The Ravens GM covered the injury and surgery of Rashod Bateman, and the exciting 2023 season for J.K. Dobbins
The NFL Scouting Combine has started and with it comes press conferences for every team. General Manager Eric DeCosta spoke today and while most of the questions obviously focused on Lamar Jackson and the contract situation, other topics were also breached.
DeCosta gave a spirited update on wide receiver Rashod Bateman’s foot injury.
“Rashod is doing really well,” DeCosta said. “It was a pretty serious injury. I think we got out ahead of it to a degree. Rashod and the club—we decided to do the surgery and I think it was probably good that we did it at that point because the injury could have gotten worse. He’s doing well. We text quite a bit and I know very, very excited—chomping at the bit to get into the offseason program.”
It’s important to remember that Lisfranc injuries are serious and tend to linger into athletes’ careers, for all sports. Despite that, it’s nice to hear DeCosta and therefore the team to have expectations for Bateman coming into 2023, likely meaning they expect Bateman to be close to 100% for the season and have an impact. The Ravens drafted Bateman to be a top-tier receiver in the room and that shouldn’t change.
DeCosta also fielded a question about J.K. Dobbins during the presser:
“J.K. finished strong…really really impressed with his passion, his work ethic, the way he battled back from a very very serious knee injury, it was very impressive to me to see how he really kind of matured over the course of the season,” DeCosta said. “He came back from that second procedure, surgery that he had and he started to really look like the old J.K. which is extremely exciting for the organization. We fully expect J.K. to have a great year this year.”
Dobbins had a crazy finish to the season, coming back in week 14 after going on IR mid-season to have a clean-up procedure. He averaged 6.6 yards per carry after his second return in the last five games of the season and expressed displeasure after only receiving 13 carries in the Wild Card loss to the Bengals. The hope is for Dobbins to have a truly great and commanding season in 2023.