Ravens WR Zay Flowers: Missing 2024 playoff run due to injury ‘took a little toll on me’ Jan 21, 2025

A year after a pivotal fumble in the AFC Championship Game, Zay Flowers could only watch from the sideline as the Baltimore Ravens once again bowed out of the playoffs.

There would be no redemption moment for Flowers, who missed both postseason bouts with a knee injury suffered in the regular-season finale.

“It was killing me, for sure,” Flowers said Monday during the club’s locker cleanout following a 27-25 loss to Buffalo. “I want to be out there every game. I want to go through everything they go through, so not being out there, it took a little toll on me, just to watch that and not be able to participate and do what I wanted to do and help the team.”

Last year, Flowers fumbled a potential would-be touchdown in a loss to Kansas City. The wideout used that flub as motivation en route to a Pro Bowl campaign in 2024 that saw him put up 1,059 receiving yards and four touchdowns as Lamar Jackson’s go-to target. This offseason, he’ll use the ill-fated injury as his motivating factor to take his game to an even higher level.

“Because you want to play your last game,” he said. “You want to play every game, so not being able to play, that messed with me a little bit.”

The loss also messed with Baltimore, who watched Jackson turn the ball over twice in the first half before witnessing tight end Mark Andrews make two horrifying mistakes — a fumble and then a dropped two-point conversion — that aided the loss.

Flowers defended his teammates on Monday.

“You go the whole season and Lamar [does] what he [does], run around the backfield and make plays, and then everybody [is] like, ‘Oh, he [is] great. He [is] this, and he [is] that.’ Then, he messed up one time, and then, now everybody [doesn’t] want him to do what he [does]. Just like Mark, he [catches] everything, and then he dropped one. He dropped two. I mean, it’s football, so sometimes that happens.”

Flowers said Jackson is still fuming over the latest playoff disappointment.

“Oh, [Jackson is] mad. He [is] mad, for sure, because we know our team, we know what we [are] supposed to do, and we know the only way that we can’t do what we want to is what we did yesterday,” Flowers said. “So, I already know how he [is] feeling. We already know how everybody [is] feeling, so [there isn’t] really much I can say because we already know.”

We know the Ravens enter the offseason with similar disappointment they’ve felt the past half-dozen years.