Ravens sign Jerell Adams to compete for the No.3 tight end spot

The Baltimore Ravens have the most tight end friendly offense in the league since they value and feature the position heavily in Offensive Coordinator Greg Roman’s scheme. Fifth-year pro Jerell Adams will have an opportunity to earn a roster spot and role in the top-scoring and rushing offense from last season after signing with the Ravens to compete for the third tight end spot on their depth chart.

The Ravens had the most talented and diverse collection of talent at the position in 2019 with breakout star Mark Andrews who earned his first Pro Bowl nod after leading the team in receiving yards and touchdowns, blocking specialist Nick Boyle, and former first-round pick Hayden Hurst rounding out the deepest tight end group in the league.

Baltimore’s surplus at the position paired with Hurst’s desire to be in an offense where he gets more opportunities to showcase the talent that he flashed at times in limited opportunities with the Ravens once he was healthy set the table for the 25th overall pick of the 2018 draft to get traded to the Atlanta Falcons in exchange for a 2020 second-round pick.

All three parties came out on the winning side of the transaction. The Ravens got equal draft compensation Hurst taking in a slight depreciation factor. The Falcons got an inexpensive more athletic and explosive replacement for two-time Pro Bowler Austin Hooper, who signed a market-setting deal with the Cleveland Browns in free agency and Hurst gets the opportunity to shine in an Atlanta offense that doesn’t use as many tight ends as Baltimore but puts the starter, which he is slated to be, in the best position to succeed and be a staple in their passing game.

However, while the Ravens were able to draft a possible future All-Pro talent in rookie running back J.K. Dobbins out of Ohio State with the pick they got in exchange for Hurst, the trade also left their offensive depth chart with a whole at the third tight end spot. General Manager Eris DeCosta opted not to use any of his 10 draft picks on a tight end but he did sign a pair of promising young prospects in undrafted free agency after the conclusion of the draft to come in and compete for the role that saw Hurst on the field for 41 percent of the team’s offensive plays last season.

Here’s where Adams comes into play.

Former Oregon Duck standout Jacob Breeland and former Georgia Bulldog grad transfer Eli Wolf were set to duke it out for that final spot to round out the position or at least that was supposed to be the case before Breeland was placed on the non-football injury list last week and is expected to miss the entire 2020 season as he continues to work his way back from a season-ending knee injury that cut his break out senior season short after just six very productive games.

Adams was a sixth-round draft pick of the New York Giants in the 2016 draft out of South Carolina and has played for the New Orleans Saints and Houston Texans in his first four seasons in the league. He’s caught 24 passes for 214 yards and one touchdown in 30 career games, including three starts. He was active for just one game for the Texans last season but wasn’t targeted and played just five snaps on special teams.

At 27 years old, he’s still young and measuring in at 6-foot-5 and 254 pounds, he has great size for the position. Adams ran the fastest 40-yard dash time of all the tight ends that attended the 2016 NFL Scouting Combine with a mark of 4.64. His combination of size and speed could make him a seam-stretching threat down the middle of opposing defenses.

Just because the Ravens are bringing in Adams to compete with Wolf and 2019 undrafted free agent Charles Scarff, it doesn’t mean that they are out of the running to land one of the other available veteran tight ends still on the open market. Three-time Pro Bowler and 14-year vet, Delanie Walker is generating a lot of interest from teams and is on the Ravens radar as well according to ESPN’s Josina Anderson.

Walker could provide great veteran leadership to both the position group and a young locker room that is poised to contend for a championship in 2020 and he has the requisite skill set as both a blocker and pass catcher to excel in a limited role with the Ravens as long as he can stay healthy after being hampered by an injury bug in each of the last two seasons that has limited him to just eight games over that span. Perhaps not needing to be relied on as the go-to at the position could preserve him for the rigors of an entire regular season and hopefully a deep playoff run.

Fun fact about Adams: Hurst replaced him the Gamecocks’ offense following his final collegiate season in 2015 and now Adams has the opportunity to do the same with the Ravens.

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