Observations from Day 1
Day 1 is in the books and the Baltimore Ravens had an interesting practice drawing a few storylines.
J.K. Dobbins Pleads His Case
With about 30 minutes remaining in practice, running back J.K. Dobbins ran to the sideline and pleaded his case to Head Coach John Harbaugh to join his team. After a short conversation, Dobbins then spoke with General Manager Eric DeCosta, before exiting the field. Harbaugh shared Dobbins is raring to go.
“Yeah, J.K. definitely wants to go,” Harbaugh said. “He’s made it very clear and not just in the fact that he tells everybody all the time. I told him again today, ‘I know how you feel about that. You’ve told me.’ But that’s up to the doctors and him and they’ll work it out. As soon as he’s back out there we’ll be coaching him real hard. He’s doing an individual period with trainers right now so I’m excited to get him back real soon.”
Significant Practice Changes
There was a clear absence of heavy offense vs. defense in today’s practice. There never was heavy contact between the two, but today’s practice featured notably little. Most of the offenses drills came against no defense as the Ravens look to decrease any chances of injury. Harbaugh spoke on why the changes occurred.
“We just feel like this gives us the best chance to have the best practices and to get our guys the most ready for practice,” Harbaugh said. “It also better from a nutrition standpoint. Trying to get them ready from a nutrition standpoint better in the morning. I like the teaching tempo of the thing. We get a meeting, we get a walk-through before practice so that helps us.”
Though the scheduled practices for training camp all are featured between start times of 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET, it’s not a guarantee they remain this way.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Harbaugh said. “Nothing is written in stone.”
Marcus Williams Impresses
The Ravens’ biggest free agent signing this offseason started training camp strong. Locking down tight end Mark Andrews is no easy task and in the few reps he was lined up against him in 7-on-7, made two solid plays. The first came against a wheel route that Williams correctly diagnosed. Shifting the hips, Williams adjusted to get in front of Andrews and the pass flew too far ahead as a result. The next play, Andrews ran a short curl route and as he turned around, Williams leapt forward and got his hand in-between Andrews’ before securing the catch.
Lamar Jackson Connects With Devin Duvernay
The highlight play of the game on offense was certainly a rock-solid connection from Jackson to Duvernay. Duvernay hit the jets on the far sideline and reeled in a back-shoulder catch from Jackson. These are the types of routes the Ravens will need to work on to get the offense enough dynamic threats to open up the offense and force defenses to spread out.