Rashod Bateman is currently my rookie Wr1 and I wanted to do an in depth breakdown explaining, with both film and analytics. He may not be your Wr1 (yet) but he should definitely be considered as one of top talents in the class. Heres my thread as to why, enjoy:

@MyFantasyLeague

Bateman demonstrates a really nice route here, he sells the inside slant, plants his foot and cuts to the outside, creating massive separation and makes a nice strong handed catch near the side line.

Another beautifully run route here, shows nice quick feet and twitch to freeze the DB, creates good initial separation off the line, he then makes a hard cut to the inside, and again shows really strong hands to make the catch on the high velocity throw.

This play results in a turnover due to a poorly thrown pass by the QB, but Bateman shows a nice move here off the line to create separation. He gives a quick jab and head fake to the outside and quickly cuts back inside, creating space for the QB to make a throw.

My favorite route by Bateman. Quick off the line with a hop step to the outside to threaten deep outside, immediately takes the inside leverage advantage, opens up his stride to threaten the deep inside route, just before making a clean cut inside for an easy catch. Beautiful.

Showing off his yac ability here, although not a TD, demonstrates good burst, speed, as well as elusiveness, and the ability to get small to avoid the would be tackler in the open field, after making a nice fluid cut.

Really nice double move after faking inside, for the touchdown. With his speed the DB has no chance of preventing a touchdown here. Bateman understands outside and insider leverage very well.

He also makes contested catches, although he doesn’t have to often due to his ability to separate, contested catches arent a weakness to his game. Consistently shows strong hands while catching the ball.

Highlight catch here for touchdown, uses his speed to create separation and then makes a difficult one handed catch while stretching outward.

DB giving Bateman a lot of space here off the line, looks to be scared of his speed, and for good reason. He makes a fluid cut inside, flattens out his route so the DB can’t close in, and then just uses his speed to take this play to the house for 60 yards.

He has good ball tracking skills as well, he makes a good adjustment on the under thrown ball, as he comes back for it, and then goes up to high point the catch as the defender is closing in.

What can’t he do? Really nice body control on this pass in the end zone, demonstrates great leaping ability and body control as he rotates outward to protect the ball from being knocked away, and makes sure to land his feet inbounds for the outstanding touchdown catch.

Just another difficult catch he makes look easy. Nice fake to the inside off the line to create separation, and then makes an acrobatic one handed catch near the sideline, all while demonstrating positional awareness to get his feet down before going out of bounds.

The film is definitely there, atleast for me. I’ve been doing this for less than a year now, so there may be things I overlooked or misinterpreted, but it’s a learning process. If you noticed anything good or bad that I haven’t, please share, I’m always looking to learn.

As far as the analytics, here’s a few things I really like to see and I know hold value. His college dominator score and breakout age are very good, both high percentile. Any analytics person will tell you these are always good signs, especially when combined together.

Bateman so far checks several boxes you always like to see:

Early breakout age
High Dominator
High Target share
Early Declare

Next, he will just need to have high draft capital and good athletic testing never hurts either. If these happens, he checks all the boxes.

And finally here’s my notes covering Rashod Bateman as a prospect. For me, he has just about everything you would want in a receiver at the NFL level. He should test well at his pro day from what I can tell by his film and a likely first round draft pick. My Wr1 of the class