Not another Wide Receiver… the case for Treylon Burks

When Ja’marr Chase was galloping away from Raven defenders’ fruitless attempts to tackle him, on his way to 201 yards and a touchdown in the first meeting between the teams – like an un-tackle-able, overly-muscular gazelle roaming the plains of M&T Bank Stadium as if they belonged to him and him alone… I realized I had been wrong to think the Bengals should have drafted Penei Sewell.

Now they’re in the Superbowl, and their holy trinity of Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd, as well as of course Joe Burrow, have proved a blindingly painful migraine of a headache for Defensive Coordinators to figure out. The NFL’s unstoppable offenses are usually compromised of pick-your-poison type dilemmas where teams have multiple primary ways in which to beat you, as well as some nice secondary pieces who can’t be totally ignored, read CJ Uzomah.

One of the other times I’ve felt envious of a team this season has been when I watch Deebo Samuel play for the 49ers. He mentioned recently that he feels they’re inventing a new position through him – the “wide-back”. He’s a unicorn of a player though and you wonder how replicable that approach could be. Though in Baltimore, a player like Deebo would be universally loved and a weapon that would strike fear into the hearts of NFL defenses.

Defending Lamar, Dobbins, Edwards, Andrews, Bateman, Brown and a potent “wide-back” with similar usage to Deebo would be a scary proposition. The Ravens have attempted to do some of this with Devin Duvernay and while I admire Duvernay as a player, Deebo Samuel, he just ain’t. Though for the rest of this piece, I want you to remember that while Deebo came into the league as a ready-made weapon, it’s taken some time for him to develop into the player he is now.

You might be beginning to understand where I’m going with this - if you do, or if you understand when I’m explicit with it in the next few paragraphs, please don’t shoot me. I know the value of Offensive Linemen and I know the value of defensive playmakers. The Ravens need more weapons on defense and likely more elite Defensive Backs if they are to stop the Bengals, not to mention the build-a-bully train that I am certainly on when it comes to off-season acquisitions.

I still hope the Ravens invest heavily in the Offensive Line in this draft, but #RavensFlock group-think has the organization careering towards a Defensive Lineman, Defensive Back or Offensive Lineman at 14.

I still consider this the most likely course of action, especially as we’ve seen Eric DeCosta very willing to address need in the first round, far more so than his predecessor. But I wanted to consider a different approach, inspired by a prospect who I’ve just finalized my report on.

The Ravens running offense is a scary one for NFL defenses to have to stop, especially when it has all its weapons on the field, healthy. And I know that a fearsome Offensive Line would be a good way to burnish that offense with another component that Defensive Coordinators would need to worry about. There is another way though.

The Ravens receiving corps has seen significant draft capital invested in it in recent seasons. There seems to be a building consensus that the Ravens will stop now – like Steve Bisciotti is tapping Eric DeCosta on the head whispering “that’ll do Pig” in the words of the farmer in the movie “Babe”.

There’s far less clamor for a Wide Receiver acquisition in the fanbase than there was before, but I don’t think it logically follows that the Ravens will stop investing in the position. They have proven that they value the position far more than in the past, and while they have an embarrassment of potential riches there, it is just that still – potential.

Some of that unrealized potential can be put down to scheme and some of it to Lamar Jackson’s struggles mid-season. But I don’t want to hear about Greg Roman and Jackson is an elite Quarterback, one of the very best in the league. It would be foolish to expect him at anything less than his best next season, given all of the evidence of his growth over the previous four seasons.

So what better way to help him get back to his best than investing again in the Wide Receivers he has at his disposal. Now, it’s important to note that I’m not just advocating an approach that looks to add a Wide Receiver of the same ilk that the Ravens already possess, this only works if there is a potential unicorn in this draft. One that could…

*Align at the X position and go up and get a contested catch in a 1-on-1 situation or snag a back-shoulder throw with elite body positioning and hands

*Work out of the slot, catch a bubble screen and pick up 8 yards of YAC using strength and physicality to break tackles, when the offense faces a Cover 0 blitz and needs 7 yards for the 1st.

*Have the experience to line up in the backfield in two-back sets, with Dobbins and this player flanking Lamar, with the speed to match Dobbins and act as a decoy, blocker, runner or receiver.

It turns out, there might be that guy in this draft class – Treylon Burks.

If you’ve watched him yourself, it’s easy to dismiss him as not-an-NFL-receiver. The problem with that is, if you’re watching a prospect to see what he could be in the NFL, like all scouts and media analysts, you’re in the projection business. And if doing this for over a decade now, and if having been a student of The Scouting Academy, has taught me anything, it’s that projecting a player requires creativity and a deep understanding of what a player CAN do, not simply observing what he HASN’T done in college.

The Arkansas offense had him lined up in the slot most often facing Zone coverage, usually because of the potency of the Razorbacks’ running game. When he does this, he can bully teams, finding the soft spot in zone coverage and snagging plenty of balls before running clear with his speed and physical dominance over DBs. Of course, he won’t find it as easy-going in the NFL.

Watch just a couple of games or highlights and you won’t find many examples of him beating press or running NFL-type routes. And I’ll admit his sample-size on that front is small, but I’d challenge you to watch some more and see if you think he can do it – can he beat press, can he separate at the top of his routes?

I think he can.

I’ve seen him displace a DB working in press coverage with explosion and speed before releasing through him rather than around him, which is a trait you rarely see in WRs in college. When challenged with a jam at the line of scrimmage I’ve seen him use his aggression and play strength to defeat it.

Yes, there are some technical elements to work on – his hand placement against a jam can be off-target, and he doesn’t always have an effective plan with his hands. But he attacks leverage and has the tools to be good at it, if asked to do it more consistently.

The other potential weakness, I would say - area for development, in his game, is his ability to separate at the top of his routes. There are small nuances to his route-running that he doesn’t yet have down; these include tipping his route to DBs with an early hip-turn on speed cuts, as well as not using his body mechanics effectively to turn on bam steps.

But the Ravens have some brilliant WR coaches now, who could go to work with an explosive guy who has all the tools to be successful at the break-point and has put plenty on tape to show that he can separate. There are plenty of small details he does have and you can see those, along with his tools, make very successful tactics for getting open – a pressure step to open up the DBs hips on deeper routes for example.

I’ve run through the areas for development with him as a Wide Receiver and hopefully I’ve shown that I think his issues are more than fixable. So now for the fun part…

He has a ridiculous catch-radius, he is a catch-point extraordinaire and has a very good understanding of how to use his body position to make contested catches. He can climb the ladder and high-point the football and he’s a classic open-when-he’s-not-open type of guy.

He is easily the most fearsome YAC-getter in this class. And this was in the SEC, not some flat-track bully in a lesser division. He was beating the best athletes in the nation with both speed and physicality on a regular basis. Arkansas would put the ball in his hands as much as possible, on both screens and out of the backfield, and let him go to work. The potential with a guy like him lining up on the offense as both a runner, receiver and decoy is mouth-watering.

A few little details it would be remiss of me to not mention – he can allow more simple catches into his body and there are times when he won’t sustain blocks out wide, but I don’t think it’s effort or through lack of measurable strength.

I think what I’m doing here is making the case that he should be in the conversation. I’m not saying Burks should definitely be selected, but what I am saying, is that there is an interesting conversation to be had about how you continue to construct this offense and invest in making it high-powered enough to challenge some of the AFC powers that have established themselves.

San Francisco has stood toe-to-toe with the best the NFC has to offer with an offense that has a far inferior signal-caller to the Ravens but with enough weapons, alongside their potent running game, to challenge defenses and create different ways for their offense to win. Granted, they do it with some very good pieces on their Offensive Line and I still don’t think that can be over-looked but the Ravens don’t yet match the 49ers with their offensive weapons either. They nearly do, and there’s certainly an argument that they already have the guys they need in the building, but they’re not there yet.

Not just any offensive weapon should be in the conversation though, only one that moves the needle and adds to the collection of weapons that Lamar has at his disposal. I’m not pushing Treylon Burks into that spot and trying to make him fit – I freely admit that I didn’t project him this way when I first studied him last off-season – but his game has made me sit up and reconsider whether I too should be sleep-walking into considering DL, OL, DB as certainties to be the selection come that Thursday night in April.