[FULL EPISODE] 2026 NFL Season BOLD Calls!

**James Koh** (0:01)
We've got our Taycan is loaded and ready.

**Matt Harmon** (0:03)
Absolutely dominant on deep routes, absolutely dominant on short routes.

**James Koh** (0:07)
The boys are backbanging.

**Matt Harmon** (0:08)
Excellent separation against ManCover. This is Reception Perception, the show.

**James Koh** (0:15)
Yo, what's cracking everybody? James Koh, Matt Harmon here with you. You're listening to Reception Perception, the show. Today, it's one of my favorite episodes of the year because today is the bold predictions episode. Matt Harmon, man, we've got five bold predictions here. I've seen some of yours. You've seen some of mine. And yeah, man, I'm going to say we're pushing the boundaries of logical here.
And I like it. You know me. I love this kind of stuff.

**Matt Harmon** (0:46)
Yeah, I'm looking at yours right now. There's a couple of years that are pretty spicy. So yeah, I can't wait to get into it.

**James Koh** (0:55)
All right, man, should we just get going here? Do you want to hit me with your first bold prediction?

**Matt Harmon** (1:00)
Yeah, first bold prediction here for me. I was kind of teasing this one on the car cast yesterday or two days ago. Was it the actual, was it the live stream draft show that we did where you were in your car? Either way, I was teasing this one a little bit. Zay Flowers leads the NFL in receiving yards this season. That would be a pretty big jump for him. He's been incredibly productive over the course of his NFL career. I think he's 11th in yards since he entered the NFL. So he's been a really productive receiver in terms of him taking this next step, though. The more and more I thought about this Ravens team, number one, I'm really excited about Declan Doyle's offense. I actually think the more you picture Lamar Jackson's strengths as a player, where he's really, I mean, this is honestly at the beginning of his career, he was kind of a guy that was like a little bit panned for his work outside the numbers. You know, like that was this, oh, he's really good throwing over the middle, but he's not that great pushing the ball deep and outside the numbers, which is funny because like now nobody really wants to push the ball deep and outside the numbers on go outs and things of that nature. We want to be attacking over the middle of the field. That's Lamar Jackson's strength. Strength as a passer is pushing it over the middle, which is obviously what they're going to want to do in this Declan Doyle offense, which is going to feel very similar to what they did in Chicago last year. So I think Lamar fits really well in that. He has some kind of, he does have at least last year and maybe even the last couple of years has some troubling splits between when he's using play action and when he's not using play action.
He's going to be using play action a ton in this offense. So this is kind of a little bit of Lamar Jackson, you know, prediction that I think he fits this offense really well. But again, the more I've looked at this receiving room, yeah, I think Jacoby Lane is going to play a role. I'm into him being like kind of a sacrificial ex receiver.
We'll see about Rashad Bateman. Obviously, we've got off field concerns there. We have no idea. And he's not been like a consistently targeted player even when he's been available and been separating in the NFL. So, I mean, that just kind of is what it is.
Ultimately, the tight end room, I think they are going to try to play a good bit of 12 and 13 personnel.
But I don't know that anybody there is going to be a real target commander, like Mark Andrews. The reports out of training camp on Mark Andrews haven't been glowing by any means. Matthew Hibner, their fourth round rookie tight end has been getting some pop, but against fourth round rookie tight end, Durham Smythe is obviously more of an inline guy who they brought over from Chicago. It's like, how is Zay Flowers not going to run into a 30 percent target share with this team? You know, that's what happens when you play a lot of heavy personnel overall. So Flowers, to me, I think is, you know, just set up to get a ton of volume. I think this offense is going to be good. And I think Zay Flowers is really, really good, who's kind of a guy that's ready to take that fourth year leap after seeing kind of three straight seasons of really good zone success rate and reception perception. He took a step forward with a 75 percent success rate versus press last year.