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First-round picks are often expected to contribute to their teams immediately. Hayden Hurst, Baltimore's first-round selection last year, didn't and is aware. The 25-year-old tight end was taken by the Ravens with the 25th pick and finished the season playing less than a quarter of the Ravens’ offensive snaps and caught just 13 passes.
“For me, I think it was just average,” Hurst told The State. “I give myself a C. I think I’m capable of a lot more. But the foot thing kind of held me back.”
By “the foot thing,” Hurst is referring to a stress fracture in his left foot. August surgery on the injury kept him out of the team's first four games, and almost certainly slowed him down for the rest of the year.
In the 12 games he did play, Hurst's 13 catches went for 163 yards and one touchdown. In his junior season, the 25-year-old turned heads in the college ranks at South Carolina with 44 catches for 559 yards and two touchdowns after tallying 48 catches for 616 yards and a score the previous year.
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His size stands out at 6-foot-5, but he has the versatility to line up across the field and the athleticism to make defenders miss and capitalize on big plays, if he's able to get back to 100 percent, he could be a terrific weapon for his quarterback, Lamar Jackson.
On the Raven's in-house podcast, The Lounge, offensive coordinator Greg Roman praised Hurst.
“I really liked how [Hurst] caught his stride toward the very end of the season,” he said. “He didn’t have a ton of opportunities throughout the year to really impact a lot of games. He just kept grinding, kept fighting through. It was a great experience for him, and I expect him to be that much more of a pro coming into this year.”
Expect much bigger things from Hurst in the 2019 season and for the Ravens to look to get him involved often.
