COURTESY OF BALTIMORE RAVENS MEDIA RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
Opening statement: "First of all, I'd like to start off by just acknowledging [Washington Football Team head coach] Ron Rivera – Ron and Stephanie – our good friends. They're good friends of Ingrid and I, we go back a long way. I love Ron, and the fight that he'll now conquer. Our thoughts and our prayers are with him completely. And as he said on his text, they've got this and they're going to do great with it. So, first to open up with that and we'll open up with any questions that you have."
With WR Marquise Brown, do you see a noticeable difference with his speed this camp and his ability to catch the ball? (Todd Karpovich) "We track all of that, and I would say he's faster based on the tracking that we have. He's always looked fast to me, but …. That deep route he went and got today, he really showed that acceleration and burst. It was really a third or fourth gear. How many gears are there on a sports car? Whatever it was, he was in it. He went and got that. He's doing a really good job. He's probably more consistent, because he doesn't have the foot [injury] to deal with and he's getting stronger every day. So, you see it more consistently, probably, than the past."
How does WR Jaleel Scott look to you? I'm doing the math; I'm having a hard time figuring him into the equation if he doesn't play special teams. (Kirk McEwen) "That's a good question, I expect him to play special teams. He's done really well on special teams in training camp. He's really notched it up, and I expect him to be very capable of being a contributor on that. We always tell our guys not to count numbers – that's not what you do as a football player. You go out and you perform to the best of your ability. The competition is against yourself, your own ability, your skillset, the playbook [and] the defense, in this case. So, he's got a great chance to make our team, and he's doing fine. He's doing a good job. He's playing well."
With TE Mark Andrews, it seems like for him, he just has this ability to always get open. From your football standpoint and technical standpoint, why do you think that he has that ability to consistently do that? (Jamison Hensley) "That's a great question. That would be a great question to be able to have in a scouting formula to find that. But you call it a knack, you call it a feel – he has that. He has a great awareness of what's going on around him spatially, and he's also, obviously, a gifted athlete. So, he gets open. In the end, you see the result, and the result is that he knows how to get open."
One other wrinkle that we've noticed with TE Mark Andrews is that he's been practicing holding a little bit for the kickers. Is that just sort of an insurance policy?(Childs Walker) "Well, we've got to have a backup holder. We have to have one. We've had different … Eric Weddle did it, if you remember. You try to start with guys that you think have really good hands. (laughter) So, we're training Mark [Andrews] to do that. Nick Boyle snaps; Nick works the snaps. You've got to have your backups ready."
It always seems like at some point in training camp, tempers will flare among them. How do you try to handle that? I mean, you want to have guys be emotional, but how do you kind of balance it out? Can you tell us anything from what you know happened out there between S Earl Thomas III and S Chuck Clark? (Jamison Hensley) "I don't know exactly what happened at the end of practice. I just came off the field and came in here, so we'll find out the details of it. It just lasted longer than it needed to, for me. You're going to have these things in training camp. You're going to have … Tempers are going to flare, sure. It happens every training camp, especially right about now, probably. But I don't like them when they extend like that and eat into our reps. We're going to have to find out why and make sure that doesn't happen. We need to keep our eye on the prize, which is preparing for the Browns."