better blocker, a franchise mainstay, and he has long had strong chemistry with Lamar Jackson. Likely, for all of his talent, never really got fully unleashed in Baltimore.
Even so, the move always carried risk. Andrews was already trending down last season, when he posted career lows in yards with 422, yards per target at 6, and success rate at 52.9. Paying a tight end in his 30s top-10 money was always going to invite skepticism.
Likely, on the other hand, brings a different kind of stress to a defense. He has the size, speed, and athletic ability to create matchup problems, and that kind of pass-catching burst is tough to replace. He never piled up huge numbers in Baltimore, but his 307 yards in just seven games last season nearly matched Andrews’ output.
That ability would have mattered even more in a Baltimore offense that still leans heavily on Zay Flowers for consistent production. With offensive coordinator Declan Doyle putting a premium on explosive plays, Likely would seem to fit right in and could have given the Ravens another gear.
The Ravens extended Andrews before the coaching change, so that part of the timeline matters. But the fit with Doyle’s system makes the lost opportunity sting even more.
Andrews remains a useful checkdown target and a dangerous red-zone option, but the big-play juice is fading, and the drops are becoming harder to ignore. Likely’s ascension in New York only sharpens the point: Baltimore had the younger, more explosive option and chose the aging one instead.
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