Sunday’s Training Camp session featured a good day for the offense, as well as an injury scare that took some of the wind out of the sails toward the end of the day. Let’s recap.
— Without a doubt, the biggest news of the day was Kyle Hamilton coming off injured. He’d had a great day to that point, including an interception earlier over the middle of the field. Toward the end of scrimmage, on what appeared to be a contested opportunity, Hamilton went to the ground and was slow to get up. Luckily, he got up under his own power, made his way to the tent, and was no longer limping when he left the tent a few minutes later to walk back inside. Coach Harbaugh said the injury “looks stable, looks good” and that initial indicators are that it’s nothing serious, but that they’ll run some tests just to make sure. Hopefully, the defense dodged a bullet, but I’d guess they’ll be very cautious with Ky Ham over the next few days.
Harbaugh said that Hamilton will get more tests, but initial ones were positive https://t.co/unKds8BWgO
— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) August 11, 2024
— Elsewhere, the defense did well early in the day. Your QBs not named Lamar Jackson continue to try to dial in timing and placement with the ball, and an opportunistic secondary made sure to bat down passes and bring the pressure in blitz situations. Coach Orr definitely had some fun early in the day mixing up looks with the pressure, and I can foresee opposing offensive coaches cursing how difficult the defense is to solve. Every time the secondary made plays today, they let the offense hear about it, especially the always-vocal Pepe Williams.
— The tide turned about midway through practice, and the offense won the day pretty handily. Lamar Jackson looked really sharp, especially against zone coverage looks, and he fired some throws into the gaps for some chunk yardage. He hit Zay Flowers on a really nice back-shoulder catch near the boundary line, and added on yet another end zone corner fade touchdown. The 8 to 4 connection looks as strong as ever.
— By far, my practice MVP for today was Isaiah Likely. He seemed to be able to reel in everything that came his direction today, and made three different leaping catches with varying degrees of difficulty which drew oohs and ahs from the crowd. For my money, the one-handed grab they showed here was probably the best catch of the day.
Big day for @Lj_era8 and @DaGorilla4’s connection 🔥 pic.twitter.com/gefvdE2brV
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) August 11, 2024
— One nice difference that somewhat flew under the radar was how much better the O-line looked today compared to earlier in the offseason. At minicamp and the early sessions of Training Camp, false starts were a pretty regular occurrence, and I don’t know that I saw even one today. Coach Harbaugh made it a point to acknowledge the O-line’s performance overall from Friday’s game: “I do think the offensive line played well. Go back and watch the tape from a run-blocking standpoint and a pass-blocking standpoint, man for man, I thought they played well.”
— I got the chance to ask Harbs about the team struggling to get the passing game moving on Friday, and what improvements he’d like to see as they move toward Saturday’s game: “That’s just something we have to chase in practice. I mean in the preseason, and if you watch all the preseason games, the passing game is going to be the biggest challenge. I don’t really see too many teams out there dicing people up in the passing game, because your guys aren’t out there, so the timing is going to be what it is. I’m not too worried about that. It’s obvious we want it to be as good as it can possibly be. We want to see guys step up, run good routes [and] make plays. That’s a work in progress, but you’re talking about developmental guys for the most part. I thought Josh [Johnson] handled that well. There weren’t always the right routes being run. We had a couple little hiccups in protection with some of the younger guys, so just things like that are things we’ll work through.”
— Coach Harbaugh also ran down a list of injuries that the team is dealing with at the moment, most of which aren’t serious, but that did explain some absences from Camp today like Rasheen Ali and Sanoussi Kane.
Updates –
Wiggins: shoulder sprain. Not long-term
Bateman: ribs/midsection. Back soon
Maulet: knee scope; will miss reg. season games
Ali and Kane: Stingers; not serious
Board: Concussion
Linderbaum: Neck. Ravens being cautious, but feel good about Wk 1 .
Not sure deal w/Roche https://t.co/L1Z1sJtJAE— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) August 11, 2024
3 Responses
Gage can do what bateman does for most part, he steadily losing chemistry with #8 hence the influx of veteran RECs. Lamar dont trust rashod and nelly can be replaced by gage or possibly miller as well.
Again, based on a lengthy past history, don’t believe anything Harbaugh says about injures
The Ravens need a solid backup QB regardless of the psychobabble coming from Harbaugh. They had many opportunities to draft one more accurate than Leary and more mobile than Johnson. The organization doesn’t seem to want to give Jackson any real competition for reasons known only to them.