After a dismal 2023 season, Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman rebounded to post the best season of his career in 2024. Is there potential for even more growth in 2025? Should fantasy football managers target the Ravens’ WR late in fantasy drafts?
Rashod Bateman Fantasy Outlook
After three seasons of underwhelming performance, I will be the first to admit writing off Bateman. Before 2024, Bateman never averaged more than 8.9 fantasy points per game in a season. In 2023, he averaged just 4.8 PPG.
Over his four years in the NFL, Bateman’s usage has been difficult to understand. He’s alternated years of being a low aDOT guy with being a splash play specialist.
Rashod Bateman pic.twitter.com/ByxDXtvdlU
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) February 26, 2025
In 2021 and 2023, Bateman averaged 11.2 and 11.5 yards per reception. In 2022 and 2024, he averaged 19.0 and 16.8 yards per reception. Unsurprisingly, those were his two most productive seasons.
Bateman is never going to be a target hog. He will never be a guy who pushes 14 PPG that you can trust in your lineup weekly. But if he can average 11-12 PPG, that can be used in fantasy as a Flex play.
Bateman averaged a career-best 10.3 PPG last season. On the one hand, he did that on just a 15.9% target share, and when he was targeted on a mere 17.3% of his routes run. That suggests even a mild improvement in volume could lead to a WR3 season.
On the other hand, Bateman overperformed in fantasy relative to his volume. Any regression would put him back to where he was over the first three years of his career: the waiver wire.
The Ravens’ Offense Is Largely the Same
There’s a lot of turnover in the NFL. Teams change quickly. An offense can completely overhaul in just a couple of years. That’s not the case with the Ravens, though.
The addition of Derrick Henry last year helped relieve a lot of pressure on Lamar Jackson, but this team’s overall identity didn’t change.
The Ravens ran the ball 47% of the time in neutral game script in 2023. That was 50% last year. They’re always near the top of the league in run rate. As a result, even a 20% target share for Bateman would not be the same level of opportunity as the league average.
Flowers and Bateman are back as the top two receivers. Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely will share the TE role. The only main addition was DeAndre Hopkins, who is nothing more than a role player at this point in his career.
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Bateman’s WR65 average draft position (ADP) implies fantasy managers are not buying what he did last year, and with good reason. Bateman caught just 45 passes. Yet, nine of them went for touchdowns. That’s an absurd 20% touchdown rate, which is unsustainable and not repeatable.
I have Bateman at WR61. At best, he’s the third option in a low-volume passing attack. At worst, he falls behind both tight ends and DHop, rendering him completely irrelevant.
Dan Fornek’s Rashod Bateman Projection
Rashod Bateman struggled through injuries during his first three seasons, capping his ability to grow and develop in an offense looking for a wide receiver to emerge for Lamar Jackson. Over his first three seasons, Bateman averaged just 50.7 targets, 31.0 receptions, 389.0 receiving yards and 1.3 touchdowns in 34 games. However, he finally stayed healthy in 2024 and played a role in Baltimore’s passing attack.
Bateman played in 17 games for the first time in his career, setting career highs in targets (72), receiving yards (756) and touchdowns (9). It was his first season with double-digit fantasy points (10.3) and a top-50 finish (WR45).
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The veteran receiver established himself as a vertical threat for Lamar Jackson, finishing sixth among wide receivers in yards per target (10.5) and seventh in yards per reception (16.8). He finished tied for 29th in red-zone targets, but was tied for eighth in red zone receptions (7).
Bateman has emerged as a strong separator, a reliable deep target, and a red zone weapon for the Ravens. Targets will be challenging to come by, competing with Zay Flowers and Mark Andrews, but Bateman also has the skillset to maximize his fantasy production with fewer targets. That makes him a boom-or-bust WR3, but if he can earn a steadier target share, he could produce at a WR2 level for periods.
