A remarkable turnout to witness 11-on-11 scrimmage drills, I’d say… Who says Baltimore isn’t starved for football?
Ed Reed made the defensive play of the day before 24,000 fans at M&T Bank Stadium with this interception during an 11-on-11 scrimmage…Photo by Dave Munch, Carroll County Times.
Did having thousands of fans watching them practice affect the activity and energy levels of the Ravens on Saturday? You bet it did.
In fact, one might say there was almost too much excitement in the air, as the 1st and 2nd team offense units committed numerous false starts, offsides and delay penalties… and essentially had trouble getting much going against the Ravens 1st and 2nd team defenses…
No worries. Defense is usually way ahead of the offense at this point in the preseason… and going from the sterile learning environment of the Castle at Owings Mills to being on stage at M&T before 24,000 critics was more of a shock to the younger players than they anticipated.
Guys who stood out to me, for better or worse:
Ravens safeties Ed Reed, Haruki Nakamura, Tom Zbikowski all had strong outings, reading everything that came their way… of course, they know the Ravens offensive playbook pretty well, too.
CB candidate Cary Williams looked very comfortable in coverage and had a nice pick… CB Jimmy Smith practiced only briefly.
Rookie QB Tyrod Taylor had a rough day… a bunch of INT’s but more importantly seemed overwhelmed by the speed of the game…not making his reads, getting swarmed under by pass rushes, and not always making good decisions under pressure.
Pass-pro blocking by the Ravens’ rookie RB candidates was terrible…there’s a highlight tape on the local news tonight that will show LB Albert McClellan literally tossing RB Anthony Allen into the air…
Terrell Suggs (LB) looked great, seemed to be in midseason form…
QB Joe Flacco did not light it up against his own defense, that’s for sure… But Joe is working with a bunch of new receivers and the occasional overthrows were more a result of communication problems than mechanics…
“I talked to the team afterwards about communicating,” John Harbaugh said. “You get in an environment like this and you realize it’s tough. There’s a lot of distractions by design.”
In addition to the fans, who were particularly spirited during the 11-on-11 game action, there was music and interviews during practice.
“I think sometimes, we did OK, and sometimes we didn’t,” Harbaugh said. “So, that’s part of the process to get them ready to play a game, and hopefully it will help us.”
It’s the second straight year the Ravens have hosted a practice at M&T Bank Stadium. Last year’s practice drew a crowd of 17,861.
Suggs – who grabbed the play-by-play microphone a couple times to chatter during practice – had a blast.
“Everything we are is because of our fans,” he said.
“To get an opportunity to come out and practice in front of them, you can see the energy they bring. We had fun all day. This was by far the most fun practice ever because the fans were here. We can’t wait until the opener to come out and play for them.”
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