Last season, the Baltimore Ravens’ passing game never really got off the ground. The team’s receivers caught an NFL-low 1,517 yards, and quarterback Lamar Jackson’s Week 13 knee injury dealt the death knell. But they begin 2023 as the only team ever with five-first round picks in the wide receiver room: Rashod Bateman returned from a season-ending foot injury; Odell Beckham Jr., Nelson Agholor, and Laquon Treadwell joined in free agency; and the team selected Boston College standout Zay Flowers at No. 22.
Early in his life, Flowers was often overlooked. He’s the 11th of 14 children, and he was outside of the top 1,000 in his recruiting class. But despite standing only 5’9”—with shoes on—he’s already become one of the biggest rookie personalities in the league. And he has much more in mind for his future than merely proving those who literally overlooked him wrong. Flowers spoke with GQ about growing up in that larger-than-life family, about going from one Power 5 offer to the first round, and about how it was Lamar Jackson’s plan for him to be a Raven all along.
GQ Sports: You’ve talked a lot about the toughness that growing up in South Florida instills in you. It’s something that you share with teammates like Lamar and Tyler Huntley. For people who are outside of the state, can you explain what it’s like to grow up there and why so many incredible NFL players come from South Florida?
We live and die football down there. The way I grew up, it was football, football, football, football, football. And then after that, it was football, football. So I’m like, “Football it is.” That’s all I’m going to focus on. That’s all I’m going to think about. That’s all I’m going to do. And it was always around me. My mom loved it. My dad loved it. My brothers played. Even my sisters played at the park. So my dad would be at the park for 12 hours just watching us all play. Sometimes we’d be playing more football while we were playing football. Everything that I know and everything I was doing was about football.
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