Isaiah Likely

Four years in Baltimore, four different roles — and 2024 was the breakout that never quite repeated.

The career-best line was 2024: 42-477-6 on 58 targets. Then 2025 cratered — only 307 yards through 12 games and a single TD — even though his target share barely moved (12.0% vs 13.3%). The breakout wasn't sustained because Andrews stayed on the field.

Why it matters. Likely's career arc is bottlenecked by Mark Andrews' availability. 2024 (42-477-6) was his ceiling because Andrews missed time and ceded snaps; 2025 collapsed to 307 yards through 12 games because Andrews stayed healthy and the targets stayed with him. The breakout was never a Likely growth curve — it was an Andrews absence.

Week 1 of 2024 was a 9-catch, 111-yard, 1-TD line in Kansas City — his only career 100-yard game.

The 2024 opener in Kansas City is the only 100-yard game of his career so far — 9 catches on 12 targets, 111 yards, 1 TD. Andrews was barely involved that night (2 catches on 2 targets, 14 yards), and the Ravens leaned on Likely as the de facto TE1. Even so, they spent the next four months tilting back toward Andrews.

The 2022 W18 line (8-103 on 13 targets vs CIN) was the *rookie* version of the same proof-of-concept — a regular-season finale Andrews missed.

Why it matters. One 100-yard game in 56 career regular-season appearances is the gap between 'rotational TE2' and 'TE1 if forced.' Both of his top-2 games came when Andrews was either absent or quiet, reinforcing that Likely's ceiling is gated by snaps, not skill.

He's a red-zone TE — 5 of his 6 TDs in 2024 came inside the 20.

In 2024 the Ravens fed him 13 red-zone targets and he turned them into 5 TDs. The 2025 version of the same role nearly disappeared — just 6 RZ targets in 12 games, with Andrews reclaiming the goal-line packages (Andrews has 5 TDs of his own in 2025).

This is the cleanest tell on Likely's usage swing: when the Ravens trust him near the goal line, the TD numbers spike. When Andrews is healthy, they don't.

Why it matters. Red-zone usage is the cleanest tell on the Ravens' trust in Likely. 2024's 13 RZ targets / 5 RZ TDs only happened with Andrews limited; in 2025 Andrews reclaimed the goal-line role and Likely's RZ work was cut in half (6 targets, 1 TD). The TD volatility isn't variance — it's Andrews' health.

Inside the Baltimore TE room — Andrews has stayed Andrews, and that's the whole story.

Andrews's 2024 (69 tgt, 11 TDs) was vintage, so Likely never got the runway. 2025 is the surprise: Andrews's yards have collapsed (673 → 422) and his TDs are down to 5, but the targets didn't migrate to Likely — they migrated to the run game and to Zay Flowers. Likely's per-game target rate actually fell year-over-year (3.9 → 3.0).

Why it matters. When Andrews' production collapsed in 2025 (673 -> 422 yards, 11 -> 5 TDs), the natural prediction was a Likely surge. It didn't happen. Likely's targets dropped from 58 to 36 and Zay Flowers absorbed the freed volume (118 targets, 1,211 yards as the new WR1). The Ravens are routing around their TE room, not redistributing within it.

The 'Likely breakout if Andrews ages out' thesis hasn't shown up in the box score.

The peak target share was 14.8% as a rookie in 2022, when the Ravens were still figuring out how to use him. Three years later he's still hovering around 12% — well below the modern TE1 bar (McBride 27.9%, Bowers 23.4%, Pitts 22.7%, Warren 21.5%; see leaderboard above).

The scouting profile (run-after-catch TE, seam threat, red-zone matchup nightmare) still holds. But the usage hasn't caught up, and Andrews's continued goal-line role is the bottleneck — not Likely's ceiling.

Why it matters. TE1 target share in 2025 is a ~20%+ club (McBride, Bowers, Pitts, Warren, Kittle). Likely at 12% isn't a TE1 stuck behind one — he's being used like a TE2 league-wide, even with Andrews regressing. The 'next man up' thesis requires Baltimore to actually feed him, and four seasons in, they still don't.