BALTIMORE — In one moment, Rashod Bateman is lined up on a football field, one leg in front of the other, arms dangling, crowd noise blending into white noise. A nameless, faceless cornerback stands across from him.

A single thought enters the otherwise artistic, if not frenetic mind of the Ravens wide receiver.

“Kill him,” Bateman told The Baltimore Sun. “As a receiver, I think that’s gotta be your mentality.”

In another moment, he is alone and it’s quiet, except for the grainy footage of Jerry Rice that he has pulled up on YouTube. He has to look closely given the lack of high definition but is consumed by the creativity and repetition from the NFL’s career leader in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.

Rice is the “O.G.” of elite route running to Bateman, 25 and entering his fifth year in the league after Baltimore selected him 27th overall out of Minnesota in 2021. The Pro Football Hall of Famer’s achievements are aspirational, sure, but Bateman’s immediate focus is building on what was a career year for him last season both statistically (756 yards, nine touchdowns) and in more advanced measurables that put him within range of the game’s upper echelon of receivers.

Going into 2024, Bateman had a career separation rate of 76.6%, per Pro Football Focus. Last season, however, that jumped to an eye-opening 91.9%, with 50 of his receptions coming from open looks.

Much of the damage he did to defenses came in intermediate and underneath routes, particularly cutting across the field, where he could use his separation to pull away from defenders and his high football IQ to find uncovered patches of field. But he also proved a viable deep threat, hauling in 8 of 15 attempts for 292 yards and five scores, the latter tied for the second-most in the league with his 36.7-yard average depth of target on those deep throws, the most among any receiver with at least 15 deep targets, per PFF.

More proof: Bateman ranked 11th among receivers in ESPN’s open score metric, which measures a receiver’s ability to get open on a route, regardless of whether they are targeted, relative to what is expected given the situation. That was two spots ahead of Dallas Cowboys star CeeDee Lamb, three ahead of Los Angeles Rams receiver Davante Adams (another player he studies) and six ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase, who last season led the NFL in catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.

In order for the art and science to meld, though, a confluence of events had to occur.

Pain-free

The first thing Bateman needed to accelerate, literally and figuratively, was his health, something that was a challenge his first three seasons.

In 2021, it was a groin injury. In 2022, it was season-ending Lisfranc surgery on his right foot. In 2023, it was lingering pain in the same foot, though he ultimately managed to appear in 16 games.

“Going through that and coming back from that was tough,” he told The Baltimore Sun. “In 2023, the whole year I was still dealing with pain. I still ran good routes and got open, but being able to progress and break through that barrier and the whole thing healing has allowed me to get back to doing the things I know I’m capable of doing.”

Sandwiched between it all was one mental and emotional hurdle after another, including in the span of a few months the deaths of his grandmother and a teenage cousin who took his own life.

Those moments sparked troubling and dark days for Bateman, who was also uncertain about his future with the Ravens. He told The Sun that he didn’t feel “fully involved” in the offense until last season, and when the team signed him to a team-friendly two-year extension in 2024, he acknowledged that the move was “a little bit shocking” to him given the ups and downs of his career to that point.

It was, however, a good-faith agreement as well. Still, after his breakout in 2024, Bateman was given permission to seek a trade and there were discussions with the Dallas Cowboys. Ultimately, though, Dallas signed George Pickens to pair with Lamb, while Bateman got another extension from the Ravens, this time for three years and a more lucrative $36.75 million with $20 million guaranteed.

Not long after the ink was dry on the new contract, Bateman arrived at training camp feeling healthier than he has at any point in his career, he said. He also added 10 pounds of muscle thanks to high-octane workouts in Phoenix and Los Angeles over the summer.

“I’m in better condition than last year,” he said. “I learned to run every route full speed. As a receiver we run a lot and I think the hardest thing for all of us is running the route the same with the same energy every single time. That’s always the difficult part. Being in the best condition possible will take the game to the next level.”

Pilates has also become a regular part of his regimen as well.

“Your body gets used to certain movements, patterns,” he continued. “It’s like being out here with Lamar [Jackson]. The year I was able to be consistent with him on the field the more I was out here.”

On the same page

Being simpatico with the guy throwing the ball is the key to any receiver’s success, and that’s been a lightning rod issue in particular for critics when talking about the dynamic between Bateman and Jackson.

It’s not without merit. During last season’s divisional round playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills, Jackson fumbled once and was intercepted once, the latter coming in the opening quarter of the eventual 27-25 loss when he threw off his back foot toward the middle of the field as Bateman was breaking toward the sideline. Jackson took responsibility after the game for the “B.S.” interception, said he should have held the safety with his eyes and made a better throw.

Bateman also said he did not run the wrong route on the play, though preferred not to belabor the past and both players have been highly complimentary of each other, each recognizing the obvious talent in the other.

“It takes practice,” Bateman said of what goes into quarterback and receiver being on the same page. “Me being out here with Lamar has helped me a lot.

“It’s about getting those reps in and timing steps and depth and all those things.”

And beating the guy trying to guard him.

It’s something Bateman takes pride in and requires a certain skill.

“You’re always trying to fool the other guy, making the defensive back thinking you’re going to do something else,” he continued. “Other than that, it’s creating your own way to run the route. It’s all about your hip movement and patterns. Certain routes have to be run certain ways to make sure it times up with the offense and the quarterback.”

Blending art and science

Bateman, a budding fashion designer whose interest in clothing has roots that trace to his childhood and more recently extended to Paris for fashion week, sees beauty and science when it comes to his craft.

He also learned a lot, he says, from former Ravens wide receivers coach Keith Williams, former Ravens receiver Odell Beckham Jr., along with studying those videos of Rice and others.

“Your feet end up in different spots all the time, but it’s all about body movement, body position and learning to counter your opponent where you need to,” he said. “There’s definitely an art to it.”

That’s not the only thing that has stood out, teammates say.

“The way he competes,” fellow receiver and three-time All-Pro DeAndre Hopkins said. “He is hard on himself, which is good, which is what you look for in a young wide receiver who’s still making a name for himself in this league.

“He comes out and works. He competes, he loves going against our best corners, and he looks forward to those matchups.”

Bateman’s penchant to hone in on his skills was evident this summer, when in addition to his usual routine he added a trip to South Florida.

There, he put in a weekend session with trainer Tevin Allen, aka Goldfeet on Instagram. It was the first time the two had worked together, though Allen has worked with countless high-profile NFL players, including Jackson and Ravens receiver Zay Flowers.

“It wasn’t a lot of specific stuff that we [were] working on,” Flowers said. “It’s just [that] we wanted to get better at everything, so we went out for a weekend and trained together that whole weekend and put a lot of stuff together. We’re expecting it to translate to camp and to the season.”

It had adjacent benefits, too, Bateman said.

“It was all about some team bonding,” he said.

Still, when it comes down to the relationship between him beating his defender, being on the same page as the guy throwing the ball and catching it, there’s one thing that ties it all together Bateman told The Sun.

“As a receiver, you just gotta have swag when you go out there and play,” he said. “You gotta have some type of confidence. A lot of us have our own mentality of what that aura looks like.”

Finally, Bateman seems to have found his.

©2025 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.