If Baltimore is just the last watering station before riding off into retirement, you’d better tell DeAndre Hopkins now. This is no easy saunter into the sunset.

Hopkins was just a minute late to his first team press conference — not because he’s doddering on creaky knees but because he squeezed in a quick workout on his first day at work.

“I’m not sure why you wouldn’t work out if you have a weight room this nice,” Hopkins said.

It’s an auspicious sign for a receiver who should help the Ravens win this season, even if his peak days are well behind him.

The Ravens have a reputation for bringing in big-name wideouts who are close to the end of their careers — a reputation that prodded the internet to troll Baltimore for being a “graveyard” for veteran receivers.

Calling the Ravens receiving room the “Senior Center” might be a little more polite.

Since 2006, the Ravens have had nine wide receivers with at least 10 NFL seasons of experience. There have been only two seasons in the past 20 in which the Ravens haven’t had a receiver 30 or older. Any player who reaches those milestones has had quite a career, but by the time they get to Baltimore, the productivity varies wildly.

Derrick Mason and Steve Smith Sr. still racked up numbers, producing multiple seasons of 70 receptions or more. Others have mostly played out the string to end their careers for an affordable price (hello, Nelson Agholor).

Hopkins will be 33 by the time he suits up for the Ravens this fall, but he doesn’t seem like he’s ready for shuffleboard, bridge club or early-bird dinners. He’s still got juice.

“They say, ‘You’ll know when your body gives out on you,’” Hopkins said. “It hasn’t given out on me yet, or — for me, I feel like — gotten close.”

It takes only a brief perusal of his clips from Kansas City, where he quickly became a trusted target for Patrick Mahomes after he was traded from Tennessee last year, to demonstrate that. Hopkins has never been a speed-driven player (he ran a 4.57-second 40-yard dash out of Clemson). His best tools remain his savvy route running and his enormous hands that seem to stick to everything. Hopkins caught 70% of his targets last season (his career percentage is 62.1%) and had just two drops in the regular season.

Even if Hopkins has lost a step, he hasn’t lost his hands. Lamar Jackson has a target who can go win a matchup — one-handed if he has to.

“I’ve never been a 4.3 or 4.4 guy, but I’m able to make plays on the ball and get open, and contested catches,” he said. “I feel like that’s been something that I’ve been able to excel in.”

It has been a while since the Ravens had a wide receiver with Hopkins’ penchant for contested catches. Hopkins represents a clear archetype that could work alongside Zay Flowers’ yards-after-the-catch sorcery and Rashod Bateman’s downfield burner routes. But, more importantly, it’s exactly the type of profile for a receiver who ages well into his 30s.

The players who produce this deep into their careers are sure-handed, physical ball winners. Think Mason, Smith or Anquan Boldin in Ravens history. In NFL history, players such as Marvin Harrison, Larry Fitzgerald, Isaac Bruce and Tim Brown all had 900-plus yards at 33 or later — Hopkins may be chasing them all in the record book, but he’s not that far behind (16th in career receptions, 21st in receiving yards).

It’s not as though Hopkins is far removed from his glory days either — his last 1,000-yard season was 2023 with Will Levis and Ryan Tannehill as his quarterbacks. The Ravens don’t even need him to be a 1,000-yard receiver, but what could he do with Jackson slinging passes to him?

Even if the three-headed attack of Hopkins, Jackson and Derrick Henry doesn’t blow minds quite in the way it would have in 2020 when Hopkins teased the idea in a tweet, it’s still an intriguing thought.

Admittedly, my perspective is colored by last year’s experience with Henry. After I mused that spending so much on an aging back might give Baltimore buyer’s remorse, Henry thrashed his way to 1,921 yards and 16 touchdowns.

It would be shocking if Hopkins had a career renaissance of that scale — “I’m a little older than Derrick,” he admitted with a laugh Friday — but it should escape no one’s attention that Henry is a close friend and a frequent workout partner in Dallas. Henry’s insights into Baltimore’s organization were a clear draw for Hopkins to follow his friend here.

“[Henry] keeps it honest, so for me, it was a couple of different things,” Hopkins said. “From the head coach down, I feel like everyone, they compete, they’re dawgs, and I feel like this organization, this team matches who I am.”

But Hopkins isn’t just in this to follow Henry’s lead. Others may wonder if coming to Baltimore is a sign he’s getting close to the end. But the sunset isn’t the only thing he sees ahead of him.

He still has the drive to go get success for himself, just like the contested catches he’s famous for.

“I don’t look at not one single person to motivate me to keep going,” he said. “When you play football, you have to have it within yourself and you have to know how you are.”