Feature Clips

Week 11Ravens at Bears

Feature Clips Week 11

Table of Contents

• Mark Andrews ............................................................................. 1

• Anthony Averett ...................................................................... 2-3

• Rashod Bateman .................................................................... 4-7

• Marquise Brown ...................................................................... 8-9

• Josh Bynes ...............................................................................10

• Justin Houston ................................................................... 11-12

• Marlon Humphrey ............................................................... 13-15

• Lamar Jackson ................................................................... 16-17

• Justin Madubuike .....................................................................18

• Nick Moore .......................................................................... 19-21

• Odafe Oweh ......................................................................... 22-24

• Patrick Queen ...........................................................................25

• Patrick Ricard ..................................................................... 26-28

• Brandon Stephens .............................................................. 29-31

• Justin Tucker ...................................................................... 32-33

• Alejandro Villanueva ................................................................34

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Ravens TE Mark Andrews Signs Four-Year Contract Extension Worth Reported $56 Million BALTIMORE SUN | SEPT. 6, 2021 | JONAS SHAFFER The Ravens reached a long-term deal with one of their brightest offensive stars Monday, signing tight end Mark Andrews to a four-year contract extension. Andrews’ deal is worth $56 million over four years and includes $37.6 million in guaranteed money, according to ESPN. The extension comes on his 26th birthday and makes Andrews the NFL’s third-highest-paid tight end ($14 million per year), trailing only the San Francisco 49ers’ George Kittle ($15 million) and Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce ($14.3 million) in annual value. Andrews, a Pro Bowl selection in 2019, was entering the final year of his four-year rookie contract. He had a team-high 58 catches for 701 yards and seven touchdowns in 14 games last season, becoming the first tight end in Ravens history to produce multiple seasons with at least 700 receiving yards and seven receiving touchdowns. “Mark is exactly the type of player we wish to keep as a Raven long-term,” general manager Eric DeCosta said in a release Monday. “He’s competitive, passionate, talented and a leader. We are so excited to have him in Baltimore for the next five years. Congratulations to Mark and his family — and happy birthday.” Over three seasons in Baltimore, despite playing in a run-heavy system, Andrews has 156 catches for 2,105 yards and 20 touchdowns. Since 1970, the start of the NFL’s modern era, only 16 other tight ends have recorded 2,000 receiving yards over their first three seasons, according to Pro Football Reference, including stars like Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, Zach Ertz and George Kittle, all of whom played in more pass-oriented offenses. DeCosta said in January that the Ravens “would be foolish to not want to try and keep” Andrews with a long-term deal. He said the former Oklahoma star is “one of the better tight ends in the entire NFL” and underlined his fit in a “tight end-centric offense.” “He works hard every day to get better at his craft, and he wants to be one of the best ones in the game,” Ravens tight ends coach Bobby Engram said last month. “But he also attacks the playbook, and he’s really worked hard on being a better blocker. So he just wants to be a complete player, and he goes about his business every day like that.” Andrews’ extension is the latest DeCosta has handed out to an ascendant homegrown player, following 2020 deals for left tackle Ronnie Stanley and cornerback Marlon Humphrey. Securing quarterback Lamar Jackson, who’s under contract through 2022, to a long-term megadeal remains the Ravens’ top priority. Few expected Andrews to establish himself so quickly when he arrived in Baltimore three years ago. Despite winning the John Mackey Award in 2017, given to the nation’s top tight end, he fell to the third round of the 2018 draft over concerns about his blocking ability and athleticism. He arrived at offseason workouts in the shadow of the Ravens’ top pick, tight end Hayden Hurst, who was drafted seven spots before quarterback Lamar Jackson (No. 32 overall) and 61 spots before Andrews (No. 86). But Andrews went on to lead all Ravens tight ends as a rookie with 552 receiving yards and three touchdown catches. In 2019, when the Ravens had the NFL’s most efficient offense, he set a single-season franchise record for touchdown catches by a tight end (10) and finished with team highs in receptions (64), receiving yards (852) and receiving touchdowns (10). Last season, despite a slight dip in production, Andrews improved his drop rate (from 7.1% to 5.7%) and finished the season as Pro Football Focus’ No. 10 pass-blocking tight end and No. 17 run-blocking tight end, one of the few at the position to be rated so highly at both. Andrews is one of the more popular players in the Ravens’ locker room — “So happy for Money Mark,” former Sooners teammate and current Ravens wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown tweeted Monday — and one of its hardest-working. He trained with Brown and rookie wide receiver Rashod Bateman during the Ravens’ offseason hiatus in July, and was so drained after a humid joint practice with the Carolina Panthers last month that he had to be treated for full-body cramping with intravenous fluids. Andrews’ dedication is most evident in his chemistry with Jackson, who has likened their go-and-get-it connection to “street ball.” Andrews was dominant at times throughout offseason workouts and training camp; coach John Harbaugh remarked in June that Andrews was “running routes the best that I’ve seen him run routes since he’s been here.” When Andrews was asked whether he’d thought about his future in Baltimore, he said his focus was on self-improvement. His mantra since childhood has been constant: “Top five,” a statement of purpose about where he thinks he stands in the world, in whatever he’s doing. “I try not to worry about the things that are not in my control,” Andrews said in June. “I love Baltimore. I love being here. I love playing here. I want to be here for the rest of my life, man. This is home for me. So that’s where I’m at. I’m just going to, as a player, be the best player that I can be for this team. … “We all are moving in the same direction, and that’s really all that I’m worried about right now. You can’t worry about too much of the outside noise and what happens with that. I’m just going to let my play speak for itself. Obviously, I love Baltimore. I love being here, and I would love to be here for my whole life.”

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Ravens Cornerback Anthony Averett Living Up To His Coaches’ High Praise: ‘I’ve Made A Name For Myself’ BALTIMORE SUN | OCT. 10, 2021 | CHILDS WALKER For most of the past four years, the news that Anthony Averett rolled his ankle at Thursday’s practice would not have inspired great anxiety among Ravens fans. Averett was the definition of a roster luxury — a cornerback with Alabama pedigree and the talent to go step for step with the NFL’s most gifted receivers who might never actually be asked to start. But when he popped up on the Ravens’ injury report three days before the team’s game against the Denver Broncos, it was a big deal — possibly just as big, for those following closely, as Lamar Jackson’s sore back. This was a testament to Averett’s early-season play and to his essential standing in a position group hollowed out by injuries. The level of concern over his ankle spoke volumes about how far he had come. Averett did not know if he would be able to go in Denver. The fact that he played 59 of 61 defensive snaps in a 23-7 win, and allowed just two catches on seven balls thrown his way, added to the sense that he’s breaking out. “It’s a blessing,” Averett said. “And honestly, I’m so locked in that I … I am enjoying it. I am enjoying my success, but I’m just so locked in right now.” It’s as if the soft-spoken New Jersey native does not want to trifle with his advancement by speaking about it too openly. But those who have listened to Ravens coaches talk about Averett over the past several years know their confidence in him is nothing new. John Harbaugh has referred to him as a starting-caliber cornerback. Defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale has done his boss one better, describing Averett as a Pro Bowl talent. He even got cross with a reporter who wondered if his praise was a ploy to pump up Averett’s self-belief. “I’m happy for him,” Martindale said Friday. “I’m genuinely happy for the guy himself because it’s one of those things … And we’ve all seen it — when you go somewhere and you meet somebody special, and they might not know that they’re special yet. He’s reaping all the success of all the hard work he’s done. And I’ve said this for three years now about him: He doesn’t care who he’s covering; he just goes and covers them. And that’s what everybody else is seeing now because he’s playing full-time.” Averett, 26, welcomes the expectations that come with Martindale’s glowing assessment. “It’s a blessing just to have a coach like that,” he said. “Shoot, he gives me even more confidence.” Here’s the thing about Averett: he has done this before. He was an absurd athlete at Woodbury High School in South Jersey, intercepting five passes and making 106 tackles as a safety while rushing for 1,278 yards and throwing 14 touchdown passes on the other side of the ball. His high school coach, Zack Valentine, told Averett he needed to be a cut above every time he stepped on the field. His talent demanded such accountability, and Averett did not shy away from it. Oh, he also long jumped more than 25 feet, best in the nation among all high school competitors in 2013 and second-best in New Jersey history behind a guy named Carl Lewis, the nine-time Olympic gold medalist. Then, Averett arrived at Alabama and realized Nick Saban’s program was overflowing with athletes just as gifted as he. He redshirted his first year, got into one game against Western Carolina in his second, and played on special teams his third. Among the players who passed him on the depth chart at cornerback, the new position he was learning, was a second-generation Crimson Tide star named Marlon Humphrey. “It was definitely hard,” Averett recalled. “Just being a competitor, everybody was the man where they came from and I was the man where I came from, so it was hard.” Averett did not give up. He soaked in lessons from Saban, widely regarded as one of the finest secondary coaches in football, and bided his time. He learned to enjoy mano-a-mano battles on the outside and “have that dog, that little something different in you.” He also learned to play within a system that did not ask him to improvise in a mad hunt for interceptions. In 2016, he started across from Humphrey and led the team with eight pass breakups. He broke up another eight in 2017 as Alabama rolled to the national championship. His persistence had paid off and prepared him for the waiting game he would play after the Ravens drafted him in the fourth round in 2018. “I think it was a very similar situation — the way things [had gone] at ‘Bama,” said Humphrey, whom the Ravens drafted in the first round a year before they picked Averett. “[He] kind of waited his turn to play, like most guys do at ‘Bama, and [it was] kind of a similar situation here.” Averett played in 11 games as a rookie and started seven between 2019 and 2020, but he was also a game-day scratch at times and spent a stretch on injured reserve with a fractured shoulder last season. No matter what nice things the coaches said about him, he wasn’t going to start over Humphrey, the team’s best defensive player, or Marcus Peters, one of the league’s top ball hawks.

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His opportunity did not come until the week before this season’s opener, when Peters took an unlucky step while pivoting during a drill and tore his ACL. Harbaugh immediately said Averett would be the man to step in, and he has played all but six defensive snaps during the Ravens’ 3-1 start. Humphrey joked that his reforged partnership with Averett makes for a first-class recruiting pitch to would-be Alabama defensive backs. On a more serious note, he said he never wondered how Averett would handle stepping in for Peters. “Anytime I look over, I’ve always trusted [that] he was going to do his job, and he was expecting me to do mine, as well,” Humphrey said. “He’s been playing really good football. I think it’s a surprise to the fan, but it’s to no surprise of the coaches and the players here because we’ve seen him do it time in and time out in practice.” With his colorful braids — red on the right, blond on the left — Averett is easy to spot on the practice field. He accentuates his remarks with emphatic hand gestures. But he’s not a barker like Humphrey or a risk-taker like Peters. When he was preparing for the draft, some scouts questioned his ball skills. Averett, who played wide receiver briefly in college, never understood this. He viewed his primary job as blanketing the receiver in front of him, even if the guy was an All-Pro. “He’s a very young, quiet guy,” veteran cornerback Jimmy Smith said. “He kind of has a lackadaisical approach, but he’s really locked in. He learns a lot. Just this year alone, we talk a lot about being in a full-time role is a little different than spot playing; you kind of have to up your game in a lot of ways. You have to be a little bit more savvy.” Averett agreed with Smith’s assessment of his personality. He has the word “Humble” tattooed on his right forearm. His mother and chief inspiration, Carmen Davis (she’s the older sister of former Ravens tackle Bryant McKinnie), has always encouraged him to speak up more, to little avail. “I stay to myself, man. I focus on my job,” he said. But Averett was not uncomfortable when Martindale called him a Pro Bowl talent in front of his teammates. He did not feel any pressure. A coach was merely saying what he already believed. With no one in position to take his job and a chance to sign his second NFL contract after the season, Averett knows this is his moment. “I definitely think I’ve made a name for myself,” he said.

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Rashod Bateman: The Emergence Of A Butterfly BALTIMORERAVENS.COM | JUNE 1, 2021 | RYAN MINK Rashod Bateman would hear the screams coming from his mom in the other room. While his two older brothers would try to lose themselves in their video games, Rashod couldn't stand by while his stepfather beat his mother – again. He would sneak over and open the door to the pain, hoping his presence could get it to stop, hoping he could save her. "Sometimes I just wanted to make sure that my mom was alive," Bateman said. He was just a kid, but Bateman was forced to grow up fast. The abuse of his mother started as far back as he can remember and lasted for a decade. "I don't want to get too deep, but I remember a lot," he said. "It was just a lot of violence, a lot of hitting, a lot of yelling, cursing. It was multiple weekends in a row for years straight. It's just what our family got used to." When he would leave his mother's room, Bateman would sometimes settle down in front of the TV and watch football. He slept with a Wilson football every night. During a time when the world around him was confusing and traumatic, football was a comfort and escape. "I loved football ever since I could think," Bateman said. Football and his mother. Those two helped transform Bateman into what he is today – a strong-minded, strong-willed first-round wide receiver of the Baltimore Ravens. Bateman enters his rookie season with plenty of promise, billed as a polished playmaker who could take the Ravens' passing attack to the next level. After all he's been through, he's just getting started. ‘Do the opposite of what you see’ Bateman grew up in Tifton, a small, historically agricultural town in southern Georgia where one in five families and more than 40 percent of children live below the poverty line. Bateman was in one of those families and was one of those kids. His mother, Lashonda Cromer, married his stepfather before Bateman could string a full sentence together. "The first year was pretty good. But after that first year, a lot of abuse started," Cromer said. "It went on for 10 years because I was afraid to get out of it." His stepfather was an alcoholic, often coming home groggy and angry. He didn't hit the children, but Bateman called 911 on many occasions, trying to save his mom. Cromer was afraid to press charges for fear it would make matters worse. "When you're scared and you're trying to stay safe for you and your kids, there's not much you can do," Cromer said. "Rashod was hurt. He told me he was hurt. I was trying to tell him, as soon as I felt we could get out of there safe, we were getting out of this. "I always taught my kids, you do the opposite of what you see." Bateman and his brothers, Monjharvis and Travian, would take their frustrations to the backyard. They drew lines for a football field with their feet, stuffed balled-up paper under their T-shirts for shoulder pads. At Annie Belle Clark Elementary School, Bateman would talk to his third-grade teacher, Mindy Palmer, who would later play a much larger role in his life, about the abuse at home. But it was at recess where he let out his frustration. "He was not a kid starting fights or stuff like that, but if he didn't get to be the one to carry the football out to the playground, that would make him upset," Palmer said. "He wanted to tote it out, pick the teams, start the game. That's where he released all that pressure." Cromer did her best to see all of Bateman's childhood games, but she was also working 12-hour overnight shifts to pay the bills. For eight years, she worked from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. operating machines that made hardwood flooring and carpet. "There were some days when I would barely see my kids before it was time to go back to work," she said. It was all part of a cycle that seemed to have no end in sight. Then one day, Cromer's husband stole her keys as she tried to leave and jumped on her. Bateman ran to his grandmother's house down the street and called 911. This time, one of Cromer's friends was working at the police department. When the police came and saw the bruises on her face, they arrested the stepfather and the state pressed charges. A two-year protection order gave Cromer the time to break away, and the two divorced when Bateman was about 13 years old. "It was a sigh of relief, but we had to start over," Cromer said. Cromer was now raising the three boys basically by herself, with some help from her mother. The family moved four or five times. One time, they were evicted from a mobile home she was renting because Cromer was also trying to pay for her father's funeral. The last place the family lived before Cromer got remarried had an active drug house two steps down from their front door. One day as they were getting ready for church, Bateman called for his mother to look out the window. Two men stood in her yard pointing machine guns at each other.

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There were times when Bateman would come back from practice and there would be no water or no electricity. Travian recalls watching his mother go long stretches hardly eating to make sure her boys had enough bologna sandwiches, Cup O' Noodles or tuna. Cromer kept working, including as a cashier at a Dollar General and as a teacher's aide in the school, giving her more normal hours so she could be there more for her boys. That was always her highest priority. But she still couldn't afford much. So when Bateman was ready to play tackle football as a sixth-grader, he didn't want to ask his mom for new Nike cleats. He got his hands on her cell phone, created a Facebook profile, and privately messaged his former third-grade teacher to ask if she could buy them for him. Palmer didn't have much to spare herself, but she bought those cleats. She could see that Bateman had big dreams and was willing to work for them, even at his young age. "He knew he needed those cleats, but he didn't want (his mother) to be upset with him asking," she said. "We helped in any way we could." Palmer and her husband, Shane, started attending Bateman's football games. They took he and his brothers to church and out to dinner. They even brought Bateman on vacation with them to Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Palmer's from. That's where Bateman had crabs for the first time. The Palmers have no biological children, but they became godparents to Rashod. Once he got to college, they attended all but three of his games. "Mindy just kind of gave me what my mom couldn't at the time," Bateman said. "It wasn't my mom's fault, but Mindy just kind of took care of me the way my mom couldn't, financially. She made sure that I was eating, made sure that I had clothes that I needed, and was also able to give me things I asked for. Mindy is like a part of our family – close family." ‘A skinny little thing’ Bateman started playing flag football at 5 years old. Cromer remembers one of his coaches asking, "How did this kid learn all these moves like this at his age?!" Here's how: Bateman watched college football games at 7 years old, learned what they were doing, then imitated it in the yard. He set up drills for himself, bringing cones back from the playground until his mom could buy his own. But when he got to Tift County High School, Bateman didn't turn heads. He didn't become a starter until his junior year, after an injury to a wide receiver and good friend who was ahead of him. "He was a little skinny thing," said Ashley Anders, the former head coach of the school's strong 7A football program. "You always know kids are going to grow, but I would be willing to bet that nobody thought he was going to be a first-round draft pick." Anders estimated that Bateman was probably about 5-foot-8 and maybe 145 pounds during his first years of high school. Travian said Bateman wore the same size shoes for who knows how long. When he got his shot to play, Cromer said her son was nervous. "Rashod would say, 'I'm too little. That's why they don't want me out there,'" Cromer said. "I told Rashod, 'You don't worry about your weight and size because somebody will see something in you. When you get that chance, you put on a show.'" "It definitely impacted me a lot," Bateman said. "I was getting overlooked because of my size. I was strong for my size, but my size didn't show it. I just had to continue to keep my head down and work." Bateman was also tired of watching his mother carry the burden of the family's financial struggles. He told his mother he was going to the NFL someday, and set his mind to it. "He was even more hungry for success, on the field and off the field, in the classroom. He did as much as he could," Travian said. "Seeing my mom going through everything, he wanted to make sure that ended one day." Bateman had a good junior year, but not good enough to attract major Division 1 offers. That summer, he devoted himself to the weight room. He always had athleticism – the body control, hand-eye coordination and speed – but now he started to become bigger and more explosive. But still, his football coach wondered if he was going to end up being a basketball player. Even though Bateman didn't start playing the sport competitively until eighth grade, he was a guard with excellent quickness, ball handling and elevation (yes, he could dunk). He helped lead his high school to a state championship as a senior, and first caught scouts' attention on the hardwood. Frustrated by the lack of football offers, Bateman nearly went to college for basketball. He had offers from Texas A&M and Penn State. "You kind of wondered whether he was going to say, 'Hey, basketball is my thing.' Then he ended up being the complete opposite," Anders said. Anders remembered one instance when the football team was maxing out on power clean lifts in the weight room. Bateman had a playoff basketball game that day, so Anders told Bateman he had the day off. Bateman refused. "He was like, 'Shoot, I want to max out.'" Bateman was good friends with the quarterback, and Anders remembered the two being out on the field in the spring and summer, throwing and catching every day. His work ethic – inherited from his mother – set him apart. "I think that's why he's such a good route-runner," Anders said. "Obviously, he's been well-coached through college and all that stuff, but I think a lot of his success is because he's run those routes 100,000 times."

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"Me being overlooked and under-recruited, it just made me work harder at my craft," Bateman said. "I would go outside on late nights and do football drills. I would go hard in practice. I would just do everything I could to be successful." Before his junior year, Bateman went to a summer camp at Georgia Southern and caught the attention of some college scouts and coaches. But one school took a particular interest – Minnesota. Bateman told Minnesota at the start of camp that they were going to offer him that day. The following spring, before his senior season, Minnesota did. "I still, to this day, haven't had maybe anyone have a better individual workout than he did that day," Minnesota Head Coach P.J. Fleck told Pro Football Focus. "And he loved every minute of it." Bateman had never been to Minnesota and didn't know much about it, but he immediately committed once his first Division 1 offer arrived. Then came his senior year. "I guess with him not being a super big name going into his senior year, folks weren't expecting what Rashod did," Anders said. "Man, I mean from Game 1, he arrived. He blew it up." Bateman set school records for catches (83), receiving yards (1,539), and touchdowns (21). His receiving yards were the fifth most ever in the state of Georgia. All the big SEC programs came running, including home-state Georgia and Kirby Smart. Bateman turned them all down to stay with Minnesota, a program that had never had a wide receiver drafted in the first round and just one highly successful one (Eric Decker) since the mid '70s. The school hadn't had a first-round pick at any position in 15 years. "Not a hard decision at all," Bateman said. "Loyalty." That year, an assistant coach at Tift County started a $500 scholarship "Commitment Award" in honor of Bateman's decision. Even though the coach is a "big Georgia guy," Bateman was the first recipient. "As coaches, you always try to instill in kids, your word is your bond," Anders said. "As good a football player as Rashod is and all the success that he's had, he's probably a better person. He'll probably be more successful as a person than he is as a football player." ‘I proved I belonged’ Unlike in high school, Bateman was an immediate hit in college. As a true freshman, he caught 51 passes for 704 yards and six touchdowns. Then came a monster sophomore year, in which Bateman posted 60 catches for 1,219 yards and 11 touchdowns. His mom made it to all but one game, splitting the 19-hour car ride over two days and sometimes bringing a gaggle of family members with her. But family tragedy still tagged along, too. On Aug. 3, 2019, Bateman's uncle, Anthony, died suddenly of a heart attack. Anthony had become a father figure to Bateman. He coached Bateman in basketball and football and would take him home every day from practice to make sure he was OK. "He taught me a lot about life," Bateman said. "He basically told me that I was going to be in the position I'm in today. I do everything in honor of him." Bateman, who still wears his uncle's gold pendant every day, dedicated the first game of his sophomore season to Anthony. Then he went out and posted 132 receiving yards, including a one-handed touchdown grab that was arguably the greatest single highlight of his college career. Playing opposite Tyler Johnson, a 2020 fifth-round pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bateman dominated games. He put up 177 yards and two scores against Purdue. He had seven grabs for 203 yards versus Penn State. He hung 147 yards on Wisconsin. "When I got to college, I knew that I was going to go to the NFL. That was something I drilled into my head," Bateman said. "After that year, I felt that I proved I belonged." A year ago at this time, ESPN's Todd McShay ranked Bateman at No. 19 on his way-too-early top 32 college prospects of the next NFL draft class. NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah compared him to New Orleans Saints megastar Michael Thomas. ‘There’s racism everywhere’ Just as the hype train was taking off, Bateman's life was turning upside down again. In early June last summer, Bateman contracted COVID-19. It was such a bad case that it put him out of commission for nearly a month. "I had every symptom you could possibly think of," he said. Only able to eat about once a day, Bateman resembled that "skinny kid" once again. He grew up with asthma, which further complicated his breathing and conditioning when he tried to get back into shape. He lost more than 10 pounds, which he wasn't able to put back on until this year's pre-draft process. While he was dealing with COVID-19, the world around him was also rocked. On May 25, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, just a short walk from where Bateman was living. Bateman dealt with racism in Georgia, especially when it came to dating. He and a white girlfriend had to hide their relationship from her parents. Palmer, who recently resigned from her job as an assistant principal because of what she described as "sheer racism" toward the Black principal, saw it too. Cromer hoped to shield her son from it, but he now had a front-row seat to a racial awakening in America.

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"You teach your kids about racism, but until they see it and experience it, that's when it really hits," Cromer said. "The George Floyd killing really took a toll on Rashod." Bateman remembers looking out the window of his college dorm and seeing seven helicopters circling overhead as protests and mayhem erupted around boarded-up Minneapolis. He wanted to join the protests but was too scared to leave his building. "It felt like I was in the middle of a purge," Bateman said. "It was like the video game 'Grand Theft Auto.' Everybody was doing their own thing, dying, getting shot, protests. I look back on it now and I can't even imagine that actually happened. There's racism everywhere. Being in Minnesota, I learned that with George Floyd." About two months after contracting COVID-19, Bateman announced that he was opting out of his junior season. He said it was for medical reasons, but Floyd's death also played a role. He was one of the first high-profile college players to opt out, and he called it the hardest decision he ever made in his life. It pained Bateman not to play with his teammates for the school that first saw something in him. When the Big Ten announced that it would kick off its football season, Bateman immediately opted back in. He did so with a new jersey number, changing from 13 to 0 "because there is zero tolerance for racism in this culture." Bateman helped establish and was one of the most outspoken players in Minnesota football's monthly HERE (Help End Racism through Education) program. "I just have to voice my opinion to make sure that everybody loves each other, no matter their race, color, or religion," Bateman said. Bateman said he would wear No. 0 in the NFL if it were allowed by the league. He has continued to speak out about racial justice on social media, which has made his mother nervous of backlash, but proud at the same time. "I feel like certain things are taught at a young age and I have a lot of young people that look up to me," Bateman said. "I know if they see me loving everyone, staying positive, being nice to everyone no matter their color or race, then maybe they will do the same thing. They want to be like me when I'm on the football field; maybe they want to be like me as a person." ‘Ends as a beautiful butterfly’ After all the offseason hype, Bateman's junior season was tougher than his sophomore year. He played at 186 pounds all season after being at 197 or 198 the prior year. His conditioning hadn't fully recovered from the respiratory problems, and he dealt with other injuries. He still averaged nearly 100 receiving yards per game though. After five games and following a spike of COVID cases on the team, Bateman opted out for a second time to focus on preparing for the NFL Draft. Bateman was lumped into the second tier of wide receiver prospects entering the draft. He didn't care much about that, but he was puzzled that his speed was questioned (he ran a 4.39 40-yard dash at his Pro Day to eliminate those concerns) and those pesky questions about his size popped up when he measured a smaller than he looks on tape. The Ravens loved what they saw – the total package of polished route-running, athleticism and work ethic. Director of Player Personnel Joe Hortiz had a front-row seat at Bateman's Pro Day and immediately called General Manager Eric DeCosta and Head Coach John Harbaugh afterwards. "I'm like, 'Hey man, you've got to watch his Pro Day.' You can definitely feel the speed," Hortiz said. "You really felt it – his ability to really just get in-and-out [of routes] and show that twitch and strength that can transition into the burst and explosion." With a hunch that the Green Bay Packers could draft Bateman at No. 29, the Ravens grabbed their guy at No. 27. Baltimore has been starving for a star wide receiver for decades and DeCosta is hoping Bateman and fellow first-round wide receiver Marquise Brown team up to break the cycle. On the other end of the line of the draft-night call, Bateman and his family freaked out. After he hung up with DeCosta and Harbaugh, Bateman took off running down the street in celebration as if he were going to run straight out of Tifton – for good. "He has no reason to come back here except to see his Momma," Cromer said. "He's ready to put on that show." "My husband is a paraplegic, so he can't stand. But I really thought he was going to walk that night," Palmer said. "The word proud doesn't even encompass the way we all feel. It's just so wonderful to see his dreams come true." Bateman, his two brothers and Cromer all plan to get matching butterfly tattoos. They hoped to get them before Bateman left for Baltimore, but his schedule filled up fast. "Once he got that playbook, he was going out to the school practicing and learning those plays. And that just left me and my butterfly out the window," Cromer said with a chuckle. "I'm praying he takes a break one day." Cromer plans to get her tattoo on her foot. Bateman is thinking he'll get it on his rib cage. He doesn't have a lot of real estate left after he got a Black Lives Matter tattoo on his left thigh. "The only place I can think of right now is a painful place," Bateman said. "It signifies that our family is growing. A butterfly starts off as a caterpillar but ends up as a beautiful butterfly." "It signifies change," Cromer added. "I have seen all of us change because we've been through so much, but we didn't let that tear us down."

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So Much Of The Focus Has Been On What Ravens WR Marquise Brown Is Not Rather Than What He Is. That’s Changing THE ATHLETIC | SEPT. 23, 2021 | JEFF ZREBIEC Marquise Brown spent last week limping around on a sore ankle. He barely practiced and was limited when he did. For much of the week, he had little expectation that he’d be on the field Sunday night against the Kansas City Chiefs. But Brown woke up the morning of the game feeling better. His reservations about how he’d perform started to dissipate. He badly wanted to play. Better yet, he knew that he needed to play. “I was like, ‘Whatever chance I can give my team to win, I’m going to go out there and play,’” Brown said after Sunday’s 36-35 victory over the Chiefs. Brown didn’t just play. He was the most dangerous Raven on the field not named Lamar Jackson. He caught six balls for a game-high 113 yards despite feeling like he left plays on the field because of fatigue. He found the end zone for the eighth time in eight games dating to last year. He also caught what should have been a key two-point conversion, but it was wiped out by a questionable illegal-man-downfield call. “He came up big for us,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. The latest performance continued to alter the narrative surrounding Brown. Suddenly, the focus is seemingly shifting from the things he’s not to what he already is and what he still could become. For a player frequently maligned for being hurt and not practicing, Brown has consistently played through injuries, missing just two games since he entered the league in 2019, both coming in October of his rookie year. For a player not considered by most NFL pundits to be a legitimate No. 1 receiver, Brown has been at his best in the Ravens’ biggest and toughest games. In three playoff games, the diminutive wideout has 18 catches for 322 yards. And for a player who has heard plenty about the exploits of A.J. Brown, DK Metcalf, Deebo Samuel, Terry McLaurin and other receivers taken after him in the 2019 NFL Draft, Brown is showing signs of reaching another level while operating in an offense that’s not conducive to big numbers for receivers. “I know people haven’t seen the best of him,” Jackson said Wednesday. “His ankle wasn’t 100 percent, and he was still able to do whatever he wanted to do out there — make guys miss, get open, beat defenders. The sky’s the limit for him right now, for sure.” Brown agrees. “I don’t even like to speak on it, but definitely, I’ve played nowhere near my best football since I’ve been in the NFL,” he said. “I’m just trying to get back to the player I know I can be.” After not playing in the preseason and missing just about all of training camp because of a hamstring injury, Brown has started the season in good form. He has 12 catches on 16 targets for 182 yards, which ranks 10th in the NFL. He’s also scored two touchdowns. Pro Football Focus graded Brown as the top Raven through the first two weeks and the league’s third-best receiver, behind the Los Angeles Rams’ Cooper Kupp and the Arizona Cardinals’ Christian Kirk. It’s not that Brown hasn’t gotten off to strong starts before. As a rookie, he had 12 catches for 233 yards and two touchdowns over his first two games and was targeted 18 times during that span. Over the first two games last year, Brown caught 10 of 12 targets for 143 yards. This year’s start, however, feels a little different, a little more promising. Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman seems to have a priority of getting Brown the ball in different parts of the field. “He’s definitely a playmaker and we’re always trying to get him involved, because of the positive impact he can bring,” Roman said Thursday. “Having him out there really makes a difference.” Against the Chiefs, Brown was targeted on a wide receiver screen, a slant, an out route and a go route. The Ravens tried to get him the ball in the end zone four times. He could have had an even bigger day, but on the Ravens’ second play from scrimmage, Jackson overthrew Brown, who had gotten behind the Chiefs secondary. “I’m very excited for the steps everybody has taken,” Brown said Thursday. “It’s different for me because I feel better as a player, health-wise, mindset-wise. I have faith in my quarterback and my coaches. Just the progressions that we’ve been making in the passing game, it has me excited going forward.” Brown, the 25th pick in the 2019 draft, readily acknowledges that his first two-plus NFL seasons have been challenging at times. He said Thursday that he’s been “fighting an uphill battle” since he was drafted.

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He spent his first summer as an NFL rookie recovering from surgery to repair a foot injury that he sustained in one of his final college games. There have been other nagging injuries since, and though they haven’t forced him to miss more than two games, Brown says that all of the practice time he’s missed has hurt his development. “I hate missing practice,” said Brown, who incidentally was not on the practice field Thursday as he continues to get treatment for his sore left ankle. “I feel like I can be 100 times better when I practice. It can bring your confidence level down. I’m confident in myself, but within the first two games, not getting as much practice in as I would hope for, I didn’t know how the game would go. “I felt like if I was to practice last week, most of the stuff that I caught, I’d have been able to run (more). A lot of my routes in the second half were slow, due to fatigue because I didn’t practice. Practice is a big part of success, and I want to be out there as much as I can.” There’s also been the matter of Brown’s adjustment to a run-first offense and his getting sporadic touches and targets. Brown’s 100 targets last year ranked 42nd in the NFL. In Brown’s rookie season, 74 players were targeted more than he was. Brown’s frustration peaked last year in a Week 7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers when he caught just one ball for 3 yards (it was a touchdown) and was targeted three times. He took to Twitter afterward and griped about how he was being used before deleting the post. That Steelers game kick-started a four-game stretch when Brown caught just six balls for 52 yards and was targeted only 17 times. Rock bottom was a Week 10 game against the Tennessee Titans, whom he had torched for 126 receiving yards in the playoffs 10 months earlier. He was held without a catch on three targets. Since getting shut out, Brown has played 10 total games. He had 85 or more receiving yards in five of them. He also has eight receiving touchdowns during that span, tying Green Bay’s Davante Adams for the most in the NFL. “I learned just to get back to doing what I did to get me here,” Brown said. “That’s just control what you can control. I can’t control when I get the ball, I can’t control when the ball is thrown to me. The only thing I can control is running a good route, catching the ball when it comes to me and taking advantage of my opportunities.” Roman noted that in addition to Brown’s receiving contributions Sunday, the wide receiver’s blocking was “as good as it’s ever been,” and he praised Brown’s team-first mentality. There are times when Brown says he wonders what it would be like to play in a more wide-open offense that throws the ball a lot more. Those thoughts, however, are fleeting, because Brown says he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. “As a receiver, it’s easy to look around the league and you see teams throwing the ball 50 times, 40 times. You envision it and you go, ‘Well, maybe If I got that, this is what I could have,’” Brown said. “On the flip side, none of those guys run the ball like we do. Nobody has the organization we have. A lot of teams don’t allow players to be themselves how the Ravens allow players to be themselves. It’s like, ‘Yeah, you can want that, but then again, what if you can get 1,500 yards with the least amount of catches than this guy getting 100 catches.’ “That’s the challenge I’ve been looking at. It doesn’t matter if I’m the first read, second read, third read. Whenever I get the ball, I want to make plays. At the end of the year, if you look back up, I want to be at the top.”

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Josh Bynes Is Coming To The Rescue Again BALTIMORERAVENS.COM | OCT. 19, 2021 | CLIFF BROWN Josh Bynes has been other places, but the best fit has always been Baltimore. In his third tour with the Ravens, Bynes has come to the rescue again. Making his first start of the year in Sunday's 34-6 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, Bynes showed why the Ravens keep his telephone number on speed dial. He took over at middle linebacker and tied for the team lead with six tackles. He took pressure off second-year linebacker Patrick Queen, allowing him to move to weakside linebacker, where he could play with more freedom and less responsibility. Bynes is 32 years old, but he moved like he was 22 on Sunday. "I appreciate 'Harbs' [Head Coach John Harbaugh] and the organization [for] bringing me back for the third time or whatever now," Bynes said. "I appreciate it so much. I love this place. My heart is through-and-through purple." According to Pro Football Focus, Bynes was the Ravens' second-highest graded defensive player behind safety DeShon Elliott, who also had a terrific game. This is what happens when Bynes comes to Baltimore. The combination clicks. He was released by the Carolina Panthers during final roster cuts and the Ravens signed him to the practice squad, knowing his experience at inside linebacker would be valuable after L.J. Fort suffered a season-ending knee injury. Bynes has gone from the practice squad, to the 53-man roster, to the starting lineup, to leading the linebackers in snaps played (43) on Sunday. It's similar to 2019, when the Ravens were 2-2, signed Bynes as a free agent and won 12 straight games. Bynes is back, and the Ravens are better for it. "His story is just incredible," Harbaugh said. "We've had some young linebackers in here ever since C.J. [Mosley] left. There's a process going on there. We've had to be bailed out a couple times, quite honestly, [by] Josh and L.J., and then Josh again. So, we're very grateful that those guys were here. I thought Josh did a really nice job with just calming things down." After the Ravens gave up a season-high 513 yards in Week 5 against the Indianapolis Colts, changes needed to be made. Queen and second-year linebacker Malik Harrison were both having troubles with pass coverage and weren't reacting quickly enough against the run. Queen was missing too many open-field tackles. The decision to insert Bynes into the starting lineup paid immediate dividends Sunday. The Chargers were held to just 26 yards rushing and Bynes had plenty to do with it, reading plays quickly and flying to the ballcarrier. "Me being out there with P.Q. [Queen], it was just great," Bynes said. "I love this game, and I love being a guy being accounted for out there on the field for my guys." Bynes knows the Ravens' defensive system like it's his living room, and he has a knack for being in the right place. An undrafted player in 2011, Bynes made Baltimore's roster and was with the team for three seasons as a key member of the defense. His signature moment was making the final tackle in Baltimore's Super Bowl XLVII victory over the San Francisco 49ers in his second season. He signed as a free agent with the Detroit Lions in 2014, and has also played with the Arizona Cardinals (2017-18) and Cincinnati Bengals (2020). However, Bynes' impact has always been biggest with Baltimore. Once again, his presence Sunday brought a calming presence to the defense.

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The Fire Still Burns for Justin Houston On the verge of 100 career sacks and going against his former team, outside linebacker Justin Houston rescued two brothers from a raging fire as a youngster and overcame adversity to become one of the NFL's premier pass rushers. BALTIMORERAVENS.COM | OCT. 6, 2021 | JUSTIN HOUSTON When Justin Houston was in the ninth grade, his family's home in Statesboro, Ga. was destroyed by fire. Houston was talking on the phone when the line went dead. Then he smelled smoke, went into the hallway and immediately saw flames. Houston ran outside, but quickly realized that two younger brothers were still inside. At that moment, it wasn't about getting to the quarterback. It was about getting to Tylen and Aaron. "I just took off and ran inside to get them," the Ravens' 32-year-old outside linebacker said. "Fortunately, I knew that house so well, I could get around the place with my eyes closed. It was pitch dark and the smoke was heavy, but I knew they were in the back room. I ran in there screaming their names. They came running and found me. And we got out." Houston is too modest to describe himself as a hero. But his family does. "That's Justin," his mother Kimberly said, sobbing on the phone recently as she recalled that day. "He saved my boys." That day changed Houston's life in ways that are hard to fathom. His mother and 10 siblings were left with no place to live and all their worldly possessions gone. The community in Statesboro rallied around Houston's family, teaching Houston that people are far more important than possessions. "As far as material things, if you weren't wearing what you had on that day, you lost it," Houston said. "Thank God, we had people in the city to help us – the school, the churches, because we really had nothing." The fire took Houston's home, but it couldn't take his determination. Eighteen years later, he is one of the best pass rushers of his era. With 98.5 career sacks heading into the Ravens-Indianapolis Colts matchup on Monday Night Football, Houston is the next NFL player in line to reach the 100 career-sack total. Among active players, only Von Miller (110.5), Chandler Jones (102) and J.J. Watt (101) have more. Houston has chased quarterbacks his entire career and caught many. But a Super Bowl ring has eluded him. That's the main reason he signed with the Ravens before this season, despite more lucrative offers elsewhere. He believes they have a chance to win a championship, and Houston will do whatever it takes to help achieve that goal. "At this point, it's the main reason I'm playing," Houston said. "I'm not going to play with just any team. But we have the pieces to be special." A LEADER LIKE YODA Houston has become a locker room leader with the Ravens almost as quickly as he comes off the edge. A familiar sight in training camp was Houston staying after practice to work with rookie pass rushers Odafe Oweh and Daelin Hayes, teaching them the tricks of the trade. Oweh says Houston is "like Yoda", the all-knowing character in Star Wars. Oweh and Tyus Bowser are tied for the team lead with two sacks, and both credit Houston's presence as a factor. There aren't many pass-rushing techniques that Houston isn't familiar with. He beats offensive linemen with his mind as well as his strength, and he is giving about sharing his knowledge. "He just knows everything," Oweh said. "I try to ask him questions about different sets, how to approach that, how to attack that, and he'll have the answer right away. I really appreciate that, because like I said, I'm new to the game, so I'm trying to pick up something different every single time. I try to work with him after practice — hands, just learning. Learning stuff and picking every little thing. With film too, how to take care of your body — just that vet mentality, being a pro and everything. So, he's really helped me with everything." Houston has always been a complete player, far more than just a pass-rush specialist. His run defense has been solid this season, and he has regularly defeated blockers at the point of attack. However, Houston makes his greatest impact as a nemesis to quarterbacks. He got his first sack of the season near the end of Baltimore's Week 4 victory over the Denver Broncos, taking Drew Lock to the ground. His pressure has also created opportunities for others, like Week 1 against the Las Vegas Raiders when Houston's pressure set up a sack by Pernell McPhee. Houston is another valuable chess piece that Defensive Coordinator Wink Martindale can deploy in multiple ways. While he also considered signing with the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston's love for Baltimore's defensive scheme lured him. Houston first visited the Ravens as a free agent in April, but didn't sign until early August. "When I talked to the coaches here, I really wanted to sign that day," Houston said. "The only reason why I thought about Pittsburgh is they called and offered, and it was a 3-4 scheme. I knew I wanted to be in a 3-4. "But this system here in Baltimore creates mismatches and one-on ones. Most schemes don't create that. They put you out there and tell you to win your matchup. But it's not really a one-on-one when the guard is staring at you before the snap, and when the running back is looking to chip you as well. Here, with the pressure we bring, it's hard for the guard to help. It's hard for the running back to chip. They've got to matchup with other guys, and if you leave me one-on-one, I'm going to win my battles." CHASING A SUPER BOWL

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Houston has been winning battles for years, but he wants to win the big game. When he was weighing options as a free agent, the chance to play with Lamar Jackson factored into Houston's thinking. He sensed Jackson's competitiveness when he was a rookie in 2018, when the Ravens lost a 27-24 overtime thriller to the Chiefs in Kansas City. Houston had a strip sack against Jackson in that game, adding his name to the list of quarterbacks he has taken down. In Jackson, Houston sees a special talent driven to win, the same qualities he saw in Patrick Mahomes, his former teammate with the Chiefs. "When you have a quarterback like that, anything's possible," Houston said. "You know you're never out of the game." Houston envisioned himself winning a championship in Kansas City as Mahomes became a star, but the Chiefs released Houston after the season to free up salary cap space. Recognizing how respected Houston was in Kansas City, Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach and Chairman Clark Hunt both released statements when Houston was let go. "These decisions are never easy," Veach said. "I have a great deal of respect for Justin as a player and person and I wish him and his family the best moving forward." Kansas City traded for pass rusher Frank Clark shortly after parting with Houston, and the Chiefs won the Super Bowl the next year. Houston, who had signed with the Indianapolis Colts, had mixed emotions watching his former team hoist the Lombardi Trophy the year after he left Kansas City. "I was happy for the guys, but not for everyone in that building," Houston said. "I wasn't happy the way we split up. I got released when they wanted me to take a pay cut. The way I saw it, I was already taking a pay cut because some other pass rushers were getting $21 (million) a year when I was getting paid $14. When they first paid me $14, it was top dollar. Then they released me and brought in another guy and paid him more? I was like, damn, this guy's that much better than me? I wasn't happy." Meanwhile, things didn't go as Houston planned with the Colts after he signed with them in 2019. They had a talented franchise quarterback in Andrew Luck who had just led them to the playoffs, but during the preseason that year, Luck shocked the sports world by announcing his retirement at just 29 years old. To say Houston was upset with Luck's decision would be putting it mildly. "I was hot," Houston said. "It was a toss-up between me signing with Baltimore or Indy, both of them had great quarterbacks, and I chose Indy. Then the last preseason game, he retires? That wasn't a last-minute decision. He could have put that out there – look, I'm thinking about retiring. Not keep it to himself. I felt that was a selfish agenda. This is not a one-man sport. Your decision affected everybody in that building. I felt some type of way about that." Houston spent two seasons with the Colts and enjoyed his time there. He won't play Monday night's game looking to settle a score against a former team. "They treated me well, it's a good organization," Houston said. "It'll be like any other game, I just want to win." LIVING A DREAM Houston isn't sure how much longer he wants to play, but he is enjoying the quick bond he has made with Ravens teammates and coaches. He loves the way Baltimore has overcome adversity and injuries to win its last three games. With the Ravens, he has found a team that shares his fighting spirit. He has maintained the rock-solid values he learned as a country kid growing up in Statesboro, raised by a mother and grandmother (Linda) who worked multiple jobs to support the family. Houston was taught to be self-sufficient, hard-working, unselfish and undeterred by setbacks. Nothing Houston faces on the football field ever seems harder than that day he stood outside, watching his family's home burn. He knew times ahead would be even more difficult, but he and his family were up for the challenge. In 2016, Houston bought 29 acres of land in Statesboro and built homes for his mother and grandmother that sit next to each other. "They sit and look at each other from their houses, talking to each other on the phone every day," Houston said smiling. "Instead of just walking across the way, they talk on the phone. It's funny. But it feels good. "Growing up, you don't know what you don't know. I didn't understand how tough our life was. My mom and grandma made sure we had, even after the fire. My grandma worked three jobs. Came home, slept 15 minutes, went off again. I salute them." The shell of the house that caught fire remains intact, and Houston plans to have it rebuilt one day. He has been through the fire and feels blessed. "People don't know what you come from, what you've been through, and why you're the person you are," Houston said. "Since that fire, I try not to complain about anything. I distance myself from all forms of negativity. I want no part of it. "One of my coaches in college told me, 'You never have a bad day. You just have bad moments. Don't let that bad moment linger.' That stuck with me. I'm enjoying every moment."

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Next In Line: Can Marlon Humphrey Rise To Level Of Ravens’ Defensive Greats? PRESSBOX | AUG. 18, 2021 | BO SMOLKA Pittsburgh Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster caught the pass over the middle near the Steelers’ 45-yard line in overtime, but before he could turn upfield, Marlon Humphrey sized him up, and with a move that has become his trademark, Humphrey punched the ball out of Smith-Schuster’s hands. Humphrey took Smith-Schuster to the ground, and as the fumble bounced along the Heinz Field grass, Humphrey popped back up and grabbed the loose ball inside the Steelers’ 40-yard line. Four plays later, Justin Tucker’s 46-yard field goal gave the Ravens a 26-23 win, one of 14 en route to their runaway 2019 AFC North title. Humphrey has been a fundamentally sound cornerback from the minute he stepped onto the field as the Ravens’ first-round draft pick (No. 16 overall) in 2017. But so-called “splash plays” like the one at Pittsburgh have elevated Humphrey to Pro Bowl status in each of the past two years. And although the Ravens have a transcendent quarterback in Lamar Jackson, the organization’s bedrock has long been its defense. Now after signing a top-of-the market, five-year contract last fall, Humphrey figures to be the face of that defense for the foreseeable future, the latest homegrown defensive megastar for a franchise that has produced Hall of Famers Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, along with potential Hall of Famers Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata, among others. Could Humphrey ascend to that level? “Any time you’re compared to the Ray Lewises and the Ed Reeds, it’s definitely always an honor,” Humphrey said after a minicamp workout in June. “I know those guys got some Defensive Player of the Year [awards], so I probably need to get one of those in order to really try to be one of those cornerstone pieces. But definitely, it’s always an honor to be compared to those guys.” Family Ties For Humphrey, elite athleticism began in the womb. His father, Bobby, was a two-time All-American running back at Alabama who went on to play four years in the NFL, earning Pro Bowl honors in 1990 with the Denver Broncos. His mother, Barbara, set the outdoor 400-meter dash record at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, a mark that stands more than 30 years later as one of the oldest on the UAB books. (Barbara Humphrey still finds purpose on the track, serving as head coach of the Speed City Summer Track Club in Birmingham.) Marlon is the middle of five Humphrey children, all exceptional athletes. Older brother Maudrecus played football at Arkansas and UAB. Older sister Breona ran track at UAB. Younger sister Brittley was an All-American hurdler at LSU who competed in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials this summer. And youngest brother Marion Humphrey played basketball at the University of San Diego before transferring to Salt Lake Community College this spring. That innate talent and competitive drive, along with a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, fueled the Humphreys. As Ravens head coach John Harbaugh likes to say, iron sharpens iron. “If you played bad,” Marlon Humphrey said, “it wasn’t the most fun dinner at the house. You were definitely going to be told about it.” Humphrey also credits his mother for mining his natural competitiveness. “I think about track at almost every phase,” Humphrey said. “When I was [in elementary school], when I was middle school, when I was high school, there was always a kid I couldn’t beat, and my mom told me, ‘Just stick with it. Stick with it.’ She thought I could outwork those people that were beating me, and it always seemed to come true in track.” In fact, had Humphrey decided to focus on track, he might have been in the Olympics. In 2013, Humphrey won a silver medal in the 110-meter high hurdles at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine, losing only to future Olympian Jaheel Hyde of Jamaica. Humphrey was also a seven-time Alabama high school state track champion. But with that success came unintended consequences. Humphrey recalled that one of his high school football coaches referred to him as “a track guy,” which Humphrey translated to mean, “You weren’t trying to hit anybody.” “It was a joke,” Humphrey said, “but I didn’t like that, and I would be lying if I didn’t say it affected me.” Indeed, Humphrey molded his game after physical cornerbacks like Richard Sherman, who could create turnovers but also pay attention to the fundamentals of the position, such as anticipating a throw or hammering a receiver, the price to pay for making a catch against him. “You’re not going to last long if you’re not a physical football player,” said Josh Niblett, Humphrey’s coach at Hoover High School in Alabama. “He’s a big, physical football player, and he’s always been a great tackler.”

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Though he thrived on the track, Humphrey always had his eyes on college football, and the offers poured in for the five-star recruit who went 30-0 in his final two seasons at Hoover. After flirting with offers from Florida State and Mississippi State, Humphrey followed his father to Alabama. In addition to playing football, Humphrey also competed on the track in relays and hurdles. After a redshirt season in 2014, Humphrey reached the national championship game in both of his on-field seasons at Alabama, winning the title after the 2015 season. He was named a first-team All-American in 2016. But raw athletic ability can only take you so far. The careers of countless elite athletes have flamed out because of bad decisions, bad motivation or both. That never happened with Humphrey because his family kept him, in his words, “aligned,” and because he demonstrated an almost obsessive work ethic. “Sometimes kids can have success, and then maybe they don’t work as hard, or they don’t stay locked in on the things that helped them get to that point,” Niblett said. “Then they forget, because they get comfortable. Marlon never got comfortable. He was always working on his craft. He was always working on ways to get better.” In offseasons, Niblett saw that firsthand with the grueling workouts Humphrey would put himself through back at Hoover — before he went off to help the track team as a volunteer coach. During training camp practices a couple of years ago, when reserves took the field for an 11-on-11 period and many veterans would head to the water station, a sweating Humphrey would walk toward the sideline, take a knee and consult a video tablet to review plays. During the season, he has been known to take reps with the scout kickoff unit, racing down the field as hard as an undrafted rookie trying to make the team. “The thing about Marlon, and what the other guys watch about Marlon, is when he runs a drill, he doesn’t just run a drill,” Harbaugh said. “He runs a drill as if it’s the last play in the Super Bowl. … Every single rep. When you do it like that, you can’t help but get better.” This past spring, Humphrey could have easily opted to stay away from voluntary OTA workouts, with his $97.5 million contract signed and sealed. Instead, he was on the Owings Mills practice fields for nearly every rep, every day. “I just wanted to get back, get some sessions in, get with my coach, work on a couple things,” Humphrey said. “It’s a long offseason, and I was ready to get to work.” Hitting “The Lottery” The big contract didn’t change Humphrey’s work habits, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t move him. As Humphrey met with the media shortly after signing the deal, he choked up as he recalled how his parents and others had steered him to that moment. “Since I was young, I told my dad I wanted play in the NFL, and he never really let me slip,” Humphrey said that day. “Getting in trouble here and there as a youngun’, my dad just never kept his foot off me. Decisions, things I wanted to do, he was able to tell me, ‘No,’ and didn’t really share explanations. But as I grew older, I was able to understand.” Humphrey’s father had a few brushes with the law in his 20s and he was determined not to let Marlon repeat that behavior. “I remember hearing the same stories when I was 6 all the way [to] when I was 22,” Marlon Humphrey said, “and then I’d get in those same situations and I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t think I should do this, because I feel like I’ve already lived it.'” Humphrey recalled that one high school coach told him that if he stayed true to his craft and kept out of trouble, he would “hit the lottery,” and now Humphrey’s Twitter feed includes the descriptor “The Lottery 3x.” “It was crazy that at that young age, he had that confidence in me,” Humphrey said. Humphrey said his father warned him early in his career about “blowing money, people taking money from you,” and his father checks his son’s credit card statements closely enough that last year, he questioned a pizza order placed in Houston; turns out it had been placed by former Ravens linebacker Matthew Judon. Humphrey and Judon have done plenty of bantering over social media, where Humphrey, off the field, is at his most visible. He doesn’t relish traditional interviews, but Humphrey eagerly engages his 267,000 Instagram and 128,000 Twitter followers. “This might offend my Maryland people,” he tweeted recently, “but let me just say … you don’t need to put Old Bay on everything. Let’s stop with the experiments.” He also had a good-natured social-media debate with golfer Phil Mickelson about coffee, but struck a more serious tone when he pleaded to NFL players over Twitter: “Get the vaccine, fellas.”

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The Next Level Humphrey’s story in Baltimore is still largely unwritten, but since he declared for the draft after his sophomore season, the four-year veteran is just 25 years old. “I’ve felt like the last year and a half or so, he’s one of the top corners in the league,” Harbaugh said. “I’m talking top two, three, four in the league. Now everybody else is maybe starting to see what we’ve seen, because we watch him every single week.” Two years ago, Humphrey made the move from outside cornerback to the slot to compensate for Tavon Young’s season-ending injury, adding to his versatility. And even though Ravens defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale generally doesn’t have cornerbacks “shadow” certain receivers, and while the Ravens have the benefit of another Pro Bowl cornerback in Marcus Peters on the other side, Humphrey is frequently tasked with locking down elite receivers. Humphrey earned his first Pro Bowl bid after the 2019 season, when he had three interceptions, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries — two of which he returned for touchdowns. That was also the year when Humphrey and Cleveland Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr. got into a spirited scuffle at M&T Bank Stadium. Beckham had clearly grown frustrated with Humphrey after being held without a catch for the first three quarters of a game for the first time in his career, with Humphrey hounding and harassing Beckham all over the field. In 2020, Humphrey set a career-high with 82 tackles and a team single-season record with eight forced fumbles, the most in the league. Two of those fumbles — punched out by Humphrey — were returned for touchdowns by teammates. Assuming he can stay healthy, Humphrey would be in position for another new contract by age 30 — The Lottery 4x? — and has already spoken about his desire to be a “Raven for life.” Then, perhaps, the comparisons to Ray Lewis and Ed Reed would be more appropriate. Lewis played 17 years with the Ravens, franchise sack leader Terrell Suggs played 16 and Reed 11. Humphrey still has work to do to match their longevity, and all those franchise cornerstones own something that Humphrey does not: a Super Bowl ring. Humphrey has played in the postseason in each of the past three seasons, only to suffer gut-wrenching early exits. After an upset loss to the Tennessee Titans in the 2019 playoffs — his second straight one-and-done playoff appearance — a frustrated Humphrey stood at his locker and said, “This team’s identity right now is get in the playoffs and choke. … That’s just the hard truth.” The Ravens advanced one round further with a playoff win against Tennessee last year, only to be shut down by the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round. Moving beyond that, with Humphrey leading the way, would go a long way toward burnishing his legacy, said national NFL analyst Brian Baldinger. “It helps to do it on a big stage, in a big playoff game,” Baldinger said. “It would be good if they’re in a divisional playoff game with Buffalo, and he can take one to the house against Josh Allen to win a game. You need those kind of plays in the postseason.” As for putting him in the class of Lewis or Reed? Baldinger said pump the brakes on the comparisons, for now. “You can’t put him in Ray’s and Ed’s [class] or anything like that until he does it for the next five years at a very high level.” That sounds like a challenge. And based on how Humphrey reacted to those childhood challenges from his mother about age-group track runners, that should fuel Humphrey for this season and beyond.

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‘Everybody Wants No. 8’: As Ravens QB Lamar Jackson’s Star Rises, Youth Football Follows His Lead BALTIMORE SUN | NOV. 11, 2021 | JONAS SHAFFER In August 2020, youth football players and coaches gathered after a Jacksonville Storm practice on a grass field behind a church in eastern North Carolina. They were two weeks into their Pop Warner preseason, and the time had come to pick jersey numbers. The coaches, volunteers from the military town of Jacksonville, went from player to player, kids ranging in age from 8 to 10 years old, and asked what number they’d like. Garnet West, a Storm assistant coach, was only a few selections in before he noticed one of the kids crying. West asked him what was wrong. He said he’d wanted No. 8, but a teammate got it before him. The kid, West recalled, was almost inconsolable. Finally, through tears, came an explanation: “Lamar’s my favorite player.” Just the idea that he couldn’t imitate Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, that he couldn’t honor the NFL’s then-reigning Most Valuable Player, was enough to ruin the kid’s afternoon. “This is when I really understood, like, ‘Damn, this man is really affecting all of us in so many ways,’” said West, a lifelong Ravens fan. “Most importantly, the youth.” These are good days for No. 8. On Thursday, Jackson will take his case for 2021 MVP back home, to South Florida, where the AFC North-leading Ravens will face the Miami Dolphins in prime time. On Saturday, Jackson will return to the University of Louisville, where he won the school’s only Heisman Trophy and where he’ll join another Baltimore football icon, Johnny Unitas, as the only Cardinals players to have their jersey numbers retired. All weekend, from youth fields in Kansas to stadiums in Baltimore to patches of grass across the country, the sport’s next generation will try to follow his lead. The more Jackson distinguishes himself, the more distinguished his No. 8 becomes. According to the NFL’s official online shop, Jackson’s No. 8 jersey was the eighth-highest-selling jersey in October. From March 1, 2020, to Feb. 28, according to the NFL Players Association, Jackson trailed only Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in sales of licensed player products and merchandise. “It’s just crazy,” Jackson said Tuesday of the number’s burgeoning popularity, almost dumbstruck by the legions of supporters he sees at every game, home and away. Jackson still seems to play with the glee of a child, and his jersey number in that demographic has become a treasured touchstone. When Ravens defensive back Anthony Levine Sr. looks around M&T Bank Stadium on game days, he sees a constellation of kids delighting in wearing the same thing. “That’s all you see,” Levine said. “When they introduce 8 coming out the tunnel, you can’t hear nothing. The crowd goes crazy for him. That’s who he is.” ‘He really just wants to win’ On a Saturday in early October, Lex Hector was making the long drive from central Kansas to Denver when she got a notification on her phone. Hours earlier, she’d shared a video on Twitter of her 9-year-old nephew, Rylan Herrod, walking off the field after a dominant game for the Newton Railers Junior Football Club. “Why do you wear that number?” Hector asks in the clip. “For Lamar Jackson,” Rylan says, almost bashfully. Now they were driving to see No. 8 in person, a Week 4 matchup with the Broncos, Rylan’s first Ravens game. But before he could see Jackson in person, Jackson saw Rylan. He retweeted Hector’s video, which she’d tagged Jackson in. And so Hector handed Rylan her phone, the screen open to Jackson’s Twitter page. “He was speechless for probably about 30 seconds and just had the biggest smirk on his face,” Hector recalled. “He just smiled for the rest of the trip. … He was ecstatic the entire time. It definitely made his entire road trip. It made his whole weekend. He still talks about it.” Hector joked that the retweet probably meant more to Rylan than it did to her, a rich irony because, well, Rylan isn’t even a Ravens fan. Hector grew up going to Ravens games. Her nephew, however, grew up in Kansas in a boom era for the Chiefs, a franchise with its own prodigy at quarterback. “It was all Patrick Mahomes, all the time,” Hector said of Rylan’s early fandom. Even after Jackson was named the 2019 NFL MVP, Rylan was reluctant to acknowledge his greatness. But over the past year, as Jackson led the Ravens to another playoff appearance, Rylan’s attitude softened. He started watching YouTube highlights of Jackson. He began to realize how he wanted to play football. The way Rylan saw it, his notions of leadership and playmaking aligned more with Jackson’s than with Mahomes’.

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“He loves the Chiefs and he loves Patrick, but he sees what Lamar does on the field and what Lamar does for the Ravens, and he just wants to model after that,” Hector said. “He wants to be the team leader. He wants to be the guy that gets everyone riled up, gets them going. He just wants to lead his team and get as many touches as possible. He really just wants to win football games.” This is Rylan’s first year playing tackle football. When his Newton coaches were handing out equipment before the season, Rylan asked when they would get their jerseys. Soon, he was told. “Do we have a say in what our number is?” Hector recalled Rylan wondering. “If we do, I want 8.” Lamar and the kids During Jackson’s rookie year in Baltimore, Kweisi Ehoize, the president of the Baltimore Terps youth sports organization, visited Ravens training camp with some of the kids in his program. They wanted to see Jackson, and Jackson wanted to see them. “He talked to the kids, he stayed with the kids, he played with the kids,” Ehoize recalled. “I think that he really, genuinely — not an act, not a show, but genuinely — loves kids.” In Baltimore, the love goes both ways. Ehoize joked that when he orders jerseys ahead of a new season these days, he makes sure to verify how many No. 8s he needs, and in what sizes. “Everybody’s going to want it,” Ehoize said, not just the quarterbacks. When legendary Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was in his prime, No. 52 was the most popular number in Baltimore-area youth football, Ehoize recalled. But its sphere of influence was limited. Defensive-minded players wanted No. 52, not quarterbacks, Ehoize said. Jackson’s emergence, along with changes in uniform rules, has started to blur those lines. Under the NFL’s newly relaxed jersey regulations, most players can choose to wear any number between 1 and 19. In Baltimore, Ravens wide receiver, Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, wears No. 5. Inside linebacker Patrick Queen wears No. 6 — but only because No. 8 was unavailable. It’s as if the 9- and 10-year-olds on Ehoize’s Baltimore Terps football team finally have permission to honor their favorite player at a different position. “It was always explained as, ‘OK, well, you can’t have No. 8 because you’re a tight end or you’re a defensive lineman,’” Ehoize said. And now? “Everybody wants No. 8.” Scarcity can force tough choices, even in youth football. West, the Jacksonville Storm assistant coach, said school grades and leadership might decide any future number claims. Ehoize said his organization’s coaches tend to favor their quarterbacks for No. 8. Will King, who coaches a youth travel team for the Southern Maryland Heat program, has taken a meritocratic approach. “If you’re the quarterback and you are the star, we let you have the first pick,” he said. “It’s just that type of thing. In this business, believe it or not, you’ve got to make sure your star athletes are happy, too, right?” ‘Everybody wants to be like Lamar’ Not long after Jackson arrived in Baltimore, Levine pulled the rookie aside in the weight room. “Man, you have no idea of the impact that you’re going to have on these kids,” Levine recalled telling the first-round pick. “What do you mean?” Jackson asked. Levine had followed Jackson’s career at Louisville, maybe more attentively than he’d followed any college player’s since arriving in the NFL over a decade ago. “Every time 8 was playing, I watched it,” Levine said. Now, when he talks with young Ravens fans, all he hears about is Jackson. They want to know where he is, how he is. Kids in Baltimore revere Jackson in 2021 the way Levine did four or five years ago before they became teammates. Wherever Levine goes, Jackson’s presence is almost unavoidable. At local high school football games, Levine will hear players and fans talking about pulling a “Lamar Jackson,” shorthand for shaking past a defender. At home, Levine’s youngest son, 5-year-old Alexander, will ask him to tell Jackson that he’s the quarterback’s biggest fan. Levine grins as he remembers their back-and-forth. He gets it. “Everybody wants to be like Lamar Jackson,” Levine said. “Every time Lamar goes out there, he goes out there, and everything he does is just natural, right? He’s just a natural-born athlete. He’s a natural-born leader. And kids see that. They’ll tell you, like — kids tell you the truth. Kids don’t sugarcoat nothing. So there ain’t no hiding nothing from a kid. When a kid sees it, a kid sees it.”

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‘I Don’t Really Know What I Can Be’: Ravens’ Justin Madubuike Still Evolving As Talented Young Piece Of Defensive Front BALTIMORE SUN | SEPT. 7, 2021 | JONAS SHAFFER The greatest disappearing act of Justin Madubuike’s NFL career took less than two seconds to pull off. It happened eight months ago, inside the 30-yard line of the Ravens’ wild-card-round playoff game against the Tennessee Titans, not the place you’d expect a 300-pound defensive lineman to go full David Copperfield. The Titans, already up 7-0 in the first quarter, were running the ball at Madubuike. Left tackle David Quessenberry and left guard Rodger Saffold converged on the rookie, a 635-pound double team blotting him out like a solar eclipse. Madubuike, his body coiled back and his front leg almost kneeling, could not see what was happening behind the human wall that had slammed into him. But he knew it was only temporary; one of the linemen, soon enough, would be looking for another target further upfield. Saffold disengaged first, and Madubuike sprang out of his stance like a jack-in-the-box that had been cranked far enough. His separation was sudden: Quessenberry fell over, and All-Pro running back Derrick Henry, seeing Madubuike close a road that had looked otherwise open, made a sudden detour. A jump cut to his left took him off course. “The whole point of that is to make sure that he doesn’t get in my gap, man, and gets no yardage,” Madubuike said. “And that’s what happened.” He made sure of it, grabbing Henry by the waist and dragging him to his knees for just a 1-yard gain. In a run-stopping performance for the ages — the Ravens held Henry, the NFL’s rushing king, to a season-low 40 yards on 18 carries in an eventual 20-13 win — Madubuike was an unsung hero up front, chasing down runs from the back side and blowing them up on the play side. No sequence epitomized Madubuike’s awesome potential more than the close-up magic that had the Titans jumping wildly, falling over themselves. It was a preview of the year to come. Madubuike has been a breakthrough performer at Ravens training camp, rarely leaving practice without a tackle for loss or sack added to his tally. Analysts have pegged him as a rising star. Teammates have raved about his growth. Defensive line coach Anthony Weaver said he has “all the talent in the world.” Madubuike is aware of his burgeoning powers. He knows not a lot of linemen look like him (“I’m kind of skinny and thick at the same time.”) He knows not a lot of players have Calais Campbell as a mentor. He knows how much the Ravens defense needs from its young pass rushers. And yet … “I don’t really know what I can be,” he said in a recent interview. “Just doing the same thing over and over and over and over and not getting bored — I get bored easily — I’m not disciplined — those are my kryptonite. Those are things that I’m aware that I’m not good at, and have a willingness to attack it. So it’s just all about growing up as a player and developing as an athlete and doing the right thing.” That was hard to do at times last year, during a rookie season Madubuike called “tough.” He missed the Ravens’ first four games with a knee injury. He missed another two amid the team’s coronavirus outbreak. He didn’t post his first sack until Week 16, and finished the season with only seven quarterback pressures, according to Sports Info Solutions, just ahead of run stopper Brandon Williams (six). Madubuike came into camp looking for a playing weight, he said, “that fits me and my skill set.” Last year, his weight bounced between 305 and 310 pounds — “I was kind of on the girthier side.” Now Madubuike’s around 295 pounds, as light as he’s been in years. He has not played like he’s lost anything. In a one-on-one pass-rush drill early in camp, Madubuike won three straight repetitions and made each look easy, a flash of the form that led to 13 sacks over his final two college seasons. As a run defender, he’s “one of the harder people I’ve ever had to move on defense, honestly,” center Bradley Bozeman said. “If you were going to draw up who you wanted in a three-technique, that’s how you’d draw them up,” said defensive end Derek Wolfe, referring to a lineman who aligns over a guard’s outside shoulder. “His explosiveness, his strength, his bend — he’s the full package, man. He’s going to be — once he really understands how good he is and he really grasps that — he’s going to be dangerous, and he’s a smart kid, too, so he’ll pick it up quick.” So how did Madubuike, Pro Football Focus’ highest-rated rookie defensive tackle in 2020, last until the third round of the draft, No. 71 overall? As a prospect, there were concerns about his size — he has small hands and average-size arms for a 6-foot-3 lineman — and his power. Other scouting reports cited “off-the-field issues” and “character concerns,” though he never landed in the police blotter at Texas A&M. Madubuike heard the naysaying during the predraft process. He just doesn’t know who the naysayers were. Maybe it was team officials trying to drive him down other teams’ draft boards, he speculated. Maybe it was because he had two defensive coordinators and two positional coaches in his three years in College Station. “People didn’t really get to know who I really was,” he said. “I was also the guy who, for the first two years of college, I didn’t really play nothing. I didn’t really play at all. I had to make a name for myself quickly. It came with a sense of urgency and attitude at a different grit to play the game. But maybe it rubbed coaches the wrong way in college. But that’s OK, you know. I’m here where I am now, and I’m ready to just look forward in peace and get better.” In Baltimore, he’s on a Ravens team “that accepts me, that loves me for who I am.” Veteran linemen Derek Wolfe, Brandon Williams, Justin Ellis and Campbell have taken Madubuike under their wing, sharing their combined decades of wisdom in meetings and at practice. The son of a father who sprinted competitively in Nigeria (“This dude was like a stick”) and a stout, strong mother (“I get my size from my mom”), Madubuike is figuring out just who he is, just what he can be. He inherited a drop-top convertible from his dad but recently purchased a Chevy Silverado 1500 truck that’s more his style. He’s earned a couple of nicknames from teammates — “Madabeeks,” “Madabeast” — but goes by “Mad-Man” on Instagram. He believes that, even in a pass-first league, linemen have to “earn the right to rush the passer.” That last credo he took from Campbell, whose wisdom Madubuike has embraced. The veteran’s best lesson has been on the value of sacrifice: The energy Madubuike could put into playing video games or partying would be more fulfilling if it’s poured into his career. There’s nothing magical about self-improvement. “You wake up every day, having a plan: ‘This is when, every day on Monday in practice, I’m going to learn how to rake down. I’m going to learn how to swim better. I’m going to learn how to take off better,’” he said. “And you just do that every single day. You have no other option but to get better.”

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‘It’s The End Of The Road’: Getting Released By The Red Sox Sent Ravens LS Nick Moore Down A Different, Fulfilling Path THE ATHLETIC | OCT. 6, 2021 | JEFF ZREBIEC The scene played out in Nick Moore’s mind countless times. He had watched Boston Red Sox minor league teammates go through it and he was resigned to the fact that he was probably next. When he did the math in his head, when he started placing players to minor league affiliates, Moore couldn’t find a spot for himself, no matter how hard he tried. Organizational releases were almost always done on Fridays toward the end of minor league spring training. At least, that’s how the Red Sox operated. Players emerged from an outdoor area at Boston’s training facility in Fort Myers, Fla., passed the big-league setup in the front and headed toward the minor league headquarters in the back. A glass-enclosed weight room quickly came into view. That’s where a front office member, manager or coach, who typically had a connection to the player about to be released, would be waiting with the news. Moore, finishing his fourth spring training and yet to exceed Single-A, was ready for that walk, mentally prepared for a resolution. He even had a strong hunch about who would be waiting for him in that weight room. Joe Oliver managed him the previous season at short-season Single-A Lowell and he told Moore in 2014 to soak up the experience because it very well could be his last year. Moore appreciated Oliver’s honesty and figured he was the most likely candidate to bring about the finality of it all. It was a Friday in early April 2015. Opening-day minor league rosters needed to be set. Moore’s vision for how it would all happen was flawless right up to the point of him looking through the glass windows and seeing Oliver, a serious look on the former big league catcher’s face. “It was almost like a sigh of relief,” Moore said of his Red Sox release. “I was sad, but I got upset because the coaches were the ones that were like, ‘I hate to see you go.’ They were grown men in their 50s, who had played in the big leagues and they were crying. They said nothing but good things. It was difficult, but I knew it happened for a reason. “I didn’t want to play baseball anymore. I knew I was done.” An NFL long snapper is the epitome of a thankless job. Good snaps aren’t celebrated. They are expected and mostly taken for granted. Bad snaps can be crushing. Even some ardent NFL fans may not know their favorite team’s long snapper until he, in fact, messes up. After a minor league baseball career where he struggled with the psychological toll of mounting strikeouts and errors and persistent slumps, Moore has embraced the reality of his role with the Ravens. If you think succeeding longtime Raven Morgan Cox and throwing snaps back for the league’s most accurate kicker and the franchise’s best-ever punter carries a lot of pressure, it pales in comparison to saying goodbye to one sport and starting over in another. “I got my first professional contract 10 years ago,” Moore said following Ravens’ practice last month. “This was the first time I made the big leagues.” There might not be another Raven who had a more circuitous route in getting there. Moore played four years of professional baseball. He walked onto the University of Georgia football team and played two positions before he couldn’t bear to be on the sideline any longer and asked if he could long snap. He was cut by the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted free agent and failed to land a job after workouts with other NFL teams so he went to work as a financial accountant. That wasn’t for him and the XFL threw him a lifeline. Now, he’s a vital part of one of the NFL’s most prolific kicking batteries. When Justin Tucker booted his record-breaking 66-yard field goal to beat the Detroit Lions, the whole operation was started by a perfect snap from Moore who was recognized with a game ball. “I knew if he ever got his opportunity, he wasn’t above anything. He’ll do whatever it takes to be successful,” said Los Angeles Dodgers star outfielder Mookie Betts, one of Moore’s good friends since they were minor league teammates and roommates in the Boston organization. “That’s kind of how he got into long snapping.” Moore, 28, speaks with a great deal of confidence and self-assuredness. He has no problem acknowledging that this wasn’t the plan, that he absolutely didn’t expect to be here. Yet, he’s having a blast now that he is. “I never thought I would play in the NFL,” he said. “I was always more attracted to baseball. It’s not a very fun game to watch, but I love the game. That was kind of the dream as a little kid, but things don’t always go the way you want them to go.” Sports, though, were omnipresent for Moore. His father, Dale, played football and baseball through college. Dale has coached football at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Ga., for 40 yards and baseball for 30 years. In a unique Baltimore connection, Dale coached All-Star outfielder Cedric Mullins who recently became the first Oriole in franchise history to have 30 homers and 30 steals in the same season. Nick’s first introduction to long snapping came when he and his two brothers used to attend Dale’s football practices and fooled around off to the side of the field hurling the ball back through their legs. Dale’s brother long snapped at Mississippi State and helped refine their techniques. “They knew how valuable long snappers are at the high school level,” Dale said. “They are hard to find.” Moore played primarily safety at Brookwood, but he also played wide receiver/tight end and snapped. When the team’s punter got hurt during the team’s state championship run, Moore started punting, too. He received recruiting interest from several schools, including the Air Force Academy. However, Moore let everybody know that he believed his future was in baseball.

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He was a big and athletic corner infielder with some pop as a switch hitter. He committed to play at Kennesaw State in Georgia, but that became an afterthought when the Red Sox took him in the 30th round of the 2011 MLB Draft, paid him a significant bonus and agreed to take care of his schooling costs down the road. “There was never a doubt in my mind. If I got an opportunity to play professional baseball, I never could have turned it down,” Moore said. “It was kind of surreal. I was 18 years old and given a lot of money. I went from living with my parents, playing at my high school where my dad has been the coach forever to living in Fort Myers by myself in a hotel with guys from all over the world. It was definitely a crazy experience, but it was one of the best times of my life.” The Red Sox’s storied 2011 draft class included Betts, a league MVP; Jackie Bradley Jr., a Gold Glove winner and playoff hero; Matt Barnes, an All-Star closer; and other future big leaguers, including Travis Shaw, Blake Swihart, Henry Owens and Noé Ramirez. Moore was roommates at different points with Betts, Bradley and Barnes and grew particularly close with Betts. However, as several members of his draft class were on the fast track to the big leagues, and would ultimately become key contributors to a Red Sox team that won the World Series in 2018, Moore struggled to gain his footing in professional baseball. “He was a good player, but he fell behind a little bit,” Betts said. “Defensively, he was a little bit behind and hitting, he was a little bit behind. But he had a lot of power and a lot of promise. It just took him a little longer to put it together.” Moore hit .251 with three homers and 24 RBIs for the Red Sox’s Gulf Coast team in 2012. But in his jump to Single-A the following season, he hit just .176 with 127 strikeouts in 302 plate appearances. “When he was playing and got into a little bit of a slump, he’d kind of press too hard. That made it worse,” Dale Moore said. “That’s a lot of pressure. If you’re in the minor leagues, unless you’re a really early-round draft choice, you’re only going to get so many opportunities, especially in an organization like the Red Sox, which has such great talent at every level.” The struggles consumed Moore. The hardest part was with a game every day, there were very few opportunities to take a breather and work on things. The Red Sox bringing in more prospects every year only added to the pressure. Still, Moore kept working. “Baseball is as big of a game of failure as there is,” said David Howard, a former Red Sox minor league infield instructor who grew close to Moore. “You have to learn from it and keep the valleys shallower and the peaks higher, and just keep grinding. When you leave the ballpark, leave it with your chin up and your chest out. I can’t ever remember Nick not being a good teammate, not being in an upbeat mood. There’s guys who are fake. You see genuine people and then you see ones that fake their way through it. Nick was never fake in anything he did. If you watched him go about his business, he was open to position changes and swing changes. He was never a prima donna, never complained. He just put his nose down and worked.” Moore, though, saw the writing on the wall a few months into the 2014 season. The Red Sox used a second-round pick on highly-touted college first baseman Sam Travis. Moore, who was in the middle of a season where he’d hit .264 with four homers and 21 RBIs in 37 games for Class-A Lowell, knew he already had gotten his chance and he had batted .211 over four minor league seasons. Travis deserved to get his. “That was his only thing: He never was really able to put his tools on display,” Betts said. “You start getting guys drafted and everybody is constantly coming after your spot. By the time he was getting a little better, the guys behind him were going by him. It obviously kind of sucks, but that’s just the game. It is what it is.” The phone call was difficult, even though both men almost certainly realized it was inevitable. Moore knew how much it meant to his father that he was pursuing his big-league baseball dreams. “I’m coming home,” Moore told Dale. “It’s the end of the road.” As Moore said his goodbyes to his former coaches and managers, several of them offered to make calls around the league to help him find an opportunity elsewhere. However, Moore’s mind was all but made up. This chapter of his life was over. “When you’re a field coordinator for 10 years, there’s a lot of really good kids that you release and some of them, they couldn’t be happier. It’s just a relief that they are done with it. And you know those guys are going to be fine,” Howard said. “The guys that had the talent and didn’t put in the work, those are the ones you worry about. I’d always say, ‘Don’t be the guy sitting at the end of the bar complaining that the Red Sox screwed you.’ Nick was never that guy.” Howard approached an emotional Moore after Oliver informed him of his release and told him that he’d be successful in whatever he chose to do. Howard’s voice still cracks as he remembers the conversation and a “thank you” text Moore sent him years later. The news left an impact on Betts, too. He knew how smart Moore was and how hard he worked. He had no doubt that Moore would find his way. However, he lamented the fact that he wouldn’t see or talk as often to a guy who was like a “brother of mine.” Betts, though, knew how much Moore liked football. They had spent many late nights and long bus rides talking about it. Moore had always said that if he was still young enough when his baseball career ended, he wanted to give football a try. He was 22 when he was released by the Red Sox, so there was still time. Moore’s father and his high school coaches quickly got the word out to their connections that he was looking for a shot with a Division I football program. Before he was even halfway through the 10-hour ride from southwest Florida to his home in the Atlanta area, Moore had already heard from Alabama coach Nick Saban, Georgia coach Mark Richt and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen.

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Moore got home late on a Friday. He visited Georgia Tech the following Monday, Georgia on Tuesday, Alabama on Wednesday and Mississippi State on Thursday. The following week, he signed on with Georgia, who gave him a preferred walk-on spot as an inside linebacker. After four years of being away, Moore wanted to stay close to home. “I love people who persevere, I love people who don’t quit,” Howard said. “I couldn’t be prouder of anybody for doing what he did. It’s hard when you are 22, 23 years old going back to college. You’re putting a lot out there. He could have gone in a lot of different directions, but he went with the one he believed in.” It was only about two weeks into fall camp in Athens when Moore realized he was going to have to make another transition. All he needed to do was take one look at incoming freshman linebacker Roquan Smith, a future NFL top-10 pick, to realize a position change was probably in order. “He was a little bit better than me,” Moore said with a laugh. “I have pretty good athleticism, but I’m just not a very fast guy. Linebacker was not in the cards.” Bulldogs defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt suggested that Moore move to fullback and he played sparingly on offense for two years. The Bulldogs didn’t use a fullback much. They leaned on a two-back system and those two backs were future NFL draft picks Nick Chubb and Sony Michel. Moore dabbled in long snapping his first couple of seasons at Georgia. Before his final year in 2018, he was given a choice by Georgia coach Kirby Smart: continue to play some fullback and do some long snapping or become the full-time long snapper. “That was a pretty easy decision for me,” Moore said. “I wanted to play. I never liked riding the bench.” Moore first pondered signing with the Ravens as a college free agent following the 2019 draft. Randy Brown, who worked with Baltimore’s specialists, put Moore through a workout in Athens and the Ravens had interest. Moore, however, decided to sign with the Saints, because he didn’t like his chances as an undrafted rookie of beating out the Ravens’ Cox, a Pro Bowl long snapper. Moore was let go by the Saints before the end of the preseason, spurring more soul searching. A few workouts that didn’t result in contract offers added to the uncertainty. Wanting to make some money, Moore took a financial accounting job for an Atlanta-based company. He knew after one day that it wasn’t for him although he actually lasted 43 days on the job. “He just didn’t like that office (work),” Dale said. “They say it’s 9 to 5 and it’s actually 9 to whenever. He wasn’t cut out for that.” Moore’s agent notified him that he had signed him up for the XFL draft as the league was planning a reboot. Moore was initially nonplussed. He had done the minor league thing in baseball. He was not prepared to go through it again in football. It, however, beat an office job. “I made more money there than I did working, so it was kind of a no-brainer,” Moore said. Drafted by the Tampa Bay Vipers, Moore had an opportunity to learn from former NFL specialists Andrew Franks and Jake Schum and be coached by veteran NFL special teams coach Frank Gansz Jr. The league folded after five weeks of play, but the experience got Moore back on the NFL’s radar. The Ravens’ Brown again expressed interest and Moore became just the second XFL player to sign with an NFL team, when he inked a reserve/future contract with Baltimore in March 2020. The Ravens had an established kicking battery in Tucker, punter Sam Koch and Cox. The three of them had been together since the Ravens’ Super Bowl season in 2012 and Koch and Cox preceded that year. Their bond even inspired the trio to be nicknamed, “The Wolfpack.” Moore infiltrated the group last season, spending the year on the Ravens’ practice squad and essentially served a one-year apprenticeship under Cox, a four-time Pro Bowl selection. “Morg taught me well. He’s the best teacher out there,” Moore said. “I was able to kind of experience how they do everything for a whole season. I got to see them day-in and day-out and just kind of learned the expectations and how things are going to be. Morg prepared me for this. I give a lot of credit to him. He definitely helped me and made me who I am today as far as a long snapper goes.” Wanting to get younger and perhaps cheaper in the long snapper role, the Ravens opted not to extend a free-agent offer to Cox this past offseason. He eventually signed with the Tennessee Titans and Moore immediately became his successor in Baltimore. The Ravens showed their confidence in Moore by not even bringing in training camp competition for the long snapper role. Still, Moore took nothing for granted. It wasn’t until the Ravens’ 53-man roster was set on Aug. 31 before Moore allowed himself a subdued celebration. He called home to share the news with his parents. The tone of the call was starkly different than the one he made to his dad more than five years earlier. That day, one dream died, yet Moore never would have predicted what was born. “I didn’t know that it would have led to the NFL, but baseball taught me how to handle adversity and things like that,” Moore said. “It helped put me in the spot where I am today.”

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Odafe Oweh: Laser-Focused On NFL Success BALTIMORERAVENS.COM | AUG. 5, 2021 | CLIFF BROWN Odafe Oweh sketches portraits during his spare time. He draws with meticulous detail, patiently working to create something special. "I don't sell my sketches," Oweh said. "I'm a visual person. If I see something that looks cool or that I admire, I just want to sketch it. It relaxes me. It brings out my creative side." There are similarities between Oweh the artist and Oweh the athlete. Whether using a pencil or wearing pads, Oweh has a clear vision. He is never satisfied until the picture is complete. A first-round draft pick with enormous athletic talent, Oweh is beginning his NFL career with a blank canvas. He is passionate about creating another work of art, driven to become a dominant NFL outside linebacker though he didn't start playing organized football until the 11th grade. Oweh plans to chase his dreams with an overachieving work ethic instilled by his family. His father, Henry, and mother, Tania, who own a medical equipment business, grew up in Nigeria before moving to New Jersey to chase the quintessential American dream. Odafe, who was born in Hackensack, N.J, has an older sister and two younger brothers, and they were all raised to be confident, determined to succeed no matter what stood in their way. Whatever the Ravens expect from Oweh, his personal expectations are higher. Oweh's chiseled 6-foot-5, 251-pound frame screams that he's athletic when he walks down the street. But the mental side of football often separates potential from results. Because of his late start in organized football, it may be fair to speculate on what kind of impact he will make as a rookie and beyond. But never question his desire. He believes both his mind and body have been built for success. "From a young age, I always wanted to be the best at whatever I did," Oweh said. "I don't know if it was my father drilling that into me. But he'd call me a lion. To this day, I hate being second, I hate being inadequate. I hate losing. I hate that more than I love winning. Even when I win, I feel like there's things I could've done to be more dominant." Claiming His Name Some insight into Oweh's fierce pride was revealed on draft night when he announced to the world that he wanted to be called by Odafe, using the Nigerian first name given to him at birth. Oweh was known as Jayson at Penn State and through most of his adolescence, though his family called him Odafe. It wasn't always easy for Oweh to fit in growing up in Howell, N.J., a town in central New Jersey which wasn't ethnically diverse and where some had trouble relating to his Nigerian heritage. "Being the only tall, big black African kid, it was tough," Oweh said. "You have to maneuver, make sure you keep your identity but try to make friends. It was tough. I was determined to make something of myself. People were always looking at me like I was different. I didn't see anyone else that looked like me, anyone who talked like me, anyone who had a name like me. So, I just decided to embrace being different." Many friends and classmates had trouble pronouncing Odafe (uh-DAH-fay), So for years, he told people to call him Jayson, largely because he got tired of hearing his name mispronounced, or in some cases mocked. However, Oweh wouldn't allow people to play with his name as he entered the NFL. Draft night was a surreal experience for Oweh, surrounded by family and friends, engulfed by love and congratulatory hugs. But when he saw the name Jayson Oweh on the television screen after the Ravens drafted him, something powerful came over him. He hadn't planned to talk about his Nigerian name. His announcement that he no longer wanted to be called Jayson was not premeditated. But in that moment, Oweh realized his future should belong to Odafe Oweh. He claimed the name that was already his. "People think I was saying, 'When I get drafted, I'm going to make people call me Odafe,'" Oweh said. "It wasn't like that. I was just caught up in so much emotion. I was surrounded by my family. People were calling me Odafe. All this time, people had been calling me Jayson...." "...But at that moment I was totally in my culture. I just wanted to be me, be who I am, embrace my Nigerian culture. It just came out." Oweh's decision about his name was emotional for his family. In Nigerian culture, names often carry a message, and Odafe means "A wealthy individual." If Oweh realizes his potential to have a long and successful NFL career, finances should not be a problem. But for Oweh and his family, there is deeper meaning to his name. "In the Nigerian culture, wealth is not just monetary," Tania said. "Wealth is human support, it's wellness, it's more of a holistic view to wealth." Tania has watched with pride as her son has grown from adolescence into adulthood, embracing his Nigerian heritage and gaining confidence in his identity. She remembers arriving on campus at Penn State looking for Oweh one day when he was in college. She spotted him walking with a group of friends that included teammate Micah Parsons, the No. 12-overall pick in this year's draft by the Dallas Cowboys. Oweh didn't see his mother approaching from behind, so she yelled out his name, "Odafe." Everyone in the group turned around with strange looks on their faces. Tania quickly realized his teammates had never heard their friend "Jayson" called Odafe before. "Micah Parsons was like, 'Who's Odafe?,'" Tania recalled. "Then Micah was like, 'I love that name.'

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"At some point, Odafe decided to embrace all of who he is. He hasn't discussed it much with us, but I sense a coming of age with him. To me, it's significant what he did regarding his name, because I'm a very spiritual person. When God wants to do something in a person's life, you can see places in the Bible where he'll change a person's name. I think it's symbolic. I mean, he didn't even wait to play one game in the NFL before he wanted to be called a different name? I think it's a statement. He may not totally understand it now, but he will later." There was another emotional moment for Tania when Oweh saw his No. 99 Ravens jersey for the first time, hanging in the locker room at the Under Armour Performance Center. Penn State does not put its players' names on the back of jerseys, so this was the first time Tania had ever seen Oweh on the back of her son's football jersey. Oweh called his mother immediately and showed her the jersey over his cellphone. It was a moment they will remember. "She was just the first person I decided to call," Oweh said. "Her reaction made it even more special for me." Tania had not thought about Oweh having the name on the back of his jersey until she saw it. But she understands her priceless reaction. "It was a combination of many things," Tania said. "I thought about all the work he's put in, yet it some ways, it seems like it's happened so fast. Odafe didn't cut corners, but we know he's fortunate. There are people who have played sports their whole lives, dedicated their heart and soul, who haven't made it to the top. He's only been playing football for a short time, yet he's been able to reach this level." The Rapid Rise To describe Oweh's development in football as meteoric is not an overstatement. Six years ago, he was not even playing organized football. Basketball was his love growing up, and for most of his youth, his athletic focus was on getting a scholarship to college and making it to the NBA. He played on elite AAU teams in New Jersey and never imagined football might be in his future until he transferred from Rutgers Prep to Blair Academy in the 11th grade. Rutgers Prep didn't have a football team, but Blair did. For Jim Saylor, the former head football coach at Blair, Oweh's arrival at the school was like someone giving him a winning lottery ticket. "I was told there was a kid in the office who was coming in who had some size to him, who I might want to talk to about playing football," Saylor said. "I walked in and introduced myself. When he stood up, I was like, 'Oh my God.' He's 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, maybe 230 pounds at the time. When I asked if he had ever played football before, his family all laughed at me. I said, 'Maybe you should give it a shot.'" Oweh wasn't convinced. Saylor kept calling, but Oweh kept ghosting the football coach, an avoidance dance that went on for several weeks. Someone with Oweh's pride doesn't change his goals easily. If he was going to play football, he was going to be all-in, and that took some soul-searching. "I had put 16, 17 years of my life into basketball, and now people were telling me I should focus on something new?" Oweh said. "As a 16-year old, that's disappointing. I had to switch my body, my mentality. I had doubt I was making the right decision. "But coach Saylor kept calling and calling. Finally, I answered the phone and we had a heart to heart. He told me it was okay if I played basketball, he wouldn't step on my toes with that. But he really thought I should give football a try. He thought I might be able to be special. I trusted him, and he took me under his wing. He made me look inside myself. I owe a lot to him. He gave me confidence when I didn't believe that I could make that jump and be dominant." Oweh's introduction to football was not without painful moments. In his first high school game, the inexperienced Oweh was blindsided on kickoff coverage and it felt like he was knocked into next week. It was feared Oweh had suffered broken ribs during the violent collision. Saylor feared Oweh might quit football after one game and return to basketball. "He ran down on that kickoff and got demolished," Saylor said. "I figured I see him Monday and he'd say, 'Coach, here's my gear. I tried it.' But he came back and kept getting better." By the time Oweh was a senior, he was being heavily recruited and chose Penn State. He became a starter as a junior and playing a full 11-game schedule for the Nittany Lions in 2019, made 21 tackles, five sacks and five tackles for loss. In the 2020 season that was interrupted by COVID-19, Oweh had 38 tackles in just seven games and was a disruptive force as both a run defender and pass rusher. His quickness off the snap was lethal, he was often double-teamed, and though opponents often ran away from him, Oweh displayed the quickness to chase down ball carries from side-to-side. Yet, Oweh did not have a sack last season, which was the major knock on him before the draft, a criticism that fuels him as he embarks on his rookie season. The Prolific Pro Day Oweh's freakish athletic ability was memorably displayed during his Pro Day performance in March prior to the draft. Ravens Outside Linebackers Coach Drew Wilkins called it the best pre-draft workout he had ever seen. Listed at 6-foot-5, 251 pounds, Oweh ran an unofficial 4.39 in the 40-yard dash, matching what Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman ran at his Pro Day. Consider that Oweh outweighs Bateman by about 70 pounds. Oweh's 39 ½-inch vertical leap was in the 96th percentile among edge rushers, and his 134-inch broad jump would have tied him for fifth best among all athletes at the 2020 NFL combine. But nobody at Penn State was surprised to see Oweh rise to the occasion. Coaches at Penn State never had to push Oweh to work harder, to focus more, to get in better condition. He was self-motivated, someone who acted older than his age. A former linebacker with the New York Jets, Deion Barnes is now on Penn State's coaching staff and shares a close relationship with Oweh. He has the kind of approach that Barnes believes will take Oweh far.

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"He listens to everything you say, and it doesn't take long for it to show up on the field," Barnes said. "He knew I played in the NFL and whatever knowledge I could give him, he wanted to absorb." Oweh and Parsons pushed each other prior to the draft to get in the best shape of their lives. They are close friends, yet they are competitive. That's a constant theme with Oweh. Don't hang out with him unless you're ready to compete. Order a milkshake with him, and he may race to see who can drink it the fastest. "Me and Micah's relationship has always been like that," Oweh said. "We love each other, but we really grew closer when we saw that we were athletically gifted. He wasn't going to get better going against just anybody. I wasn't going to get better by going up against just anybody. We'd get better by going against each other. "We competed so hard that we exceeded what we started out to do. We were both trying to get to the same place, getting to the Pro Day, getting the NFL's attention. In the weight room, who can do the most reps, who could run the fastest. Whoever lost would get mad. That helped me get ready for the draft, and what we're about to face in the NFL." Primed For His Rookie Test Oweh and fifth-round pick Daelin Hayes have already bonded, two rookie outside linebackers helping each other adjust to the NFL. Oweh calls Hayes "Twin," not only because they play outside linebacker, but because Wilkins often talks to them simultaneously during meetings and practices. "Whenever Coach Drew talks to us, it's like – 'Odafe-Daelin, Odafe-Daelin,'" Oweh said. "I've learned that there isn't a second that you're on the field where you're not running. Run to the ball, chase somebody to the end zone. It's the nature of competing like you're competing in a game. "If you practice like that, there shouldn't be any falloff in the game. We do everything at 100 miles per hour. In rookie camp, OTAs, I saw progression. It's a pride thing. I'm going against the best players I've ever seen, the best offensive linemen I've ever seen. But I just love the challenge. I just love this chance to get better." Doubters fuel Oweh, but he doesn't need outside motivation to drive him. He has soaked up the individual coaching he has received from Wilkins and the entire staff during rookie camp, OTAs and training camp. Defensive Coordinator Wink Martindale loves having versatile players like Oweh who can morph into a pass rusher on one play, a run defender on the next play, set the edge or even drop into pass coverage. Losing Matthew Judon and Yannick Ngakoue in free agency drastically changed the dynamic of the outside linebacker room, but the Ravens' acquisition of Justin Houston gives them a proven pass rusher to join Oweh, Tyus Bowser, Pernell McPhee, Jaylon Ferguson and Hayes in a deep outside linebacker rotation. Oweh is looking forward to Houston's arrival and knows he's another player who can help him and the Ravens get better. "We got better – that's how I can take it," Oweh said. "It's an opportunity for me to learn from a guy that has [97.5] sacks; that's always great. I'm learning from Calais [Campbell] every day, and now you just added another guy that has a history of just getting to the quarterback. I can use help, every angle I can get. We just added another nice outside linebacker, so I just see it as competition, as well, but we got better. So, I'm good." Oweh seems to be feeding off the intensity of training camp, and there have been times when he has whizzed past defensive tackles like a blur into the backfield. He's working on developing a signature spin move in practice that has already been effective. "I have a lot of twitch, so I can do that pretty fast," Oweh said. "So, that's something that I'm going to try to keep on perfecting and getting better at." Ready For the Present and Future Saylor said that Oweh has talked about starting a youth football camp in Nigeria, where American football continues to grow in popularity. Oweh is that type of person, often thinking about giving back to others. Saylor doesn't expect Oweh to ever change much, because his family background is so solid. "I don't think success is going to change the person he is," Saylor said. "He's so new to football and he's still learning the game. I could see him being a pro-Bowler in four years, that's the kind of talent we're talking about. He's going to have some great coaches in Baltimore. Their system seems like it's a perfect fit for him, and I know how hard he's going to work." Harbaugh has only coached Oweh for a few months but he has been impressed by his all-business demeanor. Oweh loves football, but it's not just a game to him. After the Ravens were just four days into training camp, Harbaugh said he loved the rookie's mature approach. "It'll be interesting to see over the long haul what kind of career he has," Harbaugh said. "I think you try to form a first impression in terms of how does his skillset translate for any player – how does it translate from college to the NFL. The way he moves, I think, has translated very well in the first four days. So, I'm very excited about that, but also the way he works. He's a very serious guy, every day. He's into the playbook and he works really hard at it." When Oweh hears people call him raw, or a project, or having a high ceiling, he takes it as a compliment. But it's also a challenge. Will he realize the potential the Ravens see in him? How quickly and how completely will he harness his talent? Those are questions Oweh is determined to answer, and he wants to make an impact as quickly as possible. When Oweh entered the NFL, he wanted people to know his name. When he's done playing, he wants people to remember it. "I hate when people think that because I'm new to football, I'm not true to it," Oweh said. "I'm true. I'm as dedicated to this as people who've been doing it their whole lives. Football is now my craft."

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Patrick Queen Welcomes Position Switch, Just Wants To Improve BALTIMORERAVENS.COM | OCT. 26, 2021 | RYAN MINK Patrick Queen isn't oblivious. He's not burying his head in the sand. The Ravens' second-year linebacker knows he needs to play better not because of what he sees from the social media critics, but because he understands what he's capable of and he sees his mistakes when he flips on the film. Queen had a strong rookie season that earned him consideration for the Defensive Rookie of the Year award. With a full offseason of work, there were high hopes for a Year 2 breakout. That hasn't materialized yet, as Queen got off to a tough start this season. He's missed too many tackles and was trying to do too much. "Still need room to improve. Everybody knows that. It's obvious," Queen said Tuesday. "It's just a level of being consistent, being dominant. Just going out there and play football like I know I could play, like they know I could play. That's all it is, and that's all it's going to be. Just got to get better." The Ravens took action by shifting Queen from the MIKE linebacker spot responsible for a lot of the on-field communication and playing nearly every snap to WILL linebacker, which comes with less mental responsibility and more freedom to run around and make plays. With Josh Bynes now as the MIKE linebacker, it also means less snaps for Queen. He went from playing 94% of the defensive snaps over the first four games to 43% of the snaps Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. Last year, Queen was named the AFC's Defensive Player of the Week after playing the Bengals at M&T Bank Stadium in Week 5. He blasted former LSU college teammate Joe Burrow for a sack/forced fumble and returned another fumble for a touchdown. It's a tough transition for the 2020 first-round pick to make, but it's one he's handling with grace and approaching with optimism. "It's what I used to play at LSU, so I kind of had a feel to it," Queen said. "And just being alongside somebody that's been in the league a long time, it helps me a little bit. It's a confidence thing. I just got to go out there and play the game that I know I can play at a high level." According to Pro Football Focus, Queen's 10 missed tackles this year are tied for the seventh-most in the league. Queen has shown his ferocity as a hitter, but it's the more routine tackles that he needs to make more consistently. "Thinking too much, overthinking," Queen said. "It's just technique – just go in there, break down, tackle, move your feet, wrap up. It's a lot of times that I just threw my shoulder in there. I wish I could take those plays back and just redo them, re-live them, and just execute on that part. It would've saved us a lot of yards, a lot of points. But the only thing I can do now is just improve on that, get better at that, and just try to help my team win more games." Inside Linebackers Coach Rob Ryan said moving Queen to WILL/DIME is meant to slow the game down for him and utilize his speed. Is also allows Bynes, an 11-year veteran with tons of experience and knowledge, to take over the responsibilities of getting the Ravens' defensive front aligned correctly pre-snap. "You can see it's already slowing down the last two weeks. I think he's played well the last couple of weeks," Ryan said. "Again, he does have all the talent in the world. So, as soon as the game can slow down for him, the better he's going to get. We're excited about that." Queen has gotten his best PFF grades of the season the past two games. He was the Ravens' third-highest graded player on defense against the Bengals, which included a tackle for loss on running back Joe Mixon when Queen came flying through a gap. Ryan also said Queen's pass coverage is "much better," which was a main focus entering the season. Whether Queen remains at WILL linebacker for the long-term remains to be seen. Ryan said whenever players land with a team, they have to "find their best spots." "This young guy is going to have a big career in front of him," Ryan said. "So, I know everybody wants to see him be Ray Lewis right away, but I mean, Ray Lewis wasn't Ray Lewis when he first got here. Things take time, and you're going to see this guy get better each week. The fundamental parts of it, those are things that he has to do better." Queen entered the NFL with high expectations, but he's still just 22 years old and has limited experience. He wasn't a starter until his final year at LSU. The Ravens knew when they drafted Queen that it might take some time to mold his special traits into a consistently dominant football player. Will that ultimately be at MIKE linebacker or WILL? "Wherever I perform at better is where I'm going to play," Queen said. "I'm going to leave that to the coaches. I'm just out there to perform, do my best, and whatever they feel like is the best at the end of the day. That's what I'm going to do."

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How Ravens' Patrick Ricard Morphed From UDFA To Pro Bowler 'Pancake Pat' ESPN | MAY 12, 2021 | JAMISON HENSLEY Among his tweets about food and Star Wars, Baltimore Ravens fullback Patrick Ricard delivered this advice on the first day of this year’s draft: "Remember, it’s not where/when/if you’re drafted, it’s all about what you do when you get there #undrafted” Ricard’s story serves as much as a lesson as an inspiration to the hundreds of undrafted rookies who take the field this month for their first NFL practices. He went from being an undrafted defensive lineman to the muscle of the most dominant running game in NFL history because he was going to say "yes" to every coach in order to get noticed. He went from having two scouts at his pro day in Maine to reaching two Pro Bowls because he was going to do whatever it took to make the team, even if it meant a what-are-you-thinking position change. His aspirations of becoming the next J.J. Watt had to get reluctantly brushed aside. These days, the 6-foot-3, 311-pound Ricard, 26, is something this league has never seen before; pro football’s most ferocious unicorn ever. Lamar Jackson watched Ricard knock so many defenders on their backs that he nicknamed him “Pancake Pat.” Tyreek Hill, one of the fastest players in the league, sent out a tweet that complimented Ricard on his agility after watching him catch passes in Baltimore’s playoff win at Tennessee. “Throughout his life, he has shown that if you give him a chance, he’s going to thrive,” said Christian Ricard, Patrick’s older brother. Patrick Ricard’s career pivoted on one snap at a spring workout four years ago. Ricard was a rookie who was headed to get ready for practice when he was stopped in the hallway by Greg Roman, who was the tight ends coach at the time and is now the Ravens' offensive coordinator. “We want to give you a rep at fullback” were among the first words Roman ever spoke to Ricard. Roman noticed Ricard’s low center of gravity when he played defense and how he was built like a tank. It was also five years earlier that Roman used defensive lineman Will Tukuafu as a fullback with the 49ers with some success. So, Roman put his latest outside-the-box plan in motion by explaining the play to Ricard -- it’s called "90 Lead" -- a basic but nuanced run. Lining up on offense for the first time since high school, Ricard first put a block on a defensive tackle before climbing through traffic to seal off the middle linebacker. He displayed the right instincts, footwork and physicality. Ricard ran over to coach John Harbaugh and intentionally stood right beside him to watch the next play, eagerly waiting to hear some approval. Harbaugh paused and turned to Ricard, saying, “Looked a natural out there.” After practice, an awestruck Ricard saw his block make the highlights that were shown to the whole team and coaching staff. “I’ll be honest -- I wasn’t good enough that year to make the team just as a defensive lineman,” Ricard said. “I’m just thankful that Baltimore needed a fullback. They had no reason to give me an opportunity at all. I mean, I’m an undrafted guy. I’m just so grateful for it because you never know what could’ve happened to me.” Unbeknownst to Ricard, he was about to put a new spin on old-school football. He is a hitting machine who opens up the edges for Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins, serving as the key cog to the only rushing attack to produce 3,000 yards in consecutive seasons. He has also proved adept at catching passes in the flat, recording the most receptions (21) and receiving yards (104) ever by a 300-pounder, according to ESPN Stats & Information. “How often does a guy come in as a free agent on defense and then becomes a Pro Bowler on offense?,” Roman said. "I mean, come on. Tell me when that’s happened before. I’ll tell you -- it never happens.” 'The adrenalin button' Ricard grew up in Spencer, Massachusetts, a blue-collar town that’s an hour's drive outside of Boston. Like Ricard, many marry their high school sweetheart there and generation after generation never leave. It’s so tight-knit that people knew Ricard and his wife were looking at a house in town before they even stepped foot in it. What no one realized, at least no one outside the Ricard family, was an NFL player stood right in front of them about 20 years ago. When he was younger, Ricard was much different than the OCD-type player that Ravens coaches describe. He decided to quit Pop Warner football after his first season before going back to it a year later. In high school, Ricard would stay up all night playing video games and then fall asleep in the backseat on the drive to summer weight-lifting sessions. The love for contact, though, has always been ingrained in Ricard. Some believe it’s in his blood. His brother Christian, who played college football at Stony Brook, broke three helmets during his junior year of high school.

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“They were hit junkies,” said Andrew Tuccio, the former head coach at David Prouty High School. “It was like they had an adrenalin button in their forehead.” Tuccio still texts Ricard that the origin of his nickname goes back to his pancake drill. With one player holding a blocking shield, a teammate gets a three-step running start toward him. The purpose is to teach drive blocks, and the drill is supposed to end with one player laying on top of the other one. “It used to be hilarious because especially when [Ricard would] get into his junior or senior year, he’d try to get one of the younger kids,” Tuccio said, “That way, he could just pop them and see how far he could get them up in the air.” In what became a recurring theme, Ricard found himself disrespected by a lack of outside interest. His only scholarship offer came in December of his senior year after a meeting at McDonald’s with the University of Maine defensive coordinator. Ricard really wanted to play linebacker as he did in high school, but he was told he wasn’t fast enough. To continue his football career at the next level, he was forced to change positions and ended up as a defensive lineman. “When I first got there, my first day of practice, I didn’t even know how to get into a defensive line stance,” Ricard said. "I had no idea. I’ve never done it, so that’s how much I had to learn and develop.” Staying healthy was the biggest challenge of his college career. There were three straight offseasons of surgeries. It got so bad that after his redshirt freshman year, Ricard was in a wheelchair for a month in the ice and snow of Maine because he tore the lateral meniscus in both his knees. By his final season, Ricard was a force in the Colonial Athletic Association and was named third-team All-America. On his pro day, Ricard looked around and noticed only scouts from the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. He didn’t know it yet, but the Ravens were waiting in the wings. Lured by the Ravens Few teams can rival Baltimore’s success with undrafted free agents, from kicker Justin Tucker to running back Priest Holmes to linebacker Bart Scott. The Ravens typically don’t offer more signing bonuses than other teams, but they make up for it in their effort. Ravens northeast scout Mark Azevedo first identified Ricard as a priority free agent, and Baltimore started the recruiting process. Ricard got calls from the Ravens' defensive coordinator and defensive line coach at the time. For more than a month, he heard from assistant defensive line coach Drew Wilkins at least a couple of times a week. Wilkins once sent a video to Ricard that showed him performing a swim move to get a sack and then spliced in defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan, who had just left Baltimore in free agency, doing the same exact move on the same exact play. Wilkins’ voice-over narration included the message: “You’re such a fit with us. We see you in this role.” “It’s one thing to say it, but the tape did a better job than I ever could of showing those similarities,” said Wilkins, who is now the team’s outside linebackers coach. “It’s just something being conscious of let’s make sure this guy knows we’re going to go over the top for him because we think he’s a special player.” On the final day of the draft, Wilkins stepped out to his downtown balcony and snapped a picture of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He texted it to Ricard, saying, “This is going to be your city.” As the draft wound down, Ricard had come to terms that he would not be among the 253 players drafted in 2017. He got only one phone call from a head coach -- Harbaugh. “Just the amount of interest they showed me, that was really the biggest factor to why I ended up signing with them,” Ricard said. Ricard received a $6,500 signing bonus, and he earned a spot on the team as a rare two-way player. But the NFL's modern-day Bronko Nagurski didn’t have any role by the end of his second season. Caught in a roster numbers crunch -- four tight ends were suiting up -- Ricard was a healthy inactive for the final six games of the 2018 season, including the playoff loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in which Ravens running backs combined for 36 rushing yards. "After that game, I was like, that was a mistake,” Roman said. "We could have used [Ricard] in that game. He could have bludgeoned some of those linebacker types they had out there.” Ricard has played in all but one game since (his only absence was related to COVID-19) and transitioned into a full-time fullback, where he has beaten the odds to become among the league's best. He is one of five undrafted position players to reach a Pro Bowl over the past five years. Helping all over the field Ravens tight end Mark Andrews knows better than anyone how Ricard goes above and beyond.

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A Type 1 diabetic, Andrews started cramping badly at a practice last year because his blood sugar was low. Only Ricard noticed. Without hesitation, Ricard ran into the facility, grabbing some Gatorades from the refrigerator and some fruit snacks from the nutritionist’s office. “That’s the type of person that he is,” Andrews said. “He’s an incredible teammate, incredible friend.” Ricard is full throttle, all the time. His knock-them-off-their-feet blocks are a major reason why Baltimore can "get medieval" -- as Roman likes to put it -- and lead the league in rushing the past two seasons. The Ravens don't keep track of Ricard's pancake blocks, which is just as disappointing as knowing Ricard prefers to make waffles at home. But Jackson has taken notice of Ricard's body blows. "'Pancake Pat' -- he's always getting him a pancake in," Jackson said in December, giving Ricard his most popular moniker. "I feel like he's got one in every game this season. If not one, then two." Ricard doesn’t let up in practice. Teammates have experienced anxiety when he is headed their way. "I actually thought he was coming to block me and my body just froze. Man, this is it,” Ravens middle linebacker Patrick Queen told The Pat McAfee Show. “[But] we whiffed.” Ricard attacked expanded responsibilities in the passing game with the same intensity. He asked Roman to throw balls to him in between periods. It’s been estimated that Ricard caught 100 passes every practice. In the Ravens’ playoff win at Tennessee last season, Ricard showed his versatility with the game tied at 10 at halftime. In the opening drive of the second half, Ricard pulled in three passes from Jackson, including a shoestring grab and an outstretched catch, before providing the lead block on Dobbins’ 4-yard touchdown run. “Ricard should not be able to move and catch like this. He’s so good,” Hill tweeted during the game. Ricard's popularity has grown so much that draft picks have drawn comparisons to him. Michigan tight end/fullback Ben Mason, who just happened to get drafted in the fifth round by Baltimore, was described to be "in the Patrick Ricard mold" because he's a standout blocker who has also played defensive line. Four years ago, Ricard came to Baltimore as a fringe defensive lineman worried about whether he would make the team. Now, he’s “Pancake Pat,” a bulldozing fullback who provides hope for undrafted rookies elsewhere while striking fear in others. "There’s nothing better [than a pancake block] because there’s nothing they can say,” Ricard said. "I have some guys say, ‘Oh, I tripped.’ Yeah, OK. That’s why you’re on your back. It’s the best. You’re physically dominating somebody that’s trying to physically dominate you, and then you put them on their back. You know, everybody saw it, and everybody is going to see it on film. It’s just so degrading as a defensive player. Yeah, it’s a great feeling for sure."

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Brandon Stephens Switched Schools And Positions, All To Get The Opportunity That He Now Has THE ATHLETIC | SEPT. 8, 2021 | JEFF ZREBIEC The seats were mostly empty at M&T Bank Stadium and the activity on the field was limited to a handful of players and coaches milling about and getting pre-game workouts in. About three hours before the Ravens opened the preseason against the New Orleans Saints, rookie defensive back Brandon Stephens walked onto the playing surface and scanned the field. Stephens made his way to the far end zone and took a seat, his back resting against the base of the uprights. There he stayed for a good while, his eyes fixated on his future that lay in front of him, his mind undoubtedly wandering to how improbable it was that he had even gotten to this point. “Every day I come through the parking lot and go through the gates, I always just think about my journey and how blessed I am to be here,” Stephens said last week. “It’s been a long road. Still have work to do. The job is not finished.” They told him that he was making a mistake, that it was much too late in his college career for such a jarring change. Some even questioned his sanity for giving up a scholarship and a spot as a running back for a celebrated Pac-12 program in exchange for what ultimately amounted to a tryout to play cornerback for an American Athletic Conference team. Stephens had no other options, no other programs willing to take a chance on him. There was no tape out there of him playing cornerback, so it required a leap of faith that schools were reluctant to make. They were more than happy to take on the graduate transfer from UCLA if he was willing to play running back. That, Stephens made clear, was not an option. Those days were over. With doors shut elsewhere, Stephens called a staff member at SMU, a school less than 30 minutes away from his Plano, Texas, home and made a proposal. “He called us and said, ‘Hey look, I already graduated from UCLA. I really think I’m a defensive player,’” said SMU coach Sonny Dykes, who was familiar with Stephens from his time as the coach of California. “I knew his size, I knew what kind of athlete he was. I knew there would be a little bit of a transition. But he just said, ‘Let me try out and if I’m good enough, put me on scholarship. If I’m not, tell me and I’ll get out and do something else.’” Dykes said that he realized five minutes into Stephens’ first practice that he was good enough to help the Mustangs at cornerback. Within two weeks, Dykes concluded that Stephens was worthy of a starting job. Before long, the SMU coaching staff believed that the novice cornerback was easily one of the team’s best players. Stephens’ meteoric rise culminated on April 30 when the Ravens selected him with the penultimate pick of the third round. When general manager Eric DeCosta told Stephens that “we’re going to make you a Baltimore Raven,” Stephens wiped tears from his eyes and broke down as family members and friends celebrated in the background. Known for being quiet and composed, Stephens stayed true to the former and struggled to live up to the latter. “That day was really such a blur. Really that moment was such a blur,” Stephens said. “I really couldn’t put into words what I wanted to tell Coach Harbaugh and Eric DeCosta. Just hearing them on the call saying that they were going to pick me, that was everything I dreamed of. I just really had a flashback of everything that me and my family went through the past three or four years. I was trying to listen to what they were saying, but I just felt everything, man.” Stephens is one of seven Ravens in line to play in their first NFL regular-season game Monday night against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. Stephens had a strong training camp and figures to play special teams and potentially be used in three safety looks with Jimmy Smith still dealing with an ankle injury. Two years after he changed schools and positions, Stephens’ bet on himself is paying off like few could have imagined. Ravens wide receiver James Proche jokes that he was the guy who discovered Stephens on the SMU campus. Proche ran into Stephens on the way to a Mustangs football practice early in 2019. Stephens asked him where the football facility was located. Proche didn’t know if he was responding to a recruit, a teammate or a non-football-playing student. “I was thinking he was just some random guy,” Proche said. “The next thing you know, he’s out at practice. A few more days go by, he’s making plays. Then, a few more days go by, he’s starting. I was like, ‘What? What happened?’” It wasn’t the first time that Stephens’ play had spurred curiosity. Clay Mack, a Texas-based athletic skills coach who works with some of the top defensive backs in the NFL, helped tutor Stephens in his transition from running back to cornerback. Mack had Stephens training with many of his established NFL players and it wasn’t long before one of the league’s best safeties took notice. “I remember one training session where Jamal Adams was like, ‘Man, who is this guy?’” Mack said. “I was like, That’s B-Steve.’ And he said, ‘Man, I like him.’ Jamal is kind of finicky with the compliments. He’s one of those types. But he kept looking at B-Steve and he was kind of whispering to me. He was like, ‘I like him, man.’”

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Mack could tell early on that Stephens was capable of making a successful transition. He noticed the ease in which Stephens moved laterally and backward, how balanced he always seemed to be and how strong his base was. Stephens had plenty to learn, but he certainly didn’t look like a guy who had never really played the position before in a game of significance. “I was taken since Day 1, by how determined he was with it,” Mack said. “That’s why the transition with him was so seamless. He bought in. In fact, he doesn’t even really talk about his running back days. It’s not really even a topic of conversation for him. He fully bought into the fact that he’s a DB.” Stephens said that the extent of his defensive back experience came in high school seven-on-seven games over the summer. At Plano Senior High School, Stephens was a running back and a productive one, too. He rushed for nearly 2,657 yards and 36 touchdowns over his final two high school seasons. He was widely considered one of the top-25 prep running backs in the country and he garnered interest from powerhouses like Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio State. Ultimately, Stephens chose to attend UCLA after decommitting from Stanford. Stephens got minimal opportunities as a UCLA freshman, but he finished his sophomore year strong, rushing for 83 yards and a touchdown in a win over Cal that helped the Bruins secure a bowl bid. However, when Chip Kelly arrived at UCLA ahead of the 2018 season, he let Stephens know that he wasn’t prominent in the team’s running back plans. Stephens didn’t get a single carry during his junior season and appeared in just two games on special teams. Even before his drop on the UCLA depth chart, Stephens’ mind was on the other side of the ball. He stayed after practice and worked out with the Bruins’ defensive backs any chance he got. He felt that cornerback was a better fit for his mentality and skill set. He also thought the position represented a better path to the NFL. He actually wanted to change positions following his sophomore season, but that was tough to do with a new coaching staff coming in. The timing, though, was better following his junior season. He played so sparingly for the Bruins that he still had two years of eligibility left. He also was on his way to graduating from UCLA in three years. “Honestly, it kind of just happened,” Stephens said. “There wasn’t anything that made it happen. It was basically just a mutual understanding between me and the coach. I really just loved the (cornerback) position. I just felt that’s where my heart was at, and I wanted to go pursue it. I didn’t have a lot of experience at the position, but I knew with constant training, I could gradually improve my technique and understand the position.” With his mind made up, Stephens went to work. He’d hook up with Bruins’ defensive backs and future pros Darnay Holmes and Adarius Pickett for workouts. Whether the training session was early morning or late at night, Stephens made sure that he was there. When he wasn’t running through drills with Holmes and Pickett, he was bombarding them with questions about different techniques and movements. Stephens heard from doubters, but those around him couldn’t recall a single instance when he questioned his decision. “He wasn’t too caught up in a sea of opinions. Pretty much, when he made that transition, he wasn’t too caught up with his past history,” said Holmes, a cornerback for the New York Giants. “We welcomed him in with open arms and we knew that he could be something. He had God-given talent and it was pretty much his destiny. “He was the prototype of what you want to see in DB — a guy who is aggressive, a guy who has the skills and body structure. Once he got out there, he had the basic instinct that you want as a DB. He had a quick twitch and disciplined eyes. From there, we just started crafting on the fundamentals and the basics and principles of playing DB.” Working with Mack accelerated Stephens’ transition. Mack’s teaching focuses on movement and the kinetics and biomechanics involved. Stephens had muscle memory built up as a running back. Certain types of movements and skills carried over and gave him a good base for making the transition. Stephens is 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, described by Mack as “bottom heavy” because he has really strong legs. But Mack marveled at how Stephens was able to hold his posture, leading to sharp, smooth movement. Other things Stephens had to learn. Mack kept Stephens around NFL players as much as possible. When Stephens wasn’t involved in a drill, he’d be off to the side, going through the rep as if he was. At night, he reviewed tape of his workouts and texted Mack questions and areas he wanted to work on the following day. “Once Brandon saw that his movements still could be efficient no matter what angle he had going on, I think he really became a student of the game with it,” Mack said. “Not only were we working on movement stuff, we also were talking about football IQ stuff. He was just merging the two and seeing, ‘OK, this skill set here fits this particular football situation.’ Once he started kind of putting his faculties together, he just really took off.” Mack would have his NFL clients stop by and they’d notice Stephens on the field and ask what team he plays for. “He’s still in college,” Mack would say. “And they’d be like, ‘Damn, how is he moving like that? Everything he does is just so balanced and crisp.” Stephens just needed to find a college program that believed in him. Multiple top-25 schools made him scholarship offers as a running back. He declined. That, however, became harder and harder to do without an opportunity in his pocket to play cornerback somewhere. SMU was at least intrigued and vetted Stephens like any other recruit or transfer, but they had their share of questions as well. “You start to go through the checks that you go through and there’s some kind of red flag normally. With Brandon, there just wasn’t,” Dykes said. “Certainly, we called around. We wanted to make sure he left UCLA in good standing and everybody there had nothing but great

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things to say about him. We checked with the high school coaches, people he’s worked with, trainers. They all said kind of the same thing. ‘Just a really good kid who felt like he was playing a position that probably he wasn’t best suited for.’ “Typically, when those things fall into your lap, it’s almost too good to be true.” Stephens proved quickly that he could cover and tackle and before long, he was on scholarship. In two seasons with the Mustangs, Stephens started all 23 games, made nearly 100 tackles, broke up a conference-leading 23 passes and had an interception. SMU, a program that had one winning season in six years before Stephens arrived, went a combined 17-6 during that span and Dykes cited Stephens’ ability to solidify the team at the cornerback position and the maturity and professionalism he brought to the program as major reasons why. As April’s draft grew closer. Dykes started getting more and more calls on Stephens. The more NFL teams talked to Stephens, the more they studied his tape and learned his story, the more they liked him. Dykes could relate. Proche was talking to a reporter during training camp when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye that brought him great amusement. He spotted Stephens, hauling several sets of teammate’s shoulder pads back toward the team facility after a long practice. It’s a duty rookies shoulder for their veteran teammates. “You could be around him for 10 minutes and know that he’s a Raven. He’s that type of guy. Everybody here fits that mold pretty much,” Proche said. “He just believes in his work, in God’s plan for him. Me and him always talk about that, trusting your journey, trusting the path God has already laid out for you, following his steps and having the ultimate faith in the work you put in.” Proche describes Stephens as the type of guy you’d want your sister to date. Stephens has two degrees. He once spent a summer interning at a real estate firm. He plays the saxophone and is extremely close with his family. He’s soft spoken and has a strong belief in himself, the latter quality helping him weather the storm on some personal challenges that he’s dealt with along the way and the number of people who questioned the changes he made from a football standpoint. “Nowadays, everybody wants to score touchdowns on offense. I had some people ask me if I was sure and whatnot. I understood where they were coming from, but at the end of the day, I just had to better myself. That’s been my motto since Day 1, kind of how I’ve approached everything,” Stephens said. “There’s just things that happen in life that you don’t want to doubt yourself and doubt the opportunity that is coming.” Stephens sat down with his mother, Charlotte, on the morning of Day 2 of the draft, and she asked him how he was feeling. Stephens told her that he had a premonition that he was going to the Ravens. Unbeknownst to him, his mother had the same feeling. She had bought the flags of two teams she believed her son was most likely to get drafted by. After Stephens spoke to DeCosta and Harbaugh, he turned around to see his mother unfurl a purple flag with the Ravens’ logo on it. “We going to B-More,” Stephens said after the reality had set in. “They don’t even know what’s coming.”

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Justin Tucker Will Rock You (Or Sing You a Sweet Aria) How the Ravens’ opera-singing, record-setting kicker calls on both his standout talents. SI.COM | OCT. 1, 2021 | ALEX PREWITT Before and after every practice, Justin Tucker rehearses. He climbs into his SUV, cranking up a playlist that covers modern rock to Italian opera and croons along for the 15-minute commute between his Baltimore-area place and the Ravens’ facility. “I guess the car is my music studio,” Tucker says. “I can get in two or three arias, including a little warmup, if I’m really feeling it.” Tucker is typically feeling it. This was most obvious last weekend, when the NFL’s most accurate kicker ever converted his 50th straight fourth-quarter/overtime field goal in style, belting an NFL-record 66-yarder that bounced off the crossbar and through as time expired to walk off against the Lions, 19–17. But it also applies to special teams meetings, locker room showers, and all the other impromptu venues where fellow Ravens find themselves serenaded by Tucker’s classically trained bass-baritone. Beginning in 2012 when he signed with the Ravens as an undrafted free agent out of Texas, Tucker’s larynx seemed to capture as much interest as his leg, leading to commercial appearances, charity gigs and countless articles. And while the Justin Tucker Show hasn’t made a public appearance since his runaway victory in “Most Valuable Performer,” a 2018 NFL player talent show aired on CBS—this is largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic: “The idea of trying to fill up a concert hall or a church to go sing in front of a gathering of people ... hasn’t been worth the risk,” he says—it has perhaps never been more instructive than now to view Tucker’s growing legacy as a kicker through the lens of his love for singing. Consider the overlaps: With an 82.7% career conversion rate from 40-plus yards, also tops all-time, Tucker displays the range to hit low Cs and long FGs. Both pursuits require rhythmic precision, the sort attained through diligent, repetitive training. And while his commutes are exclusively private gigs, the audience limited to his airbags, Tucker’s song choices play vital roles in shaping his day. “If it’s first thing in the morning I can get the vibe right, a little more energized and motivated,” he says. “Then on the way home, I’ll just carry a tune to unwind.” (Plus what are uprights anyway but prongs of a giant yellow tuning fork?) All of which has set the stage for “the best kicker in NFL history”—as Ravens coach John Harbaugh declared soon after Tucker beat the Lions, albeit with the help of a friendly crossbar—to keep making records in his second decade, no signs yet of missing a beat. As Tucker explains, “Honing in on your craft and developing a technique that looks a certain way, time and time again—that requires much preparation and hard work. To make something that is actually difficult appear easy, I think there’s a level of artistry in that idea.” Tucker is on the phone in early September, pondering a question after practice: What is the most nervous he’s ever been, singing or kicking? Initially his reply comes fast: “That would definitely be on the stage. The field—that’s my place; that’s where I’m in my comfort zone.” Then he reconsiders and switches course, settling on a coin toss of two nail-biting events. One took place in the divisional playoffs of his rookie season, five months after he beat out Pro Bowler Billy Cundiff for the starting job during training camp, when Tucker jogged onto the field in Denver for a game-tying extra point with 31 seconds left, in front of a crowd of 76,732, following a 70-yard touchdown known among Ravens fans as the Mile High Miracle. “I had the butterflies going crazy in my stomach,” says Tucker, who nonetheless nailed the point-after and later booted Baltimore to the AFC championship with a 47-yarder in double overtime. The other arrived three years later as Tucker took a deep breath before singing “Ave Maria” inside the historic Baltimore Basilica cathedral, which on that December 2015 night hosted a packed house—this crowd of about 900 Christmas concertgoers—buzzing in anticipation of the guest soloist. But again he shook off the nerves to deliver a memorable performance, and not only because he similarly nailed the aria despite having just one dress rehearsal with the orchestra and choir. “I remember my colleague, before the concert, went back behind the Basilica to the sacristy, where the priests get dressed,” says Bill McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities of Baltimore, which puts on the annual event. “And there was Justin, in a tuxedo, doing push-ups. It was like, ‘Wow, he prepares like he prepares for a football game.’ ” Tucker first took to music as a kid in Houston, starting with the trumpet in middle school. “Brass is where it’s at it,” he says. Self-taught guitar followed, as did another more percussive pursuit in eighth grade: kicking footballs. High school brought a hiatus when a stodgy band director forced Tucker to choose between his mouthpiece and his mouthguard. But he rediscovered the joy in many ways while on campus in Austin, producing a mixtape with some Longhorns teammates, successfully auditioning for the Butler School of Music and majoring in recording technologies. Though Tucker displayed some vocal chops throughout college, his abilities crescendoed when he spent both semesters of his senior year studying under Nikita Storojev, an associate professor of voice at the University of Texas and a bass with opera credits across the globe. In particular, Tucker learned an Italian technique known as bel canto, or beautiful singing, which requires such taxing training that Storojev likens it to playing chess while also running a marathon. “You need to use your intellect and your physical potential,” Storojev says. “It’s based on muscle coordination. He had to learn how to support every note, how to concentrate, how to use his diaphragm. And if you work in sport, you’re able to use your diaphragm.” Tucker made swift progress, impressing Storojev with his ability to sing in six foreign languages (Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, French and Czech); his rehearsal habits (“You ask him to learn something, next lesson he know the whole piece by memory,” the professor says) and his raw talent. “His natural voice has beautiful color,” Storojev adds. “It’s easy for me to teach him, because we

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have all kinds of similarities.” The results? “In one year, he jumped from amateur to professional level. He learned what sometimes takes people their whole life.” A former defenseman for the Russian army hockey team in the late ’60s and early ’70s, he says, Storojev also recognized Tucker’s knack for staying cool in the spotlight. “Sometimes singers have too much emotion, and he learned from sport how to control his emotions. Once I tell him, ‘Imagine you perform in front of 10,000 people.’ Opera houses are around that. I remember his answer: ‘No problem; I perform in front of 20,000.’ ” The same personality trait stands out to Tucker’s closest colleague today. “The reason he’s as successful as he is,” says Sam Koch, the longtime Ravens punter and holder, “is because of his confidence and his swagger. He knows how to take the mind out of it.” A rigid routine is one way. “He warms up the same way every day, goes out there and hits the same balls every day,” Koch says. But the duo also keeps the mood light, muttering inside-joke catchphrases to each other before big kicks. Examples include Prepare For Glory and, for reasons Koch cannot explain, Babies and Memories. “Just a funny thing to ease the moment,” he says. It is in this quest for metronomic repetition that Tucker’s two passions diverge. “A lot of guys listen to music on their headphones coming into the stadium, or in the locker room, or out on the field playing catch,” he says. “In that way, music is more distracting for me than it is helping me focus. I tend to not listen to anything around game time. I want to just dive deeply into my technique and visualize and try to get an idea for what the wind is or how the grass feels underneath my feet.” Even so, the parallels are inescapable. (Just beware of those pesky “parallel fifths situations,” Tucker says, “which anybody in the music theory world will tell you is no bueno.”) Consider the 1.3 seconds of harmony required for every successful snap, hold and kick sequence. “The execution of our operation, all of us coming together to do our jobs,” Tucker says, “to draw upon another fine arts term, it’s like a choreographed dance that we’ve practiced time and again.” The unit had a rare change this offseason when the Ravens parted ways with 11-year long snapper Morgan Cox and gave the gig to rookie Nick Moore. And while the old trio was guitar-string tight, vacationing together in Las Vegas after Baltimore won Super Bowl XLVII, the revamped one has picked things up no problem, with Tucker connecting on 7 of 8 field goals and 7 of 7 extra points entering Week 4. “I view our relationship like brothers,” Koch says. “Sometimes we fight; sometimes we get along really well. But we all hold each other accountable.” Meanwhile, Tucker keeps his vocal cords fresh whenever possible. He traditionally introduces the plays of the week at Ravens special teams meetings with a football-themed jingle, Koch says, often accompanied by “some sort of Chris Berman–type additive.” He sings backup to his son in whatever 5-year-old Easton is digging that day, which lately has been the Pokémon theme song and the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And he continues to squeeze in those commuting rehearsals, though he notes that he is “in less of a classical phase and more a post-’90s grunge rock vibe right now, like Third Eye Blind. So maybe it’s a ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ on the way to work and a ‘Motorcycle Drive By’ on the way home.’ ” With live concerts back in full swing across the country, McCarthy hopes Tucker will return for a third appearance at the Catholic Charities Christmas Festival. (In 2016, accompanied by the Morgan State University Choir and the Choral Arts Society, the kicker followed up “Ave Maria” at the Basilica by bringing down the house of worship with “O Holy Night.”) But for now McCarthy will settle for watching Tucker kick instead of sing, texting Sports Illustrated last weekend, “Maybe he did push-ups before that 66 yarder!” More likely is that, aside from taking an extra half-hop step to generate more power, as though he were kicking off, Tucker delivered his signature moment precisely because he did nothing special. He lined up at the spot of the hold, vision fixed on the middle of the uprights. He took three steps back and two to the left, crossing his chest mid-slide as a nod to his Christian faith. Then he charged, planted and swung, and once again it was curtains at the Justin Tucker Show.

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After Jumping Out Of Airplanes, Alejandro Villanueva Jumps Into A New Role With The Ravens BALTIMORE SUN | SEPT. 24, 2021 | CHILDS WALKER Lamar Jackson hurled his lithe frame into the broader torso of 6-foot-9, 320-pound tackle Alejandro Villanueva for a celebratory bump. The Ravens franchise quarterback wanted Villanueva to know how much he appreciated his stout protection in the team’s stunning 36-35 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. He knew the pressure the 33-year-old lineman had put on himself to improve from a poor Week 1 performance against the Las Vegas Raiders. “It’s not just myself learning about him, I hope a lot of people did,” Jackson said a few days later. “He took the first game seriously. A lot of people doubted him [and] were saying all type of stuff about him. He moved from right tackle in the first game to left tackle to protect my blind side, and he aced it.” With former All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley ailing, Villanueva’s performance has become essential to the Ravens’ prospects on offense. In training camp, the question was how he would adjust to playing on the right side after six years as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting left tackle. Now that Villanueva is temporarily back at his more familiar spot, he’s often Jackson’s last line of defense against the scariest pass rushers in the world. Against the Chiefs, that meant stonewalling Pro Bowl defensive lineman Chris Jones, who did not produce a pressure or solo tackle the whole night. Villanueva ended up as Pro Football Focus’ highest graded Raven for the game. Just don’t expect him to speak effusively about the experience. Villanueva does not see his job as a joyous one. In a quote NBC displayed during its Ravens-Chiefs broadcast, he compared playing tackle with jumping out of an airplane when he was a captain in the Army Rangers: “There is very little upside. The best thing that can happen when you jump is you survive.” Not the rah-rah stuff you expect from a typical NFL interview, but Villanueva expounded on his meaning Thursday. “I think offensive linemen are very dark people,” he said. “I think it’s a position where, when you close your eyes before a play, all sorts of bad things are happening, and you’re hoping they don’t. Because a lot of things are outside of your control.” Not many players can reflect on three tours in Afghanistan to contextualize their experiences. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Villanueva, whom coaches and teammates call “Al,” described the dread in his current job without seeming too stirred up. Villanueva, who made the Pro Bowl for the Steelers in 2017 and 2018, said he does not have a ritual for putting a disappointing game behind him. “I try to approach every day the same,” he said. “I try to get better at my craft. I try to understand the game plan, find a routine. … You rely on the people in the building that are going to support you, coaches and players. Try to do your best with the next snap. It’s the only thing that matters is always the next snap.” It’s the kind of answer a coach would give in a league that’s always fixated on next Sunday. Perhaps that’s why Ravens coach John Harbaugh expressed no concern about Villanueva’s trajectory after he struggled to block Raiders pass rusher Maxx Crosby in the opener. His performance, along with new concerns about the condition of Stanley’s surgically repaired ankle, became a major subplot in the wake of the overtime defeat. Villanueva seemed to take the criticism in stride, much as he had the speculation about how he would handle a new position. NFL analysts have paid greater attention in recent seasons to the complexities a lineman faces when he flips sides. NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth compared it to a right-handed pitcher suddenly deciding to throw left-handed in a major league game. It was an issue for several teams this offseason, including the Ravens’ Week 3 opponent, the Detroit Lions. Penei Sewell, the No. 7 overall pick in the 2021 draft, struggled at right tackle after he starred primarily on the left side at Oregon. Though Sewell has graded well in his first two games, according to Pro Football Focus — and, like Villanueva, has returned to the left side after an injury to starter Taylor Decker — he has also said the transition was “not that easy.” Villanueva acknowledged the difficulty in training camp. “It’s definitely difficult for the motor system to adjust, but you keep following the same principles that you followed to play left tackle,” he said. He was not, however, ready to attribute his improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 to his switch back to the left side. “I think the sample size is very small,” he said. “Obviously, he’s played [left tackle] a lot longer, so is he more natural? At this point, yes,” Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “But I just think he’s getting more comfortable with what we’re doing. … I think he just looked at that first game and said, ‘That’s not going to happen again.’” One aspect of Villanueva’s game that has surprised Ravens coaches is the fury he brings to run blocking. On the Ravens’ game-clinching fourth-down conversion against the Chiefs, for example, he continued pushing Jones away from the play even after Jackson had picked up the necessary yards. “I think he’s still blocking him off-screen as this play ends,” former NFL guard Geoff Schwartz said appreciatively as he broke down the play in an online video. “I wasn’t quite sure how that would look,” Roman said of Villanueva’s run blocking. “You don’t get a true look at it in training camp. … I’m really liking what I’m seeing there. It’s a little better than I thought it was going to be.” Pro Football Focus graded Villanueva the fifth-best run blocker among all tackles through two weeks. Jackson pointed to Villanueva and the rest of the offensive line as the primary force behind the Ravens’ continued success as the league’s top ground attack, despite the losses of running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards to season-ending knee injuries. The superstar quarterback has become a loud cheerleader for his stoic protector, who refers to Jackson as “a very good kid.” In fitting with his unruffled demeanor, Villanueva did not want to overreact to the festive atmosphere at the end of the Chiefs game. “This team feels very close,” he allowed. “Very college-like.” A few minutes later, the adult in the room stopped talking and went back to work.