BALTIMORE — The Ravens’ first notable free-agent addition this offseason addressed their biggest need.
Desperate for help at wide receiver, the Ravens finally added their first player from outside the organization Friday, agreeing to a deal with veteran Nelson Agholor. The one-year contract is worth $3.25 million and includes another $3 million in incentives, according to multiple reports.
Agholor, who will turn 30 in May, gives Baltimore and quarterback Lamar Jackson a much-needed deep threat after spending the past two seasons with the New England Patriots, where he started 20 games and caught 68 passes for 835 yards and five touchdowns. Over his past eight seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, then-Oakland Raiders and Patriots, he caught 31 touchdown passes.
Last season, however, the 6-foot, 198-pound veteran was on the field for just 45% of the Patriots’ snaps. He caught 31 passes for 362 yards and two touchdowns, with most of those numbers being accumulated early in the year.
Agholor recorded 225 receiving yards during the first four games of the season last year — including 110 yards on six catches in a Week 2 win against the Pittsburgh Steelers — but suffered a hamstring injury in Week 5 against the Detroit Lions. He missed the Patriots’ Week 6 win over the Cleveland Browns as well as a Week 9 contest against the Indianapolis Colts and tallied just 137 yards the rest of the season after the injury.
He was targeted just twice over the final three weeks of the season, which included one start, and didn’t catch any passes in those games.
A first-round pick by the Eagles in 2015, Agholor received a 56.4 overall grade from Pro Football Focus last season, which ranked 101st among wide receivers. But he comes cheap for a Ravens team that began the day with less than $8 million in cap space and has one of the thinnest groups of pass catchers in the league, led by third-year pro Rashod Bateman and Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews.
Wide receiver has remained a glaring need for the Ravens, who have mostly relied on draft picks and veterans on short-term deals. Over the past three seasons, Baltimore is last in the NFL in receiving yards by wide receivers by a significant margin.
The Ravens, along with the Jacksonville Jaguars, were the only remaining teams entering Friday that hadn’t signed a free agent from outside their own organizations.
Agholor visited with Baltimore earlier in the week and his deal reunites him with new Ravens wide receiver coach Greg Lewis, who was his position coach in 2016 with the Eagles. Ravens quarterback coach Tee Martin was also Agholor’s wide receiver coach at Southern California.
