It’s foolhardy to read too much into one OTA practice in May, but it’s not unreasonable to think the Ravens dive into this spring period with a definite sense of urgency. They return nearly every starter from a team that fell two games short of the Super Bowl last year, and they know that next offseason will bring more upheaval than this past one did.
After this season, the Ravens are almost certainly going to lose one of their standout tight ends, Mark Andrews or Isaiah Likely. They probably will lose an accomplished edge rusher or two. Derrick Henry will be a year older, although he continues to scoff at the notion of Father Time slowing him down.
As the Ravens began their first of three weeks of voluntary OTA workouts this week, nearly the entire squad was on hand, including quarterback Lamar Jackson, whose attendance at early spring workouts has been sporadic throughout the years.
“I feel like everybody’s always joyful to get back to football,” Likely said, “but once you see [No.] 8 running around, having fun, lighting up smiles around everybody, that’s just a different level of joy.”
Head coach John Harbaugh said Jackson was “on point” in the workout. “He’s been training,” Harbaugh said. “You can tell the kind of shape he’s in right now. You can see by the way he threw the ball. … He was on point with the offense. He’s ready.”
Andrews was at the voluntary workout as well, which would not otherwise be notable, as he rarely misses a workout when healthy. But he also endured an offseason like no other in his career. Andrews, entering a contract year, was frequently the subject of trade rumors, and he is coming off a disastrous AFC divisional round game at Buffalo, during which he lost a fumble and then dropped a potential game-tying two-point conversion pass in the closing minutes in the Ravens’ 27-25 loss.
Andrews met with the media after the May 28 OTA workout, his first media session since that divisional round loss, and described the game as “tough. … It wasn’t the way that I had planned it, but that’s all part of the story.”
Andrews reiterated what he had said in a social media post a few days after the game, that he will use that Bills game as motivation going forward.
“I’ve had an incredible offseason,” he said, “and I’m excited just to show what I can continue to do and continue to prove myself and step up in big moments. … The thing about sports is that it doesn’t always fall your way. It doesn’t always go your way, but it’s how you bounce back.”
Andrews also said he tried to block out the trade chatter by putting his focus “on myself and this team, and let all the other stuff deal however it’s going to be dealt with. But I’m extremely excited to be here. This is an incredible organization. I’m very thankful to be here for my eighth year.”
NOTEBOOK
HARBAUGH CALLS TUCKER DECISION ‘COMPLICATED’: Harbaugh said the decision to release All-Pro kicker Justin Tucker was “complicated.” The Ravens cut ties with Tucker earlier this month in the midst of a league investigation into allegations that Tucker engaged in sexual misconduct with more than a dozen massage therapists at several Baltimore-area spas.
Harbaugh said the top of the Ravens organization, including owner Steve Bisciotti and team president Sashi Brown, were involved in the decision-making process.
“You’re talking about arguably the best kicker in the history of the game, and like we said, it’s multi-layered. It’s complicated,” Harbaugh said. “But in the end, it all comes back to what you have to do to get ready for your team to play the first game, and I think if you step back and take a look at all the issues and all the ramifications, you can understand that we’ve got to get our football team ready, and we’ve got to have a kicker ready to go.
“That was the move that we decided to make, so in that sense, it’s a football decision,” Harbaugh continued. “Now, we have to spend all of our focus and our time to get these kickers ready, and we’ve got a competition going on and get those guys ready to go make kicks, so that’s all I’m thinking about. From my perspective, it’s like, ‘We have to have a kicker out there making kicks,’ and what’s the best way to get that done?”
The Ravens drafted kicker Tyler Loop in the sixth round out of Arizona, making Loop the first kicker ever drafted by the team. For now, Loop is competing for the kicking job with undrafted rookie John Hoyland from Wyoming.
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