Rashod Bateman — Week 2: Nine Targets, Eighty-Eight Yards
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21
Bateman caught 7 of 9 targets for 88 yards, the most of any receiver in the game, and a 22-yard touchdown with 28 seconds left in the first half that was the largest play of the day by expected points. One target in Week 1 became a team-high nine with Zay Flowers inactive, and the ninth was intercepted at the New Orleans seven with 20 seconds left, in a 24–17 loss to the Saints.
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Seven to three, Ravens, 28 seconds left in the first half, second and six at the New Orleans 22. Lamar Jackson threw deep middle to Rashod Bateman, 22 yards in the air, touchdown. +3.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — the largest figure for any play by either team, and 5.8 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it.
The line: nine targets, seven catches, 88 yards, one touchdown, three first downs, +5.6 expected points on his targets. A hundred 25 air yards and two after the catch, so nearly every yard was thrown rather than run. The 88 yards were the most by any receiver in the game, two more than Chris Olave. The catches went 19, nine, 22, 18, six, seven and seven. The 19 was second and 10 at the New Orleans 41 with six 24 left in the first quarter, deep right, out of bounds at the 22, on the drive Derrick Henry finished; at 7.3 points it was the largest win-probability gain of any Ravens pass or run. The nine came on the drive that ended in the touchdown. The 18 was first and 21 in the third quarter, deep left, out of bounds at the New Orleans 33, and the six converted second and five on the same drive, which ended in a field goal. Two targets were not caught: second and 10 at the New Orleans 19 late in the third, broken up by Quincy Riley, and the last one, deep left from the 37 with 20 seconds left, 30 yards in the air, intercepted by Julian Blackmon at the seven. Bateman made the tackle. None of the nine targets came on third down. Three before halftime, six after.
Nine of Jackson's 31 throws went to Bateman, the team high, with Mark Andrews next at seven and nobody else above three. After halftime it was six of 15. Zay Flowers was inactive with a hamstring injury, per NBC Sports, and Ja'Kobi Lane, who had three targets in Week 1, does not appear in this play-by-play.
This week contradicts the prior, so start there. Back in June the preview's read on Bateman was a thin role — a hundred-second among receivers last season, 38 targets in 13 games — in a room that kept adding bodies, with Flowers the clear first option. Week 1 fit it: one target, no catches. Sunday was nine targets and the most receiving yards on the field. The catches are real and so is the reason for the share: the receiver above him did not dress. Those are two separate facts, and the second explains a good part of the first. Whether nine survives Flowers's return is the open question. Baltimore is the road team against the Cowboys on Sunday the 20-seventh, at Maracana Stadium.
_Data via nflverse._
When Rashod Bateman's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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