Baltimore Beatdown
Vote for the Baltimore Ravens’ Offensive Player of the Year.
The 2024-2025 NFL season is complete, but before the chapter is closed, we want a final look at the joys that came from the Baltimore Ravens’ season.
So, let’s celebrate the successes by handing out our second-annual Baltimore Beatdown Awards. Today, we continue with Offensive Player of the Year.
Beatdown contributors will offer up our nominees, but the winner is ultimately decided by you, the reader, with a poll at each article’s end.
Kyle Phoenix: QB Lamar Jackson
All the credit in the world to Derrick Henry. He shattered franchise records in his first season with the Ravens. He was 79 yards shy of a second 2,000-yard season. But offensively, I’m taking Jackson.
Jackson shattered his previous bests, throwing for 4,172 yards, 41 passing touchdowns, averaged 8.8 yards per attempt and 10.15 air yards per attempt. He set the fourth-best passer rating in a single season in NFL history. He tied for his fewest sacks taken in a full season (23), threw only four interceptions and was 85 yards shy of his third 1,000-yard rushing season.
Lamar Jackson is the best football player on the planet.
Nikhil Mehta: Derrick Henry
There’s no contrarian take for this award, though Zay Flowers deserves an honorable mention for the best season by a Ravens WR since Steve Smith in 2014. Plenty of players on offense deserve credit for the Ravens’ success, but none had the individual impact of Derrick Henry. In 2024, he was the most dominant running back not named Saquon Barkley, setting career-highs in efficiency while sneakily converting first downs on almost 60% of his receptions.
Henry now owns the franchise record for single-season rushing touchdowns and yards per attempt, as well as the longest touchdown run in team history. He did this all in a new offense, running far more from the pistol and shotgun than his career with the Titans. He was also behind an offensive line that was very much a work in progress heading into the season, though he obviously benefited from Lamar Jackson’s gravitational force on opposing defenses. Still, Henry far outplayed the $8M APY deal he signed with the Ravens last March and has a strong argument for a pay bump on an extension.
Joshua Reed: RB Derrick Henry
To call the addition of the future Hall of Famer transformative for the Ravens offense in 2024 still feels like it undersells just how truly transcendent his impact was on not just the unit but the team as a whole. He is a weapon whose strengths are amplified by the presence of the greatest dual-threat quarterback in NFL history. He helped Lamar Jackson raise his game even higher because there was less onus on him in the ground game which resulted in the Ravens fielding an historically balanced and potent offense.
Henry became the first player aside from Jackson to lead the team in rushing yards since...
