Lee Evans' Stock Rises Slightly After Trade to Baltimore Ravens

Former Buffalo Bill Lee Evans was traded to the Baltimore Ravens on August 12th.

I’m very happy for the 30-year-old wideout, a player that has had to deal with playing on a miserable team his entire career.

What does this trade mean for his fantasy stock, though? Let’s take a look.

Last year, Evans battled an ankle injury that limited him to a 578-yard, four-TD season. Not only that—he had Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing him the ball.

During Evans’ career, he has had the likes of Ryan Fitzpatrick, Trent Edwards and J.P. Losman throwing the ball to him, if you can even call it that. While Fitz showed signs of promise last year, I think most of us can agree he is nothing more than an average NFL QB.

Edwards and Losman never panned out like the team had hoped.

Joe Flacco certainly isn’t an elite QB yet, but he has the potential to be given the right circumstances. Flacco threw for 3,600 yards for two straight years now, and you can expect that number to be around the same this year.

Since Evans came into the league, the Bills have thrown for about 3,000 yards or less each year.

In other words, this move should bode well for Evans.

Evans is being brought in to replace the recently cut Derrick Mason and, no doubt, Todd Heap, to an extent. Alongside Anquan Boldin, Evans should be one of the workhorses of the receiving corps.

While Evans’ ceiling is fairly high, I don’t believe he will reach the 1,000-yard mark—instead, a shade under it. In a somewhat likely best-case scenario, he could get around 900 yards and eight TDs.

Go ahead and draft him as possibly a WR4 or a WR5 in the last couple of rounds, even though he has the upside to do much more than that—for this year, anyways.

I know Torrey Smith will take over his spot, probably next year, but Evans should be fine for now. Rookie WRs tend to not do well.

Besides, Evans was poised for a comeback year, even with the Bills.