Rashod Bateman — Week 1: One Deep Target and an Erased Nineteen-Yarder
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Bateman was thrown to once Sunday — second and ten at the Baltimore thirty-four to open the second half, deep left, twenty-three yards in the air, incomplete. A nineteen-yard catch deep left on third and five late in the second quarter was wiped out by an offensive holding call. No catches, no yards, in a 41–23 win over the Colts.
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Rashod Bateman caught a 19-yard pass on Sunday, and it does not exist. Third and five at the Baltimore 39, one 57 left in the half, Ravens up 28 to 13: Lamar Jackson deep left to Bateman to the Indianapolis 42, and a holding penalty on Ioane brought it back — no play, third and 15, and the drive ended in a punt. The play-by-play files it under penalties and the stat line files it nowhere.
The target that does count was the Ravens' second snap of the third quarter. Second and 10 at the Baltimore 34, 14 14 left, up 31 to 13: Jackson deep left for Bateman, 23 yards in the air, incomplete. −0.8 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. One target, no catches, no yards. The reporting adds one thing the data does not: the recap from Quentin Corpuel at BaltimoreRavens.com credits Bateman and Chris Moore with the blocks on Derrick Henry's 32-yard touchdown run, and the play-by-play, which records only the runner and the tacklers, cannot confirm or deny it.
Baltimore threw 25 times, 18 before halftime and seven after, and one of the 25 was a spike with no receiver. Six went to Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews, three to Ja'Kobi Lane, two each to Moore and LaJohntay Wester, one to Bateman and one each to Henry, Justice Hill, Smythe and Matthew Hibner. Both Flowers and Lane were ruled out during the game, per Ryan Mink at BaltimoreRavens.com — Flowers with a hamstring injury, Lane with a wrist injury, neither noted in the play-by-play — and the seven second-half throws went three to Andrews, two to Moore, one to Hill, one to Bateman. The 53-yard catch on third and five to open the fourth quarter was Moore's, not Bateman's.
Back in June the preview's read on Bateman was a thin role in an offense that spread its targets, about three and a half points a game across 13 games, with availability around 73 percent over five seasons. Sunday was one target in 25 throws, which is the thin role as described, and it came in a second half when two of the receivers ahead of him were off the field. If that absence lasts, the room changes shape; the data from one game cannot say whether it does. Baltimore is home to the Saints on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
When Rashod Bateman's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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