The Baltimore Ravens signed wide receiver Zay Flowers to a four-year, $140 million extension that includes $108 million guaranteed, ESPN reported. The two sides reached agreement Tuesday, August 4, and the team said Flowers signed the deal Wednesday morning. The contract runs through 2031 and was negotiated by Win Sports Group.
At $35 million per year, Flowers ties Minnesota's Justin Jefferson as the fourth-highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL by average annual value. Inside his own building the deal places him second only to quarterback Lamar Jackson. The extension takes the place of his 2027 fifth-year rookie option, which Baltimore had picked up in April, NFL.com reported.
What Baltimore is paying for
Flowers was the 22nd overall pick in the 2023 draft. He caught 86 passes for 1,211 yards in 2025, both career highs. Per ESPN, he accounted for 36.9% of Baltimore's receiving yards that season — the second-highest share of any receiver in the league — and his 3,128 receiving yards across three seasons rank third among all players drafted in 2023.
Baltimore has existed since 1996 and had never sent a wide receiver to the Pro Bowl until Flowers did it in 2024, per the Ravens. He repeated the selection in 2025.
General manager Eric DeCosta framed the extension in those terms: "Zay is the type of player we always seek to retain. Tough, competitive, durable, a premier talent and a foundational football player." Head coach Jesse Minter, in his first season after replacing John Harbaugh, added: "When your best players are the right type of people, and they bring the right mentality, and everything marries together ... [n]othing better as a coach than to see those guys get what they deserve."
A week of record extensions
Flowers' deal lands in the middle of an unusually concentrated stretch of NFL extension news. On August 4 the Chicago Bears signed right tackle Darnell Wright to a four-year, $116 million extension with $93 million guaranteed, the most guaranteed money ever committed to an offensive lineman. The same day the Atlanta Falcons signed running back Bijan Robinson to a three-year extension with $51 million guaranteed, the most ever guaranteed to a running back on a non-rookie deal.
Flowers' contract sets no positional record — the receiver market was already well past $35 million per year at the top. It does make him the third 2023 first-round pick to sign an extension in three days, after Wright and Robinson. The Ravens committed $112 million to pass rusher Trey Hendrickson in March.
The extension wave continued the next day, when Jahmyr Gibbs became the NFL's highest-paid running back on a three-year, $67.5 million Lions deal.
Source: ESPN, with additional detail from the Baltimore Ravens and NFL.com.
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