The Ravens sent a fifth-round pick for Diontae Johnson and a sixth-round pick on Tuesday. Johnson will replace Rashod Bateman as the WR2 alongside Zay Flowers in Baltimore, while the Panthers are now stuck with David Moore, Xavier Legette, and Jalen Coker as their starting WRs, at least until Adam Thielen (hamstring) returns. Let’s dig into what this trade means fantasy-wise.
DIONTAE JOHNSON
- Zay Flowers has a 26.2% target share for the Ravens and looks clearly established as their WR1. Diontae had a 25.8% target share with the Panthers, and he’s never been a very efficient player on a per-target basis with a career YPT average of 6.8 and one season above 7.4 (8.2 in 2023). With that being said, he’s never played with a QB of Lamar Jackson‘s caliber, so one would expect increased efficiency, but the role they put Johnson in will be fascinating. Rashod Bateman has a 16.1-yard average depth of target on the season and has been highly efficient, although he did have a massive drop on Sunday that basically cost the Ravens the game. Johnson has gotten more downfield targets throughout his career than his per-target yardage numbers would lead you to believe (which you could argue isn’t a great sign for his skill set), but he’s never been a deep threat like Bateman has been this year.
- Furthermore, all of Flowers, Johnson, and Bateman are primarily outside WRs. Mark Andrews, Isaiah Likely, and Nelson Agholor have played mostly out of the slot. It’s not that Flowers/Johnson/Bateman can’t play in the slot, but we haven’t seen it as of yet, creating further uncertainty as to how Baltimore will deploy their receivers.
- Flowers seems locked in as the WR1 here. The perception of Johnson league-wide makes him a favorite for the WR2 role, but I am not fully convinced he makes Bateman irrelevant (for real-life purposes; this does destroy Bateman’s fantasy value). Maybe the Ravens shift one of these guys to the slot and stop using Agholor, but they use 2-TE sets so much that it’d be hard to get super excited about Johnson’s outlook even as the primary slot WR. Despite a likely massive uptick in efficiency for Johnson, this seems like a downgrade on the whole considering more role uncertainty and fewer targets. However, his spike-week potential does increase with better TD potential. The ideal role for Johnson is likely a higher-volume version of the way they use Bateman, but that’s dependent on Bateman becoming a non-factor, which seems unlikely.
- Also, Amari Cooper and DeAndre Hopkins both played limited roles in their debuts with new teams, and Cooper still wasn’t even in a full role in his second week. It’s Week 9 already, so it’s not like we have a ton of time left for fantasy. Johnson likely won’t play a ton this week and his limited role could even leak into Week 10.
OTHER RAVENS PLAYERS
- Johnson has been a highly productive target earner when on the field throughout his career, so this is bad news for Flowers simply because he will have more target competition. However, Baltimore seems committed to him as their WR1, so he remains a viable fantasy starter.
- This is pretty crushing for Bateman, who will now be in a part-time role and already wasn’t a very good fantasy option. He’s droppable.
- This could threaten Isaiah Likely‘s fantasy value if the Ravens move to more 3-WR sets given they have superior talent at the position now. Baltimore is currently last in the league with a 32% rate of having three WRs on the field; if that number rises, Likely is likely a bigger loser than Andrews. Similarly, this hurts Andrews both from the perspective that more 3-WR sets will impact his playing time and because Johnson adds target competition.
PANTHERS PLAYERS
- Xavier Legette has a 17% and 18% target share in his previous two games and now looks like the clear WR1 in Carolina. It’s worth noting that the Panthers used David Moore as the Johnson replacement in Week 8, and Moore actually led Panthers WRs in snaps/routes, so it’s not like Legette will immediately be thrust into the Johnson role, but worse target competition naturally increases his projected target share. The caveat is that, regardless of who’s under center for Carolina, the QB play and offensive environment overall is atrocious, but Legette has played well so far despite the situation and is in the low-end flex conversation.
- Jalen Coker has become the primary slot WR for the Panthers with Thielen out. Thielen looks set to return soon, which will jeopardize Coker’s current role. However, he is an undrafted rookie who’s played well on an awful team, so it stands to reason that they could look to get him on the field as much as possible even with Thielen back. Coker isn’t really fantasy-relevant given his lack of target-earning ability, but it would make sense for the Panthers to try to keep him on the field, likely at David Moore‘s expense.
- If Thielen has any juice left at all, he could return to an annoyingly high-volume role once activated.
