The Ravens spent all of training camp hearing about Ja'Kobi Lane, and Saturday night against the Eagles he backed it up on the field that actually counts. The 6-foot-4 rookie out of USC hauled in his first career NFL catch and turned it into a 16-yard touchdown in the first quarter, immediately sprinting for the end zone the way scouts said he would.
Lane's first career NFL catch, which he immediately turns into a sprint for the end zone.
That catch alone would've been a nice camp headline. Scoring on it is what turned Lane into the buzziest name coming out of Baltimore's preseason opener.
Adam Schefter's clip of Lane's first preseason touchdown as a Raven.
Lane wasn't exactly a household name entering the draft. He fell to the No. 80 pick in the third round in part because his USC teammate Makai Lemon had a breakout senior season that shot Lemon into the first round instead, pulling attention away from Lane. Still, Lane put up 49 catches for 745 yards and 4 touchdowns in his final USC season, and he came into the league with the biggest hands (10.5 inches) of any receiver in his draft class.
He's also arrived in Baltimore with a built-in mentor: former Ravens tight end Todd Heap coached Lane in high school in Arizona and reportedly vouched for him throughout the pre-draft process. Lamar Jackson, who didn't play in the opener, still had eyes on the rookie afterward, saying 'that's what we need...it's amazing. The sky is the limit for him.'
None of that context stopped the fan reaction from going full hype-train the second the ball crossed the goal line.
It's one touchdown in one preseason game, sure. But paired with a training camp where Lane was already the talk of the building, it's exactly the kind of debut that gets a fringe fantasy sleeper moved way up boards before Week 1 even matters. The next test comes in Baltimore's second preseason game, where Lane will try to prove Saturday wasn't a one-off.