Rashod Bateman will miss “a number of weeks” with groin injury

The Ravens first round wide receiver will be sidelined indefinitely with another soft tissue issue.

The Baltimore Ravens currently have several starters and other players expected to play large roles on the offense dealing with minor injuries that continue to keep them sidelined. No position group on the team has been hit harder and more notably than the wide receivers.

The offense has already been without Marquise ‘Hollywood’ Brown since the first day of training camp due to hamstring injury that turned out to be more serious than Head Coach John Harbaugh was originally told. Now they won’t have Rashod Bateman for what will likely be the bulk of the preseason and perhaps even longer while recovers from his own lower extremity injury that he suffered during practice on Tuesday.

“He has a soft tissue leg issue that’s going to be weeks. It’ll be a number of weeks,” Harbaugh said. “So, I don’t know how many. It’s not going to be months. But it will be weeks. We’ll see where we’re at.”

Bateman was the first of the Ravens’ two first round picks in this year’s draft and the second wide receiver that General Manager Eric DeCosta has selected in round one during his tenure as the head of the team’s front office. He’s slated for a significant role on offense in his rookie season and is expected to be an immediate contributor.

With no concrete timetable for his return at the moment, there’s no telling when he will be able to resume practicing and be cleared for live competition. Mario Pilato of PFF tweeted about the rookie wideout’s groin strain and provided a rough estimate for length of time he’ll be out of commission based on the severity of the strained muscle.

Many fans, pundits and the Ravens themselves are excited for the return of the preseason and were looking forward to watching Bateman along with his fellow rookies and others play in it this year after the pandemic cancelled all exhibition games in 2020. While this isn’t great news and last thing any fan of a team with legit title contending hopes wanted to hear, they can take some solace in the fact that this temporary setback isn’t season-ending or career threatening. He is still expected to play this season even if his debut is delayed.