Rashod Bateman cut in to dispute the premise of the question.

“As you’re trying to build your season, as you’re trying to build that confidence that you’ve talked about,” the query began.

“I’m sorry,” the soft-spoken Ravens wide receiver interjected. “But I haven’t talked about building confidence. Other people have, but not me.”

Bateman was not being combative. He wanted to illustrate the discrepancy between the way others portray him and the way he views himself as he attempts to break out midway through his third season with the team.

He heard the expressions of concern from coaches and teammates as he worked back from the Lisfranc foot surgery that cut short his second season. He has talked about the personal anguish he felt after he lost his 68-year-old grandmother to lung cancer and his teenage cousin died by suicide a few weeks later.

But that does not mean Bateman ever lost belief in his ability to snatch a football out of the air and do magical things with it.

“I am in a good place,” he said Wednesday. “I’ve always been in a good place. The media have made it seem like I wasn’t in a good place. They’ve done a good job of that. So I’m going to keep letting them do their thing, and I’m just vibing man, playing football.”

Bateman, 23, has been the subject of much debate since the Ravens drafted him in the first round in 2021, lauded for his flashes of brilliance but derided for his inability to stay on the field. His 2023 statistics — 14 catches on 20 targets, another game lost to injury, a dropped touchdown pass in Pittsburgh — suggest he’s still trying to find his way.

But there are hints Bateman’s time might be coming. He has become an adept chip blocker, a quality that was on full display in the Ravens’ 38-6 demolition of the Detroit Lions. In their victory over the Arizona Cardinals, he took off on a jet sweep in the fourth quarter — the first carry of his NFL career — and accelerated down the sideline for 18 yards.

“I don’t think he’s practiced it even that much, the ball handling of it,” coach John Harbaugh marveled. “But to have him be able to do that … maybe they weren’t expecting it, but he ran around there, and I’ll tell you, when he turned the corner and accelerated up the sideline, that was impressive, wasn’t it?”

That wasn’t even Bateman’s best play of the game. In the first quarter, a harried Lamar Jackson floated a pass short of where he was headed, meaning cornerback Marco Wilson stood between him and the ball. Instead of giving up, Bateman reversed course, swooped over Wilson’s shoulder and wrestled the ball from him. He transformed a possible interception into a 29-yard gain that kept the Ravens charging toward the end zone.

“I wasn’t really concerned about the defender,” Bateman said. “I saw the ball was short, and I had to go make a play on it. I honestly didn’t realize where the defender was until I started working back for the ball. That’s kind of how it happened; I fought through the play and came away with the catch.”

His recounting made the sequence sound almost routine. Those around Bateman recognized it as anything but.

“You’re not going to see a better play than that,” Harbaugh said.

“Great catch,” Jackson said.

Which was why the coach and the quarterback faced questions this week about how to make Bateman a bigger part of the Ravens’ offense. How could a guy capable of that be targeted just eight times over the past three games?

“I believe two seasons ago, ‘Bate’ had a catch like that against Cleveland when ‘Snoop’ [Tyler Huntley] threw him a go ball,” Jackson said. “He made another catch like that, so we know what ‘Bate’ is capable of. He just needs more opportunities, I believe.”

There’s the rub. Jackson has many hands to feed. Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr., not to mention tight end Mark Andrews, have been ahead of Bateman in line.

Jackson said that in the heat of battle, he does not have time to consider which pass catcher needs more touches.

“I‘m just trying to do my best to put points on the board,” he explained. “We have guys flying open here and there, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly like, ‘He needs to get the ball here.’ It’s within the play. If I’m going through the progression, and the guy is open, he’s going to get the ball. Other than that, I’m not trying to force anything.”

Offensive coordinator Todd Monken suggested Bateman’s role will grow naturally as he continues to pile up healthy practice reps.

“I think with him, it’s more being healthy,” he said. “All of us improve with the amount of time we’re able to spend on our craft. That’s just the way it is. The more he’s able to get out there and practice, then get in the games and he’s able to sustain that, he’s only going to continue to get better.”

Harbaugh would also like to see more Bateman, but he and Monken agreed that the goal is not to game plan for one player as much as it is to make defenses worry about many threats.

“If [Rashod] starts popping and making plays and catch-and-run types of things that he does, that’s going to be something that’s just going to be a real problem for defenses,” Harbaugh said. “You probably can go right down the line with every guy, and the more we get those guys involved — it’s not going to be every player, every game — but the more we can get them showing up in games, it’s just going to make everybody better.”

Which brings up back to how Bateman sees his position on the team. Is it difficult to fulfill his potential when he can’t count on seeing the ball more than a few times a game? Again, he said that’s not really how he perceives the issue.

“I guess it depends on how you look at football,” he said. “For me, at my position, I don’t really care; I know I’m part of the offense somehow, some way. Whenever my number is called … I need to pride myself on that.”

He’s not stuck inside his own head. In fact, he said he draws his greatest joy from connecting with others who might be struggling.

On Halloween, the Ravens posted a video of Bateman, dressed as Batman, hosting a trick-or-treat party for child patients at the Ronald McDonald House in Baltimore. “I think I had the most fun that I’ve had all year here,” he said. “It makes me smile. It makes me happier. It makes me go harder.”

Confidence? If he needed to rediscover any it was in relation to health. He had felt indestructible in college, but significant injuries marred his first two seasons in the NFL. His recovery from Lisfranc surgery was particularly jagged.

“I feel like I’m getting back to my old self, probably even better than I was before,” he said.

“It’s not really confidence in his ability. He’s always been very confident,” Harbaugh said. “It’s confidence in his health, the fact that he’s been able to stack practices now and get a feel in the offense and catch balls and run routes and compete for balls. … I would say it’s just starting to kind of come together for him that way. I’m hoping … I think the second half of the season for Rashod is going to be big.”

Week 9

Seahawks at Ravens

Sunday, 1 p.m.

TV: CBS

Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM

Line: Ravens by 5 1/2

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