OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — The Baltimore Ravens showed confidence in Rashod Bateman, and so far he's delivered.
For most of his career, Bateman has taken one step forward and one step back, struggling to be the type of consistent receiving threat the Ravens were looking for when they drafted him in the first round in 2021. This season, however, his health and productivity have aligned, giving Lamar Jackson another target that he increasingly seems to trust.
With the Ravens facing third-and-goal from the 5-yard line in a tie game last week, Jackson lofted a pass to Bateman in the back of the end zone. Bateman had also caught a couple passes earlier on that drive. Baltimore went on to beat Cincinnati 35-34.
“I think this offense is definitely a living unknown,” Bateman said. “We’ve got guys all over the place that can make plays and we continue to show that.”
When Baltimore drafted Bateman, the Ravens were a work in progress offensively, trying to acquire as much talent to play with Jackson as possible. As a rookie, he missed the first five weeks of the season because of a groin injury. Then he played only six games in 2022 thanks to a foot problem.
He finally was able to play 16 games last season but managed only 32 catches. The Ravens had drafted another first-round receiver, Zay Flowers, who emerged as the team's top wideout, and there were questions about whether a real connection between Jackson and Bateman would ever flourish.
The Ravens, however, weren't giving up on him. They had a fifth-year option on Bateman, and rather than simply pick that up, they gave him an extension all the way through 2026 — a move the receiver admitted came “out of nowhere.”
This season, he already has 31 catches for 501 yards — just 14 yards shy of his career high. He's already doubled his career best with four touchdown catches.
“We’re just balling right now. We’re just playing football,” Jackson said after Bateman caught a 59-yard TD pass — part of a 121-yard night — against Tampa Bay last month. “He’s been doing a good job at getting open — it’s just getting him involved with what’s going on. We have a lot of dynamic guys on the offense, sometimes it’s hard for him to get the ball, but how it’s been going each and every week, defense’s eyes are on everybody. It’s like, ‘Who do we have to guard? Who do we have to double?’ And in one-on-one matchups, I love our receivers.”
The Ravens don't need Bateman to become an All-Pro. Flowers has been productive in his second season, tight ends Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely are significant contributors, and the addition of running back Derrick Henry has helped turn Baltimore into the league's top-ranked offense.
Jackson is willing to spread the ball around, however, and that means opportunities for plenty of pass catchers. Last week, Tylan Wallace delivered an 84-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown. Baltimore also acquired receiver Diontae Johnson recently, and this week he goes up against one of his former teams when the Ravens play at Pittsburgh.
When a team is playing as well offensively as Baltimore is, it's a team effort.
“The media said that me and Lamar don’t have a connection, but we do,” Bateman said recently. “I think we’re doing a good job of showing it this season, with a lot of work put in that goes into that.”
NOTES: S Kyle Hamilton (ankle) was limited in practice Thursday. Likely (hamstring), LB Kyle Van Noy (illness) and DE Brent Urban (concussion) were full participants.
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Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman (7) catches a pass for a touchdown past Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt (29) and safety Geno Stone (22) during the second half of an NFL football game, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
