The Baltimore Ravens flirted with disaster this off-season, as it looked for the first few months of the year like they wouldn’t be able to sign 2019 league MVP Lamar Jackson to a long-term deal at quarterback.
Off-season Rollercoaster
That nail-biting saga came to an end just ahead of the 2023 NFL Draft, with Ravens’ general manager Eric DeCosta offering Jackson a deal he couldn’t refuse (five years, $260 million with $185 million in guarantees) hours ahead of the first-round beginning. The Ravens have been notorious for not giving Jackson enough help during his first few seasons in the league, with a pitiful turnstile of wide receivers churning in and out of the doors at 1 Winning Drive and an offensive scheme devoted to pounding the football down opponents’ throats with a frequent rushing attack, whether that was using Jackson’s legs or any of their stable of running backs to do so.
With a painfully inadequate passing attack (through no fault of Jackson’s own), opposing defenses were able to stack the tackle box against the Ravens and throttle their ability to score.
The Ravens did what they could to address this issue in the off-season, signing former standout receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to a one-year deal as he looks to prove he still has what it takes to be a star, as well as spending their first-round pick on speedy Boston College receiver Zay Flowers. After a tumultuous offseason that saw Jackson posting cryptic tweets as various reports about him and the Ravens not seeing eye to eye filtered out, it looked like Baltimore had done what they could to keep the face of their franchise happy. Overhauling their offense (former offensive coordinator Greg Roman also decided to step away after catching a good deal of flack for Baltimore’s struggles over the past few years) with a new pass-happy attack under Todd Monken was always going to be difficult to achieve in the course of an offseason.
As it stands now, we’ve seen some early signs of growing pains.
All’s… Not Well?
According to a tweet from Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic, Baltimore’s August 4 training camp practice had plenty of ups and downs… and significantly more of the latter.
“Ravens practice just ended. There was some frustration among offensive players.” Zrebiec tweeted. “Frustrated by another play being halted by a free blitzer, Lamar Jackson punted [the] ball downfield and threw off his helmet to [the] ground.”
Tight end Mark Andrews gave a referee the middle finger after being draped by a defender and not receiving a penalty flag as a result of it, which earned him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty as he let the ref hear a piece of his mind.
With the preseason getting closer (Baltimore hosts the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday, August 12 to kick off their exhibition schedule), Maryland sportsbooks will be on the lookout for how the Ravens perform.
Practices have seemed to go off without a hitch in the week since last Friday’s tense affair, so it seems like the blow-ups were a flash in the pan rather than a sign of any legitimate issues.
The offseason and preseason are the time to hyper-analyze every single ounce of football that we get, though, so here’s what it means for the Ravens.
What’s the Verdict?
Ultimately, having a blow-up in practice isn’t a bad thing… provided it’s an exasperated show of emotion in the moment, rather than the start of an unsatisfactory trend brewing. Professional athletes take pride in what they do on the playing field, and with pride comes a certain degree of perfectionism. Every time the offense is out on the field, their job is to score. Every time the defense is on the field, their job is to prevent scoring from happening. One or the other is going to fail in that mission on each drive, so someone is going to be playing with a chip on their shoulder, like when Jackson takes a sack or Andrews gets confounded by the referees.
While no one ever likes to hear a report of their superstar quarterback being mad about something, it isn’t the first time a franchise signal-caller has gotten ticked off in training camp… and it certainly won’t be the last.