Fantasy Football Free Agency: Mark Ingram Signs With The Baltimore Ravens
Mark Ingram has signed a three-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens to ostensibly be their lead running back for the next few seasons. The contract runs for three seasons but given Mark Ingram’s advanced age for a running back (2019 will be his age 30 season), I would not be surprised if he is no longer with the team by the end of this contract.
The Baltimore Ravens released Alex Collins recently and both Javorius Allen and Ty Montgomery are currently free agents. That mean as it stands, Mark Ingram and Gus Edwards are the two primary running backs on the Ravens roster with Kenneth Dixon still on the team as a third running back. The expectation, given the money that is committed to undrafted free agent Edwards and to Ingram, is that Mark Ingram will be the lead running back in the 2019 season.
Graham Barfield explained on Twitter why Mark Ingram is in such a desirable position for fantasy football success.
Once Lamar Jackson took over as the #Ravens starter in Week 11, Baltimore went 64% run-heavy — by far the highest rate in the NFL.
In this span, BAL RBs ranked 4th in success rate (55%), 2nd in carries per game (24.9), and 1st in YPC (5.3). Mark Ingram is going to eat.
— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) March 13, 2019
While the rest of the NFL is turning towards passing more frequently than ever and introducing Air Raid concepts into their offense, the Ravens are going the other way. They have fortified their defense with the signing of Earl Thomas and are signaling that they intend to be a ground and pound team in 2019. In Lamar Jackson’s starts after the Ravens Week 10 bye, the Ravens ran the ball for 200 or more yards on five occasions. They topped 40 total rushing attempts in six of those games and Lamar Jackson set a record for most rushing attempts by a quarterback in less than half of a season.
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Mark Ingram Fantasy Football Free Agency Impact
While Latavius Murray pulled himself into back-end RB2 consideration with his signing in New Orleans, Ingram’s value stayed just about the same with his signing in Baltimore. When doing season-long projections using our team-level projection algorithm, I will be assigning Mark Ingram around 40% of the Ravens carries. That may not sound like a crazy amount but when you account for the fact that the Ravens are likely to lead the NFL in rushing, it matters a great deal. A good median projection for Mark Ingram assuming health and that the Ravens offense does not crater as it did against the Los Angeles Chargers in the playoffs would be something close to 200 carries, 950 yards with 25 targets added. A good chunk of Ingram’s value will be touchdown reliant and dependent on the continued development of Lamar Jackson as an NFL quarterback. As I am generally an optimist on Lamar, I am forced to be an optimist on Ingram’s 2019 outlook.
Fantasy Football Free Agency Signings:
