Can the ‘unique’ and polarizing Ja’Kobi Lane change the Ravens’ WR room?

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In the weeks and months leading up to the NFL draft, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta went searching for a lost treasure.

Over the seven years he’d spent building an offense around quarterback Lamar Jackson, he’d never found a bona fide “X” receiver. And so one big-bodied prospect after another visited Owings Mills this spring to meet with the Ravens, just in case.

“The one piece we’ve missed on is that big ‘X’ presence,” DeCosta said in an interview with The Ringer’s Todd McShay last year. “We’ve never really had that. We tried to find that guy. That guy doesn’t grow on trees, right?”

On Friday, DeCosta went looking for gold — in USC’s cardinal and gold. Ja’Kobi Lane, taken in the third round at No. 80 overall, is the Ravens’ latest investment in uncovering one of football’s rarest assets: a wide receiver who can beat press coverage, win in isolation and make tight-window catches against a defense’s most athletic cornerbacks.

The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Lane is a polarizing prospect. Playing alongside star wide receiver Makai Lemon, a first-round pick, he had 49 catches for 745 yards and four touchdowns last season. His 2025 highlight reel has one contested catch after another.

But the volume of those opportunities underscored another trend: an inability to separate. At the NFL scouting combine, Lane ran a faster 40-yard dash (4.48 seconds) than 6-2 wide receiver Carnell Tate, the No. 4 overall pick. He had a faster 10-yard split, too (1.58 seconds). Yet his athleticism rarely translated into wide-open looks downfield.

Matt Harmon, an NFL analyst for Yahoo Sports, wrote in his Reception Perception analysis that Lane “is just not a separator and there’s really no way around that.” His 50.9% “success rate” against man coverage — how often a receiver gets open against the defenders covering him — was the lowest in the past three classes of wide receiver prospects Harmon scouted.

Earlier efforts to find Jackson his own Ja’Marr Chase or Davante Adams have been unsuccessful. Miles Boykin couldn’t carve out a regular role on offense with his size and speed. Rashod Bateman has struggled with injuries and press coverage. A 2023 trade offer for the Denver Broncos’ Courtland Sutton fell through. DeAndre Hopkins had just 22 catches for 330 yards and two touchdowns as the Ravens’ 2025 offense unraveled.

With Pro Bowl wide receiver Zay Flowers ill-suited for a regular “X” role, and with Jackson needing more receiving help this offseason, DeCosta went looking for size. Lane, Tate and Washington’s Denzel Boston, another 6-4 target who went in the second round, reportedly took “30” visits to Owings Mills ahead of the draft.

“We were trying to find different types of players,” DeCosta said. “You don’t want to have all big guys, all small guys, all the guys that play inside, all guys that can play outside. So the idea would be to really build out a room that’s versatile and can do different things. … Ja’Kobi was a player that I think our coaches were excited about [and] our scouts really liked. We just think that he’s a ball of clay with a lot of upside, who has unique catching ability and unique size."

Their connection could take time to develop. Lane said Friday night he favors fade routes; according to Sports Info Solutions, he ran 37 of them last season for USC, fourth most in the Big Ten Conference. Lane was targeted 11 times and caught four of the eight “catchable” passes for 81 yards and two touchdowns. He also drew five pass interference penalties on fades.

Jackson, meanwhile, attempted just four passes total to targets running fades last season, according to SIS. He connected on one, a 15-yarder to Hopkins in Week 13 against the Cincinnati Bengals. Jackson’s never completed more than six such passes in a season and has never attempted more than 17, either; both highs were set in 2023, when he went 6-for-17 overall for 133 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

Lane will present a different kind of target than the 5-9 Flowers, the 6-1 Bateman and the 6-1 Devontez Walker. He joked that if “catching passes from Lamar Jackson … doesn’t put a smile on your face, I don’t know what will.” The Ravens’ hope is that Jackson comes to feel the same way about throwing him passes.

“He’s 6-foot-4, over 205 pounds,” DeCosta said of Lane, whom former Ravens tight end Todd Heap coached and mentored at Arizona’s Red Mountain High School. “He jumps 40 inches. Not many guys can do that, unless they’re playing in the NBA. He has great ball skills and huge hands. I think any quarterback would like throwing a ball to a guy like him. I think Lamar’s going to be excited when he sees him. I think Ja’Kobi is going to earn the trust of Lamar, and he’s going to be a player that can be counted on to make big plays.”