“With the 28th overall selection, the Baltimore Ravens select Patrick Queen, linebacker, Louisiana State University,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, live from his basement.

Around 11:45 p.m. Thursday, with the pick finally in, Ravens coach John Harbaugh air high-fived in the direction of the computer screen on his home office desk.

It was late. “A long, long day,” said Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta, who was on the receiving end of Harbaugh’s video congratulations. And the nearly five previous hours were different from all of the other communal draft nights the Ravens’ braintrust has known. “We were together, sort of,” DeCosta said.

The Ravens and all NFL teams, popular as they are, are not immune pandemic-generated social-distancing rules, either. And so for the first-time ever, the league’s college draft—normally an in-person primetime spectacle held at some place like Radio City Music Hall and attended by thousands of passionate fans—went entirely virtual.

In essence, the traditional conference-style War Room at Ravens’ headquarters in Owings Mills was replaced by a home-office-themed internet-based Zoom Room. We saw Harbaugh sitting at his desk amid bright book-lined shelves, and DeCosta celebrating with his three children in his pink-ish wall-colored workspace.

It felt and looked like a fantasy football draft—where John Doe’s around the country analyze and choose players from their couches for fake teams and a little money—except this remote draft was real and the lifeblood of a billion-dollar pro football business.

Young twenty-somethings hearing their names called, like Charm City’s new (Patrick) Queen, have the potential to become household names and new millionaires. All the while, front-office guys such as DeCosta wore collared shirts and jackets, and ate good food (Jimmy’s Seafood, in his case) rather than gorging on cheap pizza and beer, while trusting encrypted league-mandated Microsoft Teams channels and their own custom team IT setups.

Thankfully, it all went off without a visible glitch—from the technology setup to the Ravens’ draft choice itself. DeCosta manned the Ravens’ battlestation from his cozy office, where a half dozen computer monitors displayed information, like the team’s draft board of names, arranged as if they were meetings on a Google calendar.

One by one, the blocks disappeared as the 27 other picks were made. But by the time it was the Ravens’ turn, they still nabbed one of their preferred targets. Queen, a 20-year-old, 6-foot, 230-pound quick and versatile linebacker—who’s a good tackler, blitzer, and pass coverage option—was defensive MVP of LSU’s national championship-winning team in January.

“He plays like a Raven,” DeCosta said. “When you watch the tape, you notice him. He’s a great fit for our defense and a great fit for Baltimore. He was a need, but also the very best player on the board for us. When that happens it’s a great win for the organization.”

Quarterback Lamar Jackson commented from his place on Instagram shortly after the selection and took the analysis further, saying simply, “Ray Lewis, Jr.” Harbaugh noted Queen’s potential after starting just one year at LSU: “His best football is in front of him.”

It was even later, close to 1 a.m., when Queen joined reporters live in a video chat from his family’s living room in the small town of Ventress, Louisiana, where his family was celebrating (his dad, Dwayne, is a former college football player) and a dog barked.

“It was a long, long, long, long night,” Queen said to start, one upping DeCosta’s claim by a few “longs.” And as a few people offered congratulations to the new Raven before asking a question, he responded with a sincere “Thank you,” before answering each query.

On the inevitable comparison to Ray Lewis, a linebacker who the Ravens also selected at the end of the first round back in the day, Queen smiled. “The bar is set high,” he said.

On critics who might say he’s undersized for the rough world of the NFL, he said, “I’m so tired of hearing that,” and added that he’s proven people wrong everywhere from his small Louisiana high school to the big-time world of college football at LSU. “The tape shows.”

On what fans can expect from him, he said, “Ya’ll going to get the most energetic player from this draft, the most passionate, the most dominant, the most studious person that you can get. I bring a lot to the table.”

Those are more than enough reasons for an air high-five.

For instance, Queen is the first player from LSU the Ravens have ever drafted, perhaps because longtime Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome—who was also part of the Zoom Room—played at the University of Alabama, one of LSU’s rivals.

“He kept saying something, but we muted him,” DeCosta said sarcastically of Newsome before the pick was made. “He kept waving his hands then his video went out. That’s the thing with technology sometimes, it can be manipulated. Maybe it was the Russians, I don’t really know.”

To that point, the GM indicated he would have preferred that ESPN didn’t have a camera in his office recording everything he did, one of more than 100 live video feeds coordinated for the broadcast. “It’s a bit unsettling,” DeCosta said.

But, for one night, the whole mere occurrence—from Queen’s authentic answers and apparent skills, to the awkward musings of Goodell from his basement as he announced picks, to the office backgrounds of Harbaugh and DeCosta, and light-hearted jokes—was a welcome respite for pandemic life.

Yet hopefully it’s not needed in the long run. “I don’t think I’ll ever experience another draft like this,” DeCosta said, noting he had tell his kids to be quiet at times. “But I’ll never forget it.”

This was supposed to be a coronation of sorts. You could easily see it: Lamar Jackson gliding across the pristine green turf and throwing a few touchdown passes in front of a keyed up, sold-out crowd. Those fancy LED lights atop M&T Bank Stadium would flick on and off in celebration, Justin Tucker would do some new kind of dance after a field goal, and in general we’d see what we saw all year. “The Revolution,” as the hype video put it this week.

When all was said and done a few hours later, we’d see more video clips with talk of a Super Bowl run, more Big Truss references, more smiles.

Instead, what happened on Saturday, January 11, 2020—a day that anyone wearing purple will want to remove from their memory—was more like a bad dream.

It was said in many ways and analogies afterward, but linebacker Matthew Judon put it best, speaking to a group of reporters in an otherwise empty locker room a half hour past midnight. “You don’t expect to get into a car crash,” he said, “until you get into a car crash.”

Indeed, what had been a spectacular Ravens season jolted to a hard stop, ending with a shocking, deflating 28-12 loss to the visiting Tennessee Titans—the sixth seed in the AFC playoffs. In a performance unfortunately reminiscent of his first playoff appearance last year as a rookie (we incorrectly thought that loss was dead, buried, and gone), Jackson threw two interceptions and fumbled once—though he also totaled 365 passing and 143 rushing yards.

And the Ravens—this super-exciting, super-likable, super-good edition that brought us joy, Marie Kondo-style—fell behind early, a rare occurrence. They failed to convert on a pair of usually aggressive 4th-down-and-short tries. And despite running twice as many offensive plays at their opponent, the team watched the Titans play “winning football,” as Ravens coach John Harbaugh said—when odds-makers and everyone around town expected the opposite to happen.

In the locker room, you could hear an echoey noise coming from the showers where players clean up. A few in there were yelling afterward, one in particular about the sudden offseason and next season’s training camp that’s months away.

Meanwhile, others struggled to explain the performance with equal parts befuddlement and candor. “Is this really happening?” cornerback Marlon Humphrey recalled thinking as the game clock ticked to zero, while also saying, “I think this team’s identity right now is get in the playoffs and choke. That is just the hard truth.” (Asked about the comment a day later on Sunday, he said he stands by it.)

That might be a bit harsh. One smelly dud of a game where a team has big expectations to win does not make a full identity—and this is the first such playoff game for this era of Ravens. This wasn’t exactly like their pre-Revolution loss to the Los Angeles Chargers last playoffs when Jackson couldn’t hit water throwing a football from a boat. Nonetheless, losses like these—in which “we got our ass whipped,” as running back Mark Ingram said—do leave scars.

You hope this isn’t the start of a “best team to never win a [fill in a blank]” discussion or “best player never to win a [fill in the blank]” discussion when it comes to the super-likable Jackson in particular. But dubious narratives are downright impossible to shake until you, well, win whatever is missing. And the questions already started flowing in Jackson’s direction as soon as 15 minutes after the game ended Saturday night.

At age 23, he’s now 19-2 as a starting quarterback in two pro seasons, and 0-2 in the playoffs with a 63.2 postseason quarterback rating (out of a 158.3 maximum). To his credit, dear Lamar, still wearing his game pants, along with a pair of Nike flip-flops and a gray Baltimore dri-fit t-shirt, stood at the podium in a humid interview room and answered more than a dozen questions in front of 11 television cameras and about 50 reporters. He said he made too many mistakes, promised to work harder, and come back stronger next season.

If last season indicated to the quarterback that he needed to work on his passing mechanics, the jolting end to this year may suggest: “I need to improve on everything,” he said. “Whether it’s running, throwing the ball, pocket poise, everything.”

One reporter asked the question of the day for fans, whether it will be painful to hear people talking about him not winning a playoff game over the next year. “I don’t really care about what they say,” Jackson said. “This is my second year in the league. Many people [aren’t] able to bring it to the playoffs. We’re just going to keep going, like I said, [and] get ready for next year.”

The thing is, nobody wanted to be talking about next year so soon. Big Truss meant Big Goals. Not just the final image of a few players, like backup quarterback Robert Griffin III and tight end Hayden Hurst, tossing equipment into the crowd after a stunning playoff loss at home as the conference’s top seed.

Judon, as he did late Saturday, didn’t want to be talking in the locker room about if he would stay with the team or not. Neither did defensive tackle Michael Pierce. Both, whose contracts expire in May, said they want to return. Tackle Ronnie Stanley would rather have not been exchanging goodbyes with rookie center Patrick Mekari and suggesting they meet up in California in the offseason. (Related, Mekari said, “We could have won this game. We should have won this game.”)

And for sure, a few minutes earlier in a largely silent locker room, nobody wanted to hear Harbaugh tell everyone to be at the team’s facility in Owings Mills at around 10 a.m. Sunday for a meeting and to clean out their lockers—instead of maybe an announcement of a day off from practice as a playoff push continued. And I certainly didn’t want to see “Flacco” trending on Twitter after getting back to the press box from post-game interviews in the locker room.

Jackson, typically active on social media, was notably quiet until late Sunday morning, when he shared a message of support from a fan on Instagram. It was almost the same response as last year when he told us, “It’s all good,” in a look ahead to what was a better-than-good second season for him. We wrote then that he was clearly the Ravens’ future. That’s still the case.

But this time, this loss sounded harder to stomach. “I don’t know how difficult it’s going to be or how long it’s going to be in my mind,” Jackson said. “I hate losing. I really do. We’ve just got to move on.”

In other words, if Saturday night was a car crash, now comes the damage assessment.

On an April weekday morning near the end of his senior year of high school, Daniel Stern stood behind a podium in a crowded, wood-paneled Annapolis courtroom, wearing a gray suit and a purple shirt-and-tie combination as he emphatically pleaded his case. The skinny, super-articulate, high-achieving kid from suburban Baltimore wasn’t in trouble; far from it. Representing a fictional state prosecuting team from the private Park School in Pikesville, the then-18-year-old was delivering the closing argument in the championship of the 2012 Maryland state mock trial competition.

The case: State of Maryland vs. Drew Hunter, an imagined coach of a girls’ high school soccer team who, Stern argued to a panel of three adult judges, caused three players to suffer heat exhaustion during a hot, late morning practice in August. “One of them is still in the hospital!” he said, making the situation sound as real as possible. This coach, Stern said with the flair of a seasoned trial lawyer twice his age, should be found guilty of reckless endangerment and child abuse.

“This is a case about a coach who made bad decision, after bad decision, after bad decision,” Stern told the court, while laying out the facts of the case: Players were instructed to run in sprints in 104 degree heat, in a practice that lasted more than two hours, and the coach was slow to react when players collapsed. “We’ve proven it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The performance was convincing, room-owning, and vintage Daniel. He’d been the closer since freshman year. “He’s a very intense guy and he’s very passionate about whatever it is he’s doing,” says Tony Asdourian, one of Stern’s former teachers at the Park School and an assistant coach on that mock trial team. “That was true very much that day.” (The 13-member team won its second straight state title.)

Stern couldn’t have known it then, as a high school whiz kid a few months from graduation and bound for Yale University, where he’d lead two national championship mock trial teams, but the words he spoke—bad decision, after bad decision—are almost comically fitting given what Stern is doing nearly eight years later. He’s not a lawyer, but he is paid to use his analytical and lawyerly abilities, in sports. And in his hometown no less—in a job ensuring that Ravens coach John Harbaugh has all the information necessary to make good decisions during football games.

At age 25, the Baltimore kid in his fourth year working for the team of his youth. He joined the Ravens immediately after he graduated from Yale in 2016 with a degree in cognitive science, a major that can essentially prepare you for many professions. Today, Stern’s official title is football analyst, and he’s part of a handful of staffers in the Ravens’ analytics department led by director of football research Scott Cohen. (The Orioles aren’t the only number-friendly pro sports team in town.)

Stern’s title leaves room for interpretation, but in the context of this spectacular Ravens season—after beating the Steelers yesterday, they’re now 14-2 and remain the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl as the playoffs begin—the scope of his largely unheralded contributions has emerged more visibly.

During every game, the boy wonder sits in a chair right next to Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman in the weather-proof coaches’ level of the stadium. And like a play caller, Stern wears team-issued apparel and one of those big black Bose headsets with a direct line of communication down to the field to Harbaugh. The head coach always makes the final decisions, but Stern notably has Harbaugh’s ear, quickly and clearly relaying “the numbers”— the so-called win probabilities and risk-reward ratios of certain situations.

For years, Harbaugh has had a staffer in the booth in this role. At first, it was Matt Weiss, who is now the team’s running backs’ coach. Stern took over the job this season, and what he does informs some of Harbaugh’s key game-management decisions—including whether to go for it on fourth down, which has become one of the calling cards of this Lamar Jackson-led, “Big Truss”-infused team.

A fourth-down try, for instance, if it fails, gives the opposing team great field position of their own, and NFL coaches have traditionally hesitated to take the risk or make it simply on gut feel. But with careful, deliberate planning done throughout the week, very specific data provided by Stern on-the-fly on game day, and players like Jackson making things easier and also giving their own input, (As in, “Hell yeah, coach! Let’s go for it,” before a fourth-and-2 earlier this year against the Seattle Seahawks), the Ravens have noticeably bucked the conservative nature of their competition.

They’ve converted 17 of 24 fourth-down chances this season, a league-high 70-percent rate. (This shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise. In the summer, the team hired a quantitative analyst, 2017 Skidmore College graduate Derrick Yam, after he wrote a paper of the benefits of going for it on fourth down.) That means more time on offense with a chance to score points, and more “truss” in the locker room.

Given the paranoid nature of pro football coaching staffs who don’t want to give away any trade secrets, Stern isn’t being made available for interviews now to talk more about his job, or how he’s ascended the Ravens coaches’ pecking order. But the kid who for 13 years attended the tiny kindergarten-through-12th grade Park School—just a short drive from the Ravens practice facility in Owings Mills—did speak enough about the nitty-gritty, calculus-style of his work responsibilities for an article earlier this year by Sheil Kapadia of the subscription sports website, The Athletic.

The story essentially blew Stern’s cover. Here’s an excerpt:

The Ravens, like other teams, have built their own analytical model for fourth-down decision-making that accounts for a number of factors—factors that they prefer not to share publicly. There are two numbers to weigh with every decision. One is win probability—a percentage that reflects the team’s chances of winning based on the various options at any given time in the game. The other number is a break-even success probability. The model comes up with an estimate of how likely the team is to convert the fourth down. Part of the decision then comes down to how high that number has to be to justify going for it.

“It might be that there’s a decision that because we’re up by 14 points already, the decision that we make doesn’t change our win probability very much because we’re really likely to win the game no matter what,” explains Stern. “But in that moment we know that we would only need like a 15-percent chance of getting it to justify going for it. It doesn’t change our win probability that much in the game. It’s just the risk/reward calculus. So there’s situations like that, too.

“Or maybe there’s one where the win probability is really big, but it’s only because it’s a tight decision in a critical moment in the game. Like late fourth quarter, we could have a really tight decision where on average we’re gonna get it 55-percent of the time, we think, and to justify going for it we need to get it at least 50-percent of the time. So that’s a really tight difference. We would need to be very confident in our estimate of how likely we are to get it in order for that decision to be the correct decision. So it’s a really tight decision compared to one where the break-even is 20 percent and the probability of getting it is 50 percent”

Like we said, whiz kid. Here’s a little more:

What makes it easier, according to Stern, is that Harbaugh is familiar with concepts like win probability and expected points added (EPA). He wants to know the actual numbers in his headset during the game as he’s making decisions.

“We talk about all the different scenarios, and he basically gives me a percentage,” says Harbaugh. “So what’s the added win percentage of going for it? He’ll give it to me like one, two, three, four, five, six, up to whatever. Then you just decide if you want to do it. It’s not strictly based (on the numbers). I listen to it. If he starts telling me 3 and 4 percent, I get really interested. If it’s 1 or 2 percent, I’m still interested—especially if it’s short, if I think we can get it.”

Says Stern, “I just remind him during the game that this is what we were planning to do. If something’s changed, then he’ll argue back. You’ve just gotta be ready for him to push back, like, ‘You really think we should?’ Or ‘I don’t want to do that.’ I don’t take offense to that during a game at all. He’s the head coach so he’s gonna make the decision that he thinks is best.”

None of this shocks those that have known Stern since he was a kid. According to one Baltimore magazine staffer whose child was friends with Stern, he used to send his own text messages to set up playdates—in second grade—and once administered an I.Q. test to the child during one of them.

Asdourian, who, more recently, taught Stern calculus and is Park School’s math department co-chair, says, “He’s really just an extraordinary person. It’s impressive to see his mind at work. In class, he could pick up the subtleties of the chain rule or the fundamental theorem of calculus very quickly. In mock trial, he had this amazing ability to summarize everything that has happened in the case and give us a five-minute summary that would end up often being highly persuasive to the judges. He was always incredibly verbally facile and intelligent, and had wonderful instincts.”

The kid in Harbaugh’s headset graduated magna cum laude (with distinction for us lay people) from Yale, where in addition to co-captaining the university’s mock trial team to the top spot in the country, he worked as a student assistant for the Yale football team, as a sports broadcaster and producer for the school’s athletics department, and wrote for the student newspaper.

“He’s one of those people who talks about something like it’s pie-in-the-sky, but at the same time, it isn’t,” Asdourian says. “He would say, ‘I think one day I’d really like to work for a football team, like the Ravens.’ Some kids would say that and you’d go, ‘Well, I hope that works out.’ And when he would say it, he was intense enough and smart enough that you sort of go, ‘Huh, I wonder if he’ll actually pull that off?’”

We now have the verdict.

Getting a straight answer out of constantly comical Ravens running back Mark Ingram can be a tough task. Just ask his teammates, or listen to him banter to anyone at practice or before a game, or talk in the locker room afterward. But there is so often truth in his now well-known brand of irreverent humor.

“I feel like people say that when you’re 30, I guess you’re like dead or something,” Ingram told reporters this week, alluding to his upcoming milestone birthday on Saturday‚ and the reputation for running backs of his age to break down physically due to the violent nature of pro football and his position. “But I think my best football is still ahead of me.”

The way this season is going, the Ravens don’t need a lot more. Maybe just a few more games of Ingram being himself. At 5-foot-9, 215-pounds, he is a proverbial battering-ram inside runner on the field. And he’s also perpetually positive—an internet meme-inspiring “heart of the team,” between the lines and everywhere else, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson says.

“When you guys see on TV is what you get throughout the days, behind the scenes,” Jackson says. “That’s Mark, and we love it.”

You could see the camaraderie building in snippets earlier this season, for instance when Jackson shared a video on his Instagram story of Ingram dancing wildly in the locker room at its practice facility in Owings Mills, with a caption suggesting that Jackson had no idea what was going on.

He and Ingram have a brotherly relationship, as in maybe older brother is the crazy-yet-wise one. It started in the preseason when they shared a flight up from Florida to Baltimore. Jackson, the 22-year-old coming back for his second season here and first as full-fledged starting QB, and Ingram arriving for his first in any capacity after signing a three-year, $15 million free-agent contract following nine seasons with the New Orleans Saints.

Like Jackson, Ingram is a former Heisman Trophy winner. He won college football’s top individual honor as sophomore in 2009 at the University of Alabama. (Here’s our obligatory mention that RGIII once won the award, too).

But unlike Jackson, who has emerged a bonafide nationwide sports star in his second pro season and can’t keep his own branded apparel stocked quick enough, Ingram has almost a full decade of relatively under-appreciated NFL experience in him. In his world that means a lot of tread on his running back tires, 1,515 carries for 6,970 yards and 60 touchdowns, and 252 receptions to be precise—as well as a lot of jokes, chatter, passion, and good vibes in the locker room.

Ingram’s former quarterback and future Hall-of-Famer, Drew Brees, in 2017 said he was the “heart and soul” of the Saints, too.

“I just try to be myself,” Ingram said Wednesday, in an unusually business-like interview session. “Love all my teammates, love all my coaches, be the best person I can be. Treat them with respect, treat them with love, and just work my butt off. That means the most to me, when my quarterback and my other teammates say that about me. That’s what I do it for.”

Most notably, Ingram is, of course, the main character in the origin story of “Big Truss,” the Ravens’ unofficial and totally appropriate child-like mantra for this breakout and now Super Bowl-dreaming season.

It goes like this: Jackson, since last year, has been saying “Truss,” as in trust (your teammates, coaches, whoever; like “I got you.”) It’s a purposely misspelled and misspoken variation of the powerful noun, cited with originating in Pompano Beach, Florida, where Jackson is from.

This season, Ingram added the “big” emphasis on the idea, seemingly off the top of his head. “Because everything Mark does is big,” says wide receiver Willie Snead, who also played with Ingram for three seasons in New Orleans. The saying most famously went public in Ingram’s Jackson-for-MVP “hype man” rant after the Ravens convincing win over the Houston Texans a month ago, and it’s now internet meme-worthy and essentially Bawlmerese.

So it goes with this eminently likable team, now with an 12-2 record, the title of “Kings of the AFC North” already locked up ahead of Sunday’s game against the divisional foe Cleveland Browns—the last team to beat the Ravens way back in Week 4. That seems like eons ago.

The Ravens have since captivated a sports-watching nation with 10 straight wins and a great blend of veterans like Ingram, kicker Justin Tucker (also 30, and not dead) and offensive lineman Marshal Yanda, 35, who’s happy he was cajoled out of retiring. Plus more than a half dozen first-or second-year starters who have rallied around their fast, friendly and now beloved quarterback Jackson.

This week, a league-high 12 Ravens, including Ingram, were named to the Pro Bowl, a best-in-class showcase for NFL players held the week before the Super Bowl.

For his part, Ingram arrived in Baltimore in March as a relatively unheralded free-agent after the Saints decided to hand the starting running back role to talented rookie Alvin Kamara. (That “turn 30 and they think you’re dead” comment does have truth to it.) But plenty of others still knew about Ingram’s effective ability on the field. Less about his character off it.

For all the bluster and funny-man schtick, there’s a serious, grounded side to Ingram. Back when he was a freshman in college in 2008, his father Mark Sr., who played 10 seasons in the NFL as a wide receiver and won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants, was sentenced to seven years in prison after being found guilty on money laundering and fraud charges. He decided not to turn himself in to officials on time because he wanted to watch his son play for Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, so he got two years added on to his jail sentence, and didn’t get out until 2015.

In a nod to that part of his story, this week Ingram and Snead led 25 elementary school kids with an incarcerated parent on a $125 holiday shopping spree at Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Glen Burnie, an event paid for through Ingram’s charitable foundation.

This sort of thing played into the glowing recommendation Snead, who arrived here two years ago, gave the Ravens’ front office this offseason—telling them that Ingram was the type of player with a strong makeup that could help make the team a legitimate championship contender.

“He’s everything we hoped for,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “I didn’t know his personality as much. I didn’t really know how boisterous he was and how outgoing he was… It’s really been fun to be around. He really gets it. He knows how to treat people, knows how to practice. He plays with great passion and great energy, [and he’s] very physical. You’ve seen him. You know what I’m talking about there.”

Because while the pro football locker room is unique in some ways, it’s very familiar in others. Like any workplace, there’s a variety of personalities. The quiet, the outgoing, the serious, the person you know nothing about, the person who you know too much about. Ingram is a proverbial “glue guy”—someone who is good at their job and has a fun time doing it. That’s some people seem to get more than others.

In other words, get yourself or your organization a hype man, agent, general life supporter, and a positive influence like Jackson and the Ravens have in Ingram, and your chances of success go up. There’s an example of why every week.

Perhaps you missed it late last Thursday night, after the end of the Ravens’ blowout win against the New York Jets (we know people had to work the next morning), when Ingram literally stole the post-game show from NFL on Fox sideline reporter and Dancing With the Stars co-host, Erin Andrews.

Ingram was standing next to Jackson on the field. They were both just interviewed, and Ingram had just reminded Jackson about when exactly he broke Michael Vick’s single-season rushing record for an NFL quarterback. “Someone suggested I should give you the mic, and ask a question. Do you want to go ahead?” Andrews told Ingram.

Ingram again showed what he’s all about—about what being the heart of a team really means—with a Saturday Night Live-ish skit on national television. He asked Jackson a mock interview questions about winning the division, while using a variety of nicknames. “Freaky L, aka Action Jackson, aka Era8Apparel… How it feel, tell me how it feel L Freaky?” he said. Jackson, of course, played the straight-man and went along with it, saying there’s more to accomplish. “So you’re saying the story is unwritten? Book unfinished?” Ingram said.

“That was awesome,” Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck said.

“Give me the mic and let me interview some people,” Ingram said from behind the podium this week, talking to reporters. “I like it. It’s pretty cool. Y’all be careful. I’m coming.”

There’s some truth in that too.

“Lamar Jackson Be Like…” is a thing now.

Yeah, everything in that funny video is accurate.

Simply by being himself—fast, elusive, earnest, humble, just the right amount self-critical, and, oh yes, he can throw, too—the Ravens’ second-year quarterback has organically spread his influence, boyish charm, and one-of-a-kind brand of football to the masses. “I play Lamar Jackson ball,” he said a few weeks ago. And nothing more needed to be said.

Jackson’s 22-year-old personality is infectious. His quick, authentic, and direct one-or-two-line responses in press conferences are tailor made for social media. His play is awe-inspiring.

And he’s much more than fast. He and his head coach’s burgeoning bromance is everything we want. Here’s John Harbaugh wearing a Jackson-branded sweatshirt at practice this week. And his teammates’ support for him is rare. See running back Mark Ingram as Lamar-for-MVP hype man.

Every time we look for something new to say about the Ravens quarterback, we see that so many others have discovered what we already know. There’s so many reasons to love Lamar Jackson. Right now, he’s in full star turn mode, across America and beyond—way beyond.

Just this week, Pope Francis—yes that Pope Francis—hopped aboard the Jackson bandwagon. During a visit to Rome on Tuesday, representatives from the Archdiocese of Baltimore gave the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church a purple No. 8 jersey—autographed by Jackson and his head coach. And the Pope appeared pleased.

A day earlier, on Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping day of the year, Jackson’s merchandise outsold that of every other athlete, in any sport, on the industry-leading website Fanatics—an official vendor of licensed sports apparel from the major pro leagues and college ranks.

And Jackson has broken several rushing records for a QB already. He has completed 66.5 percent of his passes (just a few tenths more than, coincidentally, his old friend Joe Flacco, now with the Denver Broncos). He has thrown 25 touchdowns and only five interceptions—currently leading all NFL players in votes for the Pro Bowl. That’s the annual “Best Of” event the league holds every year in Hawaii.

If all goes as planned, Jackson won’t be there. The Pro Bowl is held the week before the Super Bowl, and the Las Vegas oddsmakers—following the Ravens’ eighth straight win on Sunday that improved their record to 10-2—have made our hometown team the betting favorite to win it all. (In other words, prepare for a potential trip to Miami in February.)

To top off Jackson’s skyrocketing popularity, he is the favorite to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award, something no Raven—not even Ray Lewis or Ed Reed—has ever done.

In some ways, this breakout season shouldn’t be surprising. Anyone who paid close attention last year knew who Jackson was already. “He’s very comfortable with who he is,” Harbaugh said. “You like being around people like that.”

And Jackson didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, though every other NFL team passed on him in the draft before Ozzie Newsome made Jackson the 32nd overall pick with the final draft-day phone call of his tenure as general manager.

It’s easy to forget that Jackson won the Heisman Trophy—awarded to college football’s best player—while at the University of Louisville. It’s easy to forget that he’s always been this fast. Watch his high school highlights from his days growing up in Florida, and know that he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.34 seconds at the end of his final year of college.

And my, how quickly have a lot of people discarded the memory of former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Flacco, whom Jackson unseated as the starter with the first opportunity he got about midway through last season. Jackson is 16-3 as a starting quarterback since.

This is special stuff. These ascension stories come around about as infrequently as a meteor shower. (Come to think of it, who’s faster: Jackson or a shooting star?) And we should all soak up the charm of it for a few reasons: Winning is always fun, but the Ravens are making it look easy (it’s not) with a unique brand of Jackson-led offense. What”s more, there’s a deeper meaning in play.

As we noted almost a year ago, Baltimore’s population is 64-percent black, at last U.S. census count. Football is America’s most-watched sport. To have a promising, young black player at quarterback, the team’s most prominent position, is a big deal here—and in the NFL.

For so long, black quarterbacks were unfairly typecast as unable to manage the complexities of a deep playbook or a passing offense. The needle is moving ever so slightly on that, but we still have a long way to go. Here’s a drinking game: Take a shot every time you hear a national broadcaster call Jackson a “running quarterback.” They should drop the qualifier. And he’s not a running back who can throw, either.

There’s a big reason Jackson jabbed critics and said, “Not bad for a running back,” after he threw for more than 300 yards and five touchdowns in the Ravens first game of the year. Put it to bed: Jackson is a quarterback—period. Maybe one that the league is not used to seeing, but one that the Ravens coaching staff put its faith in and built a unique run-option, efficient passing offense around.

Harbaugh pointed that out—on the sideline of a recent game, no less. This authentic sideline moment that you’ve probably seen by now was caught by the Ravens’ video staff, and it should go into the NFL’s social media Hall-of-Fame.

Thankfully, someone who works for the Ravens posted this clip without clearance from Harbaugh or the team’s public relations head, “because they know we would’ve both said no,” Harbaugh told ESPN, not wanting to attract attention to what are typically private conversations. But the scene, now seen by millions, brings to life the power of a likeable leader, or two.

The truth is that the same reason that you or I—or kids in this city or neighborhoods around the country we’ve never heard of—love Lamar is the same his reason his teammates and coaches do. It’s why an actual running back, Ingram, can step to a podium before reporters after a game, with Jackson standing off to the side, and shower the quarterback with compliments that go viral: “The MVP front-runner. If anyone got something to say about that, then come see me…Lamar Jackson, in the flesh.”

As always, we’re happy to see him.

Football season is here, and—potential injuries aside—we’re excited for everyone involved. The home opener against the Cardinals this Sunday marks the official start of a new era, of sorts, for the team.

Most notably, there’s a fresh face of the franchise. You’ve likely seen him on the purple-and-black Ravens-branded “Never Less” billboards, wearing jersey number 8. We’ll start this “What to Watch For” season preview with him.

Lamar Jackson and the Debut of the Ravens’ Revamped Offense

We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but we know it will be different. For the first time in a decade, someone other than Joe Flacco begins the season as the Ravens starting quarterback. The team has put its full faith in the 22-year-old Jackson, who went 7-2 as a starter on the fly as a rookie. The Ravens have reimagined their offense around the talents of the 2018 first-round draft pick and former Heisman Trophy winner, employing a healthy mix of running and passing from the freakishly fast QB. But will the plan work?

We saw glimpses last season and this preseason of what the new era could possibly look like—a few can-you-believe-that plays per game, both good and bad—but those games don’t really count. We’ll start to see the full potential, more of the playbook, and if the offseason work Jackson put in to improve his throwing makes a difference, starting Sunday.

“I just can’t wait to put on a show,” Jackson, the affable 22-year-old, said this week. He tends to do that.

This highlight reminds us of the big point you need to know about Jackson’s approach to playing quarterback: “If I am not passing, if I do decide to run, I am trying to score a touchdown or get a first down,” he said this preseason. “I am not trying to get two yards and get tackled. That’s not how I play. That’s not why I’m here.”

Enjoy the Fancy New Things at M&T Bank Stadium

There are now escalators–16 of them!–to the upper deck, as well as a field-level party suite and a self-serve and self-checkout beer market. And more high-definition video boards and fresh LED stadium lighting that the gameday staff can turn on and off as if they were parents waking up their sleepy kid for school. And new food options featuring a healthy amount of crab dip, like a Chesapeake Hot Dog. (Mmmm, repeat: All hot dogs should be Chesapeake Hot Dogs).

The amenities represent the completion of a three-year, $120 million renovation to M&T Bank Stadium aimed at attracting fans to watch games at the Ravens’ home venue in lieu of sitting on their couches or casually paying attention on their smartphones. To which we say, right on. Humans are meant to enjoy the outdoors and be around other people. Go have some fun.

Six Players To Talk About With the Big Football Fan at Your Tailgate

A lot of unfamiliar names fill the Ravens’ 53-man roster, the most notable being running back Mark Ingram and safety Earl Thomas (who signed a $55 million contract to come play here). When it comes to new additions, that’s the bare minimum you should know. Here are few more players to talk about if you find yourself in a football conversation with a well-versed fan:

Marquise Brown, wide receiver

Anyone who embraces the nickname “Hollywood” and wears a diamond chain of his own likeness will receive attention. The rookie from Oklahoma, a first-round pick, grew up in Hollywood, Florida, and he’s also got, forgive the pun, leading man skills. A 5-foot-9, 170-pounder who can run with the ball or go a long way to catch it in a small amount of time. “He’s electric,” sums up Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta.

Marlon Humphrey, cornerback

The trendy thing for media members to say right now is that, “Marlon Humphrey could be one of the top five cornerbacks in the league this year.” If true, that would be a big bonus for an also rebuilt Ravens defense. But even Humphrey, the third-year pro out of the University of Alabama who has arms for days to swat away opposing QB’s passes, doesn’t know if he’s worthy of great expectations. “It’s just hype,” he said. “There’s not really substance behind it.” Okay then.

Cyrus Jones, cornerback and punt returner

Gilman, represent! Jones, who attended and played at the Baltimore private school from 2008-2011, is now the Ravens’ top punt returner, special teams coach Chris Horton confirmed this week. He might return kickoffs, too. It’s comforting to have a homegrown guy on the team. Off the field, he enjoys rapping in his spare time.

Trace McSorley, backup quarterback

The rookie put together a series of quality performances this preseason (16-for-24 for 203 yards and two touchdowns against the Eagles, 15-for-27 for 171 yards against the Redskins). I watched McSorley play in many games at my alma mater Penn State, and he was critical to the team’s success the last four years. “The kid is a winner,” has been said many times by many commentators, and it’s true.

McSorley led Briar Woods (Va.) High to three state championships and a 55-5 record in four years. And he won a program-best 31 games as QB at Penn State. It didn’t surprise me that he proved his wares this preseason when given the chance after Robert Griffin III was injured. If McSorley is called on to fill in for say, Jackson after he refuses to slide to protect himself and gets injured, the Ravens will lose some speed at the position, but they’ll be in good hands. McSorley is also a run-pass option.

Patrick Ricard, fullback and defensive tackle

The big guy (300 pounds) plays both offense and defense. It’s one thing to do that in high school, or even college, but it’s almost unheard of in professional football. That’s why people call him “Project Pat,” which doubles as a title for one of his off-the-field passions: Reviewing local restaurants.

Justice Hill, running back (and a fantasy football sleeper!)

For those looking to have a Raven or two on their fantasy football roster, we suggest rookie running back Justice Hill. Aside from having a perfect name for a television drama (for its title or a character, really), the 5-foot-10, 200-pound jitterbug, who played in college at Oklahoma State, impressed coaches and teammates immediately this preseason with his speed and power. Expect him play a good amount off the bench. “I think he’s the complete package,” says Ingram, the guy who will start at running back, “and I think he’s going to have a great career.”

Save the Date for These Must-Watch Games

About one big game every few weeks. That’s convenient.

Week 3: Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Sept. 22, 1 p.m.
A date a Super Bowl favorite and the only team to beat the Jackson-led Ravens in the regular season last year.

Week 5: Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Oct. 6, 1 p.m.
The Rivalry: Part 51. The Steelers have won four of the last six meetings. Boo.

Week 9: New England Patriots at Ravens, Sunday, Nov. 3, 8:20 p.m.
Tom Brady. Bill Belichick. Fun. This is the scheduled Sunday night nationally-televised game of the week.

Week 12: Ravens at Los Angeles Rams, Monday, Nov. 25, 8:15 p.m.
A trip to play the defending NFC champions on Monday Night Football.

Week 17: Steelers at Ravens, Sunday, Dec. 29, 1 p.m.
A regular season-ending home game against the Steelers. What else could you ask for? Maybe temperatures at least above freezing, and a shot at the playoffs.

Harbs Says…

There are few head coaches in the NFL with more longevity than our dear John Harbaugh, now entering his 12th season on the job. Only the Patriots’ Belichick, the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, and the New Orleans Saints’ Sean Payton have longer tenures with their teams.

We’re fortunate to have Harbaugh under contract in Baltimore through 2022, and to be treated to congenial and worthwhile NFL-required media availabilities all season long. The guy appreciates storytelling perhaps as much as he does a proper tackle.

Harbaugh, who often draws inspiration from the military, quoted a former Secretary of Defense in response to one question this week. “[It’s like the] Donald Rumsfeld quote from a few years back: You have to know what the unknowables are, and you can’t worry about them too much,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen on Sunday. We don’t know how certain things are going to look or how guys are going to respond. We might have confidence. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. But that’s the beauty of it. That’s what’s exciting. That’s the drama.”

The Realistic Expectations for This Season

Let’s end with the nitty-gritty. How will the 2019 season turn out? Here’s one fan’s opinion: The defense will be above average, and the offense will be good, but probably experience growing pains and might even look overmatched against stronger opponents like the Patriots or Rams. But it should be clear by midseason what potential a Lamar Jackson-led offense has long term. Meanwhile, of course Justin Tucker will be great.

With a difficult schedule and so many new players on both sides of the ball (linebacker Matt Judon will now be the face of the defense), a 9-win, 7-loss season with a chance at a playoff appearance feels reasonable. But no one should start calling for owner Steve Bisciotti to fire Harbaugh or DeCosta even if the team finishes 8-8 or a little worse. It’ll still happen, though.

There are still two days, six rounds, and 222 more picks to be made in this year’s NFL Draft—and you can’t fairly grade how any team does until years from now, after the college kids selected pan out like Jonathan Ogden, Ray Lewis, and Ed Reed or flop, so to speak in pro football terms, like Kyle Boller.

But through the first night of what’s really an annual nationally televised administrative spectacle, it’s hard to say that the Ravens haven’t already won.

And not just because of the promise and skills that new general manager Eric DeCosta’s first ever pick—speedy 5-foot-10, 170-pound Oklahoma wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, selected 25th overall in last night’s first round—brings to the roster.

Brown feels like a valuable addition, and at least Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson agrees, given the child-like joy in his live reaction on social media last night, close to 11 p.m. (In the video, “Hollywood,” refers to the rookie’s nickname, and where he grew up, 40 miles from where Jackson did in Boynton Beach, Florida. You’ll also hear a mention of Brown’s diamond neck chain, which actually features a likeness of himself.)

That’s all charming and makes us want to be 21 years old again—and have a few million dollars headed our way—but just wait for the real heart-warming stuff to come when it’s the Ravens turn to make headlines again the next two days.

Some time tonight, when they’re ready to make their third-round pick, Westminster native Miles Taylor will step onto the stage in Nashville and announce the team’s selection. Taylor was born with cerebral palsy and went viral a few months ago for a video of him deadlifting 200 pounds. Among other reactions, Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed Taylor his “new hero.”

Taylor, 24, recently visited the Ravens headquarters in Owings Mills with his personal trainer, a high school friend who got him into lifting. He impressed coaches and players in the workout room, learned he’d be part of the draft festivities, and shared his story with the team’s public relations group. It’s worth a watch.

“Cerebral palsy doesn’t define who I am,” Taylor said. “I just want to be a better version of myself. It’s so cool to be able to inspire people.”

If that’s not enough motivation to catch some of the draft broadcast, maybe this is. On Saturday afternoon at the Ravens’ Draft Fest at the Inner Harbor, with players like Jackson and Ravens second-year tight end Hayden Hurst on hand, superfan Mo Gaba, who was born blind and at age 13 is fighting cancer for the fourth time, will become the first person to read off an NFL Draft selection from a Braille card.

Gaba is from Glen Burnie and has attended Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital for multiple rounds of chemo and surgeries. He’s been a fixture on local sports-talk radio in recent years, and struck up a unique relationship with an Anne Arundel County police officer that works in his school. It’s easy to love him.

This interview of the Orioles’ Trey Mancini interviewing him last year is precious. “Every day when I wake up in the morning, I always feel like I’m going to achieve something that’s pretty cool,” Gaba said then, sitting in his wheelchair on the field at Camden Yards. “I just think positive.”

Coach John Harbaugh surprised the kid live on the radio earlier this week to say he’d be reading the Ravens fourth-round pick, No. 123 overall, to the nation . . .

After all that, there’s not much left to say. Except for a few more names to be announced, along with Ravens hats to be put on draftees, and future contracts to be signed. Because, for now, the Ravens certainly have inspiration covered for us all.

There was a little less than 10 minutes left in the third quarter, and the Los Angeles Chargers were already leading by 17 points and looking like they were about to score again, when Ravens coach John Harbaugh finally approached quarterbacks Lamar Jackson and Joe Flacco on the sideline and broached the touchy subject that many others—like the pockets of 70,000-plus fans at a frenzied M&T Bank Stadium who had started to boo and hiss; and the television and radio announcers; and the social-media commenters—had already been discussing.

Who should be in at quarterback?

The polarizing question of the last month served as the central conflict in Sunday afternoon’s oftentimes frustrating and bizarre (how about those replay reviews?) wild-card game, the Ravens’ first playoff appearance in four years. For the first time since the electrifying and—as one Chargers player said Sunday, “ridiculously fast,”—21-year-old Jackson took over as starting quarterback from an injured Flacco in November, the Ravens looked downright bad. They struggled to create any offense, and they fell behind 23-3 in the second half before somehow rallying to have chance to tie the score with under a minute to go. By then, a lot of fans had left.

In a moment you might see this week on one of the NFL’s behind-the-scenes mic’d up segments (since five different cameramen were capturing the images and audio), the Ravens trailed 20-3 when Harbaugh crouched down in front of the Ravens’ QB duo as they sat beside each other on the bench. There they were, the former Super Bowl-winning hero who had been there, done that in the playoffs, wearing a winter hat; and Jackson, in a body-length black hooded coat, the youngest quarterback to ever start an NFL postseason game, who had -1 passing yards and was sailing the ball over and under receivers while dodging a flurry of defenders.

“I wanted to know what they thought,” Harbaugh told Baltimore. “We could have gone with Joe then.” Indeed, fans behind the Ravens bench and elsewhere in the stadium were calling for the switch. Twitter and text chats were abuzz with the topic. CBS Sports analyst Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback, mentioned the possibility of pulling Jackson at halftime, saying it’s hard to leave a former Super Bowl winner like Flacco on the bench in a game like this.

It was like a Greek drama and a Roman circus rolled into one three-hour, 17-minute story. The protagonist: Jackson. The dispatched, lightning-rod former starter: Flacco. The stage: a long-awaited home playoff game. But in reality, there wasn’t as much debate on the sideline as there was everywhere else.

Flacco, perhaps having already accepted his fate a long time ago or not wanting to get beat up by a ferocious defense, got out of the way, and told Harbaugh he should leave Jackson in. “Stay with what we’re doing,” he said.

“We made the decision with what was going to happen here weeks ago,” Flacco said in the locker room later. “I really wanted to see the guys turn it up a little bit and make a play.”

With that, the deed was done, and in some ways, the Ravens’ quarterback situation was made clearer than it’s ever been since the Ravens drafted Jackson out of Louisville last April. “Lamar is our quarterback going forward, no question about that,” Harbaugh said afterward.

Flacco essentially and gracefully closed the door on his own career in Baltimore. And, in what was probably the worst game of his young NFL career, Jackson’s position in the Ravens’ quarterback hierarchy was somehow solidified. “He’s the future,” Ravens safety Eric Weddle said of Jackson, who went 6-2 as a starter this year. “He’s going to be a great one.”

Maybe a weight lifted from Jackson’s shoulder pads after the sideline chat, because he threw his first touchdown pass of the day to Michael Crabtree on the Ravens’ next drive, then threw another to him to pull the Ravens’ within 23-17 with two minutes left. They got possession back with 28 seconds left. But, on the first play of a possible game-tying drive, Chargers linebacker Uchenna Nwosu slapped the ball from Jackson’s right hand and his teammate Melvin Ingram III recovered the fumble. It was a fitting ending to what was, at many times, an ugly game, lowlighted by Jackson’s three lost fumbles and even a Justin Tucker missed field goal (what?!).

“There were a lot of things we could have done, I could have done, to put us in a better situation,” Jackson said. “We have to move on now, get ready for next year.”

Ah, yes, next year. No sense in stalling the discussion about it. Now we await news regarding a possible contract extension for Harbaugh, whose job Jackson might have saved. Will Terrell Suggs be back? “I would like to be a Raven for life,” he said. There’s also the matter of the eventual whereabouts of Flacco, who is owed $25 million next year. (The bet here is Washington.)

Harbaugh spoke wistfully of his now former starting QB, with whom he arrived with in Baltimore 11 years ago, and he also talked as if Flacco was headed elsewhere. That would either be by trade, or if the Ravens simply cut the 33-year-old father of five in the offseason. “Joe can still play,” Harbaugh said. “A lot of teams are going to want Joe. . . . I’ll be in Joe’s corner, wherever he’s at, unless we play him.”

Speaking to reporters in what was very likely his last media appearance in the M&T’s home locker room, Flacco said about his future plans, “It’s not really up to me. We’ll see what happens,” and he also reflected on his time here.

“I love the people of Baltimore,” Flacco said. “I can’t imagine a better 11 years. Just how many different life changes I went through and how much we won here. I’m not from too far up the road. People around here are a lot like the people I grew up with. It’s definitely a group of fans and a community that I loved to be around.”

After fielding a final question, he closed with “See you guys.” We sure will, somewhere.

About 10 minutes later, Jackson stood near the same spot in the corner of the locker room where Flacco held court, and spoke with a pair of team staffers for a few minutes. Then, in a quiet moment soon after, when someone asked about the tough day on the field, he acknowledged that truth, but then offered a few simple words that bode well for the future that everyone is so interested in: “It’s all good.”

Well, it all comes down to this.

As wild a regular season as they come—complete with a changing of the guard at quarterback, a frisky head coach on the hot seat, and a turnaround from a three-game losing streak to a playoff run—comes to an end on Sunday, when the Ravens host the Cleveland Browns.

It’s the biggest game at M&T Bank Stadium since, um, this time last year when the Ravens also had a chance to make the playoffs. And while pockets of empty seats were visible that day and on many days this season, players are hoping for a packed stadium Sunday, with so much riding on the game’s result.

The idea, of course, is for the Ravens to keep playing in the playoffs, something they haven’t done in three years. With a win, they will. With a loss, things can get crazy and the Ravens could miss the playoffs altogether. With that, here are five things to know before you watch Sunday’s game.

Win and in. Lose and who knows.
There are 96 different possible playoff scenarios (yes, 96!) in play for the Ravens, including being ranked as a high as No. 2 in the AFC, getting a bye and hosting a playoff game, to sitting at home and watching the playoffs next week like you and me.

The simple one is if the Ravens win they play again, but there’s also one where the Steelers win the division instead, and keep the Ravens out of the postseason. This video about it all would make John Urschel proud.

This could be Joe Flacco’s last home game as a Raven.
With a loss, or even a win in a less-than-ideal scenario, this might be the last time to see Joe Flacco in a purple No. 5 jersey, even if it’s merely on the sideline or for a ceremonial goodbye towards the end of the game. Unless of course the Ravens think he’s worth $23 million per year to be a backup QB, or they renegotiate his contract this offseason. Otherwise, odds are Flacco plays elsewhere next season, like . . . the Redskins.

What’s the deal with Hot Seat Harbaugh?
In the middle of the season, head coach John Harbaugh was reportedly on his way out of town. (And we wrote about enjoying the testy public tone of Hot Seat Harbaugh around this time.) But then Lamar Jackson took over at quarterback, and the Ravens’ fortunes turned around. That brought us to last Friday, when the Ravens released a one-sentence statement at 7 p.m., the night before their game against the Chargers, saying that the team will work with Harbaugh to negotiate a new contract, which expires after 2019. It’s the type of end-of-week media release usually sent when someone is getting fired, not supported.

“I think it’s a non-story,” Harbaugh said this week. “We’re just trying to win football games. We’ve kept it simple, kept it about football. Everybody is on a one-year deal. You’re on a one-week deal, as far as I’m concerned, in this league, players and coaches.”

Reading between the lines, this all looks like negotiating tactics. The Ravens either want Harbaugh back, or least want it to look like they do, and want to work out a new contract with the coach before he heads into a lame-duck year next year. The question is, does Harbaugh want to do the same thing? Not many NFL head coaches survive big-time quarterback changes but to his credit, Harbaugh has fully embraced the change from Flacco to Jackson, so he’s in a great position to do whatever he wants to do.

Moral of the story: Oftentimes everyone is always looking for the “next thing,” the next coach, or the next QB, without enjoying the present. This is a week to enjoy the present.

With a win, Eric Weddle is buying us all “Victory Breakfast.”
Speaking of contracts, Eric Weddle’s is pretty great. With a playoff appearance, combined with a Pro Bowl selection, which the veteran safety has already earned, Weddle will get an extra $1 million sent to his bank account.

That’s more than enough to buy a few “Victory Breakfasts,” as he’s enjoyed the last few weeks. Extra Reese’s, please.

Anything is better than last year.
In case you forgot what happened last New Year’s Eve . . .

It doesn’t seem like Ravens coach John Harbaugh is a fan of the old sports adage that a player shouldn’t lose his or her job because of injury. “We’re going to go back to junior high clichés, now?” Harbaugh said this week, when asked if he subscribes to that theory. “We’ll do what gives us the best chance to win, period, end of conversation.”

Ah, but when we’re talking about Joe Flacco—and the Ravens coach was, as the question was asked about the quarterback—it’s really just the start of the conversation.

Is the Joe Cool Era over?

Even when he’s been healthy (which Flacco is not right now, missing the last two games with a hip injury and likely to miss another this weekend), even when he was piloting the offense of an eventual Super Bowl championship team in 2012 (which he’s not—the Ravens haven’t made the playoffs the last three seasons), and pretty much every week during the fall and early winter the last 11 years, Flacco’s play, his contract, his sideline demeanor, his commercials, press conferences, everything, has been analyzed, scrutinized, and debated. Each nuance led to this main thought: Is Flacco the right quarterback for the Ravens? It comes with the territory of having the job in the first place.

Now that the former Super Bowl MVP hasn’t played since Nov. 4 against the Steelers, which was then the Ravens’ third straight loss, the volume has been raised on the hottest of hot-button sports-talk topics around these parts the last decade.

Flacco is 33 years old, relatively young in life standards, but getting up there in the pro sports world, and we know what he brings to the table. Meanwhile, 21-year-old rookie Lamar Jackson is something new. His running ability is exciting. His 190 rushing yards are the most for a rookie QB in his first two games. He makes plays we haven’t seen in a while, earning high praise.

“It’s the Lamar show,” said veteran wide receiver Michael Crabtree. “You just have to sit back and watch, because he’s electrifying.”

Jackson’s passing skill has been questioned. But, about that . . .

While Jackson has only started two games against suspect opponents, he’s won them both. That’s still nothing compared to Flacco’s body of work, but it suddenly looks like Jackson, the former Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Louisville, might be part of a core of young players that new general manager Eric DeCosta could build around once he fully takes over from the retiring Ozzie Newsome after this season. Teams don’t draft quarterbacks in the first round of the NFL draft, as the Ravens did with Jackson, to not play them.

There’s also the unavoidable awkwardness of the Ravens coaches wanting to get the fast and elusive Jackson on the field, even when Flacco’s on it, pushing the incumbent starting quarterback off to the side as a decoy wide receiver, or vice versa. And there’s also the fact that Harbaugh said in a post-game press conference a few weeks ago that he’d like to get Jackson on the field more.

And then there’s the money. The Ravens could cut Flacco after this season (he’s due $25 million next year) without taking as big a salary-cap hit as they would in years past.

Of course, the idea of this quarterback transition happening so soon could all be a moot point and a huge overreaction.

Maybe the Ravens lose on Sunday with Jackson making his first road start in Atlanta, drop back to a 6-6 record and never fully recover. Maybe Jackson gets hurt while running like a madman around the field, or not going out of bounds to protect himself. Maybe Flacco is healthy next week and starts anyway. Or maybe Jackson plays so well this week that you can’t bench him with the Ravens riding a three-game winning streak and in line for a playoff spot.

There’s a lot of maybes. Ultimately, Harbaugh, who has worked in unison with Flacco since Harbaugh took the job as Ravens coach in 2008, when Flacco was a rookie, says he’ll decide who to play if Flacco’s health allows him to return.

“I don’t think there’s anybody in a better position than the head coach,” he said. “I feel very, very confident that I have a good handle on it, understand the team and what we need to do when the time comes—which is not here yet. I don’t think you start making these decisions until you get to the bridge. I’m not crossing the bridge until we get to it. I think that’s a pretty good cliché, pretty apt.”

Here’s one certainty, though: If it does become clear that this is Flacco’s last year wearing the purple and black—if he does lose his job because of injury—he deserves a proper send off, like Adam Jones received with the Orioles this year. Joe’s been Cool for more than a decade. He won a Super Bowl championship with a streak of playoff performances that will go down in Baltimore history so long as we’re talking about sports. That shouldn’t be forgotten just because of what might be next.

This highlight is the primary takeaway from the Ravens’ second preseason game last night:

That’s rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson, dipping and dodging his way into the end zone in the first quarter of his M&T Bank Stadium debut.

“I thought he was tackled twice—and he wasn’t,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said of the shifty Jackson, who won the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner as college football’s top player. “You always appreciate that when he’s on your team.”

Even Joe Flacco was impressed, laughing when asked about the play in his post-game press conference: “He obviously got a lot of reactions for it, and he should.”

But before we get too far ahead and anoint the 21-year-old Jackson as Baltimore’s next great sports icon, let’s mention this plainly: Flacco, as oft-maligned as a Super Bowl-winner can be, is still the Ravens’ starting quarterback.

If evidence were needed, the one series Flacco played to start the game, before he took the night off, was a touchdown pass to fullback and converted defensive lineman Patrick Ricard.

“That’s really all we needed from Joe,” Harbaugh said. “That was enough.”

And so, as is customary in the NFL’s preseason, the spotlight shined on unseasoned players and potential future stars, such as a backup quarterback like Jackson, for much of the rest of the Ravens’ 33-7 win over the visiting Los Angeles Rams, who didn’t even play their starters, so don’t make too much of the score.

That’s not to say Jackson’s ankle-breaking nine-yard touchdown run, or his 119 passing yards and 21 rushing yards over much of the first half and including the first drive of the third quarter, were not important. They were. They showed exactly why the Ravens drafted him at the end of the first round of April’s rookie draft, even after the team signed free-agent quarterback Robert Griffin III to a contract in the offseason.

“He does seem poised for a rookie,” Harbaugh said of Jackson, who decided to leave the University of Louisville after his junior year. “Even on the sideline, he may not know everything [and make a mistake], but he comes off the field and knows exactly what he did. He’s going to continue to blossom.”

Jackson might be the Ravens’ future quarterback, but, somehow, he’s already leading the team out of the tunnel when they run on the field. He did it during last week’s Hall of Fame game against the Chicago Bears, in which he threw his first touchdown pass. “I’m trying to score every drive,” Jackson said last night, by the way—and he was the first one out on the field again Thursday night in his Baltimore debut, though he needed some directions to the sideline.

“I was kind of lost,” Jackson told a small group of reporters in the locker room after the game as Flacco left to hold his larger press-conference in the team’s media room. “I don’t want to go out there and mess up everything with our routine. I was asking the vets, ‘Where do I go when we go out of this tunnel?’ It was pretty cool, though.”

So long as he finds his way to the end zone, like he did last night, Jackson can keep asking questions. We’ll see how it goes from here.

Draft day in the NFL is just as big an event as the Super Bowl. It’s where college athletes’ dreams come true and fans of all 32 teams wait anxiously—and oftentimes impatiently—to see how the team’s roster will shift for the upcoming season.

Last night, the Baltimore Ravens made two grade-A picks in the first round—according to sports analysts—after trading down twice for the first time in the first round since 2012. With the 25th overall pick, Baltimore selected South Carolina tight end Hayden Hurst and Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson with the 32nd overall pick.

Like many die-hard Ravens fans, we immediately started our Google searches to find out about our newest recruits and we’ve compiled some facts for you here.

Lamar Jackson is the anti-Joe Flacco.
The 2016 Heisman Trophy-winner is known for his athleticism and ability to move in the pocket unlike Flacco, who is a traditional pocket passer with an insanely strong arm. Jackson has been compared to QB Michael Vick in his prime, but even the man himself thinks Jackson is “five times better” than he was in college.

John Harbaugh says that Flacco isn’t going anywhere.
Speculations have begun that this may be Flacco’s last year in Baltimore due to the recent signing of RGIII and now Lamar Jackson. The Ravens head coach wants to make it very clear that Joe isn’t going anywhere just yet.

“[Jackson’s] a great quarterback. But Joe Flacco is our quarterback,” he said in an interview. “That’s the thing we got to remember. Lamar is going to have a great chance to develop. When you get to this stage in a quarterback’s career, you’ve seen done in New England and you’ve seen done in a lot of places. This doesn’t really change things in a sense that we’re going to go with Joe and he’s going to roll.”

Hayden Hurst was the top tight end in the 2018 draft class.
At 6-foot-5, 250 pounds he has the athleticism to put up big stats in the NFL, Hurst is just the tight end the Ravens need. He’s a force on the field with his blocking and catching. In his last two seasons at South Carolina, he caught 92 passes for 1,175 yards and three touchdowns. Hurst will be able to fill the void the Ravens have with Nick Boyle and Maxx Williams, who are both better at blocking.

Hurst has a history in major league drafts.
He was selected in the 2012 MLB draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates and spent two years as a pitcher and one year as a first baseman in the Gulf Coast League. Hurst went back to football in the summer of 2015 and was an immediate starter. He credits his background in baseball for his exceptional hand-eye coordination and maturity playing professional sports.

“I feel like tracking a baseball is a little bit harder than tracking a football,” Hurst said. “I think that’s the biggest thing that I carry over from baseball is just the maturity. I’ve experienced some things that some guys haven’t with failure.”

Ozzie Newsome was able to work magic with those two trades.
First the Ravens traded out of the No. 16 pick, giving the Buffalo Bills its first- and fifth-round picks (No. 154). In return, the Ravens are getting the Bills’ first-rounder (No. 22) and third-rounder (No. 65).

Then, Baltimore traded back for the second time with Tennessee getting the Titans’ first-round (No. 25) and fourth-round picks (No. 125). Ravens gave Tennessee the No. 22 spot they just got from Buffalo and a sixth-rounder (No. 215).

Newsome called is “masterful” how he was able to trade down twice and still manage to get two great picks in the first round.

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”
—Don Shula, Hall of Fame head coach

The success of an NFL head coach often depends upon the player in charge of running the offense. A quarterback’s proficiency, in turn, can be greatly enhanced by the guidance of an outstanding coach.

Bill Walsh and Joe Montana. Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr. Tom Landry and Roger Staubach. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Chuck Knoll and Terry Bradshaw.

Each formidable pairing combined to win multiple Super Bowls, as did Shula and Bob Griese. Shula also got to the Super Bowl with Johnny Unitas and Dan Marino.

In case you didn’t notice, every person listed in the previous paragraph has been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, except Belichick and Brady, who will certainly join them in Canton, Ohio, one day.

This brings us to John Harbaugh and Joe Flacco, who have been at it together for 10 years with the Baltimore Ravens, going back to the 2008 season when the head coach and quarterback were both rookies. Though this tandem’s viability as Hall of Fame material is open for debate, there’s no arguing the Harbaugh-Flacco combination is a winner—as evidenced by 10 postseason victories, including Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013.

And they’re not done yet.

For more on Harbaugh and Flacco’s relationship from draft day through the Super Bowl, read the full story at PressBoxOnline.com.

Hit on Joe Flacco Ignites NFL Concussion Conversation
Although the Ravens managed to come out with a win, the offense took a major hit late in the second quarter. As Miami’s defense put the pressure on, quarterback Joe Flacco tucked the ball and ran up field, but as he began to slide Miami linebacker Kiko Alonso dropped his shoulder and drove into Flacco’s head. A woozy Joe managed to signal for help and was later diagnosed with a concussion and a deep cut on his left ear that required stitches.

The Ravens took the hit on their QB personal and after already leading the game 13-0, they continued to slaughter the Dolphins with the final score 40-0. The victory was the best performance from the Ravens this season.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was in a rage after witnessing the hit, even more so when Alonso was given a 15-yard penalty, and not an ejection, for the hit.

Ravens got their mojo back.
Despite the huge hit, the dominating performance from the Ravens last night reminded us why our defense is one of the best in the league and also revived the team’s playoff hopes. The Ravens are now 4-4, placing them in second place in their division after coming off a three game losing streak.

Even after Flacco left the game, the offense was still able to move the ball with Alex Collins dominating the running game with 113 total yards. Even the defense managed to put points on the board with two pick-sixes from middle linebacker CJ Mosley and cornerback Jimmy Smith.

“We got back to playing Raven football tonight,” said linebacker Terrell Suggs after Thursday’s victory.

Manny Machado a finalist for the 2017 Golden Glove for third base
Here in Baltimore, it’s hard to be surprised to learn that the Orioles third baseman Manny Machado is one of three American League Golden Glove finalists. Machado joins Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria and Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez as candidates for the award that honors the game’s top defenders. Machado had a standout season—despite the team’s losing record—with unbelievable throws, saves, and 33 homeruns.

Machado won his first Gold Glove in 2013 and was voted the Platinum Glove winner for the game’s best fielder in 2015. The 2017 Gold Glove awards will be announced on November 7 on ESPN.

The Maryland Terrapins face off against Indiana for the homecoming game.
This game has a bit of added pressure not only because it’s the homecoming game (who really wants to lose that?) but also because the Terps haven’t been able to win against Indiana since 2014. That victory three years ago was Maryland’s first-ever Big Ten conference win.

Both teams enter the game with nearly identical records of 3-4—Indiana has struggled to find a conference win so far this season. Matchups between Maryland and Indiana over the last three seasons have proven to be high-scoring events, with the Terps averaging 33.7 points and Hoosiers averaging 34.7 points.

At least the future for University of Maryland is looking bright!

Nine-year-old John Harbaugh strapped on his helmet, slid into his shoulder pads, laced up his cleats, and stared at the mirror. Scowling back, he saw the world’s toughest football player. His father saw things differently.

“My dad was right behind me,” Harbaugh recalls. “‘John boy, you’re not a football player,’ he says, ‘until you make your first tackle.'”

The Ravens coach is recounting his inauspicious debut in front of the teams in town for the NCAA lacrosse final four. Forty-eight hours before the semifinals, the players are seated around circular dinner tables in the club level of M&T Bank Stadium.

Until now, they’ve been fidgety, but, five minutes in, Harbaugh captures them, as he can almost anyone, in the web of a story.

“His name was Ralph,” he says. “Ralph at that time could have been 200 pounds for all I knew. Ralph had one eyebrow, he shaved twice a day, I think. I knew for a fact he had hair under his armpits—and in other places—in the sixth grade. Ralph was a big, mean guy.”

Harbaugh stands in front of the podium holding the mic with the second-nature ease of a standup comic. He’s written down nothing, but speaks smoothly to the roomful of strangers like they’re long-lost friends. It’s the same genuine warmth with which Harbaugh greets everyone. He stands 5’11”, yet seems to shrink or sprout to the eye-level of whomever he’s speaking with. When he talks to you, you’re sure there’s nothing he’d rather be doing.

“Whistle blows, I pop up. I got in a good football position: I got my butt down, my eyes up. I was ready to attack this guy. I went after Ralph with everything I had. I uncoiled—ahhhh!—with every ounce of fiber I had. You know what happened next, right?”

The players’ eyes, earlier shifting, now are fixed on him.

“Ralph’s knee hit me right in the chest. I didn’t have any air anymore. Then he came up into my chin, I felt my helmet start to go back and sideways. After that, it gets a little fuzzy. All I remember is holding on for dear life to whatever it was, I think it was his foot or an ankle, as Ralph proceeded to plow the field with my body. I’m not sure how long it lasted.”

Unlike the younger brother who in so many ways overshadowed him, Harbaugh wasn’t a naturally gifted football player. He’d walk another path, channeling his passion for the game through coaching.

As his brother, Jim, bathed in NFL glory—”Captain Comeback” quarterbacked the Bears and Colts—Harbaugh bounced from school to school, position to position, converting every doubt and dig (are you Jim Harbaugh’s younger brother?) into fuel.

“Harbaugh wasn’t a naturally gifted football player.”

Back then, when he was toiling in places called Morehead and Kalamazoo, the summit seemed insurmountable.

Though he’s reached the Promised Land—he’s the first coach in NFL history to win a playoff game in each of his first three seasons and, in February, he signed a reported three-year, $12-million contract extension—Harbaugh won’t forget the journey. The lonesome nights on the road recruiting, the late-night film sessions, the failed job interviews. The Ralphs.

“Somehow, someway, maybe he got tired, maybe he felt sorry for me, maybe he tripped, Ralph went down over top of me and I realized, well, I wasn’t sure what happened because it was all black,” he continues. “I couldn’t see. What went through my mind? Good God, I’ve been blinded. Lord, please give me my sight. Right when I prayed, I saw this circle of light off in the distance. A bright light. Ralph killed me. I’m dead. I’m going to heaven.”

“Then I started to hear voices in the background, guys cheering, some guys laughing, and I realized I wasn’t dead. I hopped up to my feet, I grabbed my face mask and pulled it back around and stood tall with my chest out. I had made my first tackle. I was a football player.”

As happens many Sundays and undoubtedly will Thanksgiving night when John’s Ravens face Jim’s San Francisco 49ers, the club level floods with cheers. Harbaugh might have had to become a football player, but he was born to coach.

Destiny often is obvious only in hindsight. Looking back now, it seems inconceivable that either of the sons of Jack Harbaugh, the best football coach either of them has ever known, wouldn’t follow in pop’s footsteps.

But Jim was the one fated for football greatness. They grew up “like twins,” Jack says, and to this day, refer to each other as “my best friend.” Athletically, however, they were not equals.

“Jim was a great athlete,” says Harbaugh, who’s 15 months older. “He was always way bigger than the rest of the kids in his class and way better.”

The boys were born in Perrysburg, Ohio, where Jack was an assistant high school coach. As he landed more prestigious collegiate assistant jobs, the family moved around the Midwest. Harbaugh went to Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, where Jack coached defensive backs under University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler from 1973 to 1979.

Competition was always the third brother in the Harbaugh house.

“There were always little [ones] going on,” Jim says. “They were mainly inspired by my dad. He’d clear the floor and have us wrestle in the living room. We could be sitting there watching TV and he would time us to go get something for him, usually a beer out of the refrigerator. We would do everything we could to get the world record. My dad always made everything seem exciting.”

Both Harbaughs played to win, but John pursued victory with less of an edge.

“Jim was really competitive to the point where people thought he was kind of obnoxious,” Harbaugh says. “He would dominate kids and didn’t care.”

No one could say that about John, who had “a great amount of respect for everyone,” says his sister, Joani, who, naturally, married a coach, Indiana University basketball’s Tom Crean. “I think that’s why he’s such a good leader.”

“He was the pied piper,” says Jim Minick, a childhood friend. “Jim and I were the guys who were going to cause a problem, and John was the one who was going to solve it.”

On the football field, Harbaugh was a decent defensive back with limited physical capabilities. He landed a partial scholarship to Miami University (in Ohio), where knee injuries derailed a career that would have ended at graduation anyway.

Meanwhile, Jim went to Michigan, and led the legendary maize and blue to Big Ten glory. In 1987, Chicago chose him in the first round of the NFL draft.

“I was going to go into law,” Harbaugh says.

But the breakup wasn’t clean. Football, his lifelong love, nagged at him, and he missed it. He gave it one more whirl, and luckily, at 21, he had an in. His father, then head coach at Western Michigan, hired him as a graduate assistant in 1984.

“The first year he worked on the defensive side of the ball, the next year we brought him over to the running backs,” Jack says. “He lived at the house. He and I drove back and forth to work.”

It wasn’t glamorous, but for Harbaugh, it was an awakening.

“I never realized how much there was to football, the X’s and O’s,” he says. “Twenty-seven years later and I still can’t believe how much I don’t know, how much there is to the game.”

Son studied father like he hadn’t before, particularly noting the way he communicated with his players and staff.

“He knew how to paint a picture with words,” Harbaugh says. “He always used to say, ‘I have my concept in my head, and I want to put it into your head.’ There are different ways to do that and a great teacher figures out how.”

Admittedly biased, Jack spotted something special in return.

“Some coaches could see [the game] narrowly,” he says. “John had that ability to see the whole field. He’d be working on the defensive side, yet he wanted to know everything he could about the offensive side: Why certain plays were being run, what they were trying to attack. He wasn’t satisfied with the little picture.”

“We caused a problem, and John was the one to solve it.”

Harbaugh embarked on a college coach’s nomadic voyage, stopping at Pittsburgh, Morehead State, and Cincinnati. Linebackers, tight ends—he’d have coached the water boys if asked.

In 1997, Cam Cameron (now the Ravens offensive coordinator) hired him to coach special teams at Indiana. Harbaugh and his wife, Ingrid, were ecstatic. They’d met at Western Michigan while he was working for his dad and she was a student assistant in the baseball office. Now, six years into their marriage, they’d made it to the Big Ten. The only way they’d leave idyllic Bloomington was if a dream job—Michigan or the NFL—came calling.

The phone rang. Harbaugh was driving back to IU after a recruiting trip when he learned the Philadelphia Eagles wanted to talk to him about their special teams coach vacancy.

“They interviewed, I think, 12 guys, then I got called back for a second interview,” he says. “It came down to two guys. They called me up and said, ‘We’re giving it [to the other guy], you have a great future, blah blah blah.’ They called back four hours later and said, ‘He turned it down, do you want it?’ Yeah, I wanted it.”

In hindsight, he was the perfect pick.

Following the 2001 season, his fourth with the Eagles, he was voted Special Teams Coach of the Year.

“John’s special teams played their asses off for him,” says ESPN’s Sean McDonough, a longtime friend. “John’s the kind of guy people rally around.”

After a decade in Philly, Harbaugh’s name was on many college head coaching short lists, but he always came up short. He interviewed with UCLA, Boston College, and the University of Cincinnati—twice.

Having fired Brian Billick on New Year’s Eve 2007, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was embarking on his first coaching search. He assembled a committee that included general manager Ozzie Newsome, who promptly called Eagles coach Andy Reid.

“I think what people are looking for is a problem-solver,” Reid says. “Somebody that’s smart, honest, puts people in the stands, and wins football games. If you go through John’s checklist, he hits all those areas. Ozzie saw that. I go, ‘You are one smart dude.’ I thought it was a very bold move.”

The Ravens whittled their list of 30 to five, and Harbaugh was still on it.

“I came in for the interview and Bisciotti cornered me on a question that I had no answer for,” Harbaugh says. “He asked me how I would divide up my time between coaches and players and scouting and all that. I didn’t have the percentages right. I was so wrong on the question I figured I’m done, I got no shot, but at least, I can learn from this guy for a day.”

Bisciotti chuckles at Harbaugh’s recollection.

“It was a question posed to open up discussion, not necessarily for him to get right or wrong,” he says. “I startled him a bit. I wanted to see the way he thought and the way he proccessed a question that didn’t have a guaranteed answer. I loved his enthusiasm.”

But not so much that the Ravens didn’t first pursue Jason Garrett. When they didn’t land the now-Dallas Cowboys coach, they hired Harbaugh.

Once again, in hindsight he was the perfect pick.

From the outside, the John Harbaugh experiment looked shaky five weeks in. The Ravens were 2-3, and their offense was in the hands of a rookie quarterback.

“I saw his staff take a hold of Joe Flacco and put him in a position to be able to perform,” says Matt Stover, the kicker on that team. “He casts a vision to make sure [everyone] sees the direction they’re going in. I saw that this guy had the ability to manage people and create that environment that would allow change.”

Harbaugh’s willingness to delegate—he doesn’t call plays or run the defense—is a rarity in the ego-littered NFL coaching landscape.

“What you see on the field is a reflection of how I want it to look,” he says. “I have the best handle on the big picture, I don’t have the best handle on what the Steelers do on third and long. I’ll understand a lot of that, but [the assistants] have to know it the best. If you’re calling the plays, then what aren’t you doing?”

Baltimore made it to the AFC championship that season, but a year later was in danger of missing the playoffs. Following a deflating loss at Green Bay in December, Harbaugh got an e-mail from his friend Minick, a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps.

“Tough one last night. Good time for a little history,” Minick wrote. “Famous Marine Gen. Chesty Puller had a great quote when his Marines were surrounded on all sides by swarms of Chinese by a ratio of 29:1 at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War. ‘Men, great news, now we can attack in any direction.'”

Speeches preach, stories teach. Harbaugh prodded Minick for more and relayed the tale to his team.

“The way those Marines sacrificed everything, we just had to rally around each other,” says defensive tackle Kelly Gregg, who was released in July. “Nothing outside the building affected us.”

The Ravens beat Detroit that week, the first of three victories in the last four games that clinched a post-season berth.

The season ended, however, as all Harbaugh’s have: with a loss. Some fans gripe about his seemingly hands-off approach. But don’t let his youthful looks and exuberance beguile his intensity. He’s been known to rip into players, like he did last year after Dannell Ellerbe hot-dogged across the goal line in a preseason game. Harbaugh grabbed the linebacker by his jersey and chewed him a new one, in full view of TV cameras.

Call it a teachable moment.

Harbaugh’s sitting in an armchair in his office in June. The NFL lockout has kept him in here—and off the field—more than he’d like this summer. He’s played a little golf, visited the battlefields in Gettysburg, PA, but he hasn’t coached his players. It’s a frustration he’s turning into a positive.

“It’s been an opportunity,” he says. “Being a great coach is about being a great teacher. To me the foundation of being a good teacher is having a good lesson plan. We’ve had more time to look at how we set things up, how we teach.”

Photos of men who have taught Harbaugh loom all around him. In one, he and Reid, both wearing Hawaiian shirts, greet each other at the 2009 Pro Bowl. In another, he stares intently as O.J. Brigance, the Ravens director of player development, who is stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease, addresses the team in the locker room.

Across the suite on a bulletin board are drawings by his daughter, Alison, a fourth-grader. One features a happy-faced cow, another a smiling deer and bunny. His favorite is a rectangle design that looks like a maze. He’s learning lacrosse from Alison, who totes a stick around their Reisterstown home.

But even his lovely office is tainted by an 800-pound Roethlisberger in the room, if you will. Harbaugh’s gone 2-6 against hated Pittsburgh.

“Being a great coach is being a great teacher.”

“We’ve gotta find a way to beat the Steelers,” he says. “We’ve gotta get so much better than them that we bury them the next time we play, and then we come back and bury them again and again. Whatever we gotta do to put our foot on their throat and not let them up. When you walk out there and 75,000 Terrible Towels are waving and they’ve got the music going, that song they do by Styx, ‘Renegade’—I hate that song! But it gets you fired up because you want to be in that situation.”

Oddly, the two tussles with Pittsburgh won’t be the most anticipated games on the Ravens schedule. Instead, it will be the so-called Harbaugh Bowl on Thanksgiving, when two brothers will face each other as head coaches for the first time in NFL history. Emotions will run high.

“I love him,” Jim says. “He’s been my role model, my best friend. I’m forever proud that he is my brother.”

Harbaugh feels the same, but expresses it his way.

“We were in the same room for 16 years, and we had to draw a tape line. If you stepped across, there was a fight. The last time we fought, I was 27. He was the quarterback for the Bears. He got up to 6’4″, 230 pounds. I was 195, something like that. He takes us on vacation to Florida, we’re on the beach and we get into this wrestling match.”

The fiercest of competitors, yet the closest of allies, rolling around in the sand. The picture is painted.

“It’s getting a little aggressive and works its way over to the water. He gets a shot in, I get a shot in. I’m starting to think maybe I can hang with the big little brother. Next, he grabs me in a headlock, picks me up, and slams me into three feet of water.

“My head is on the sand underneath the water. Of course, he’s not going to drown me, but I’m thinking maybe he’s snapped. My dad’s trying to pull him off, but he’s too strong. I’m going to drown. Before I died, he pulled me up. He didn’t do mouth-to-mouth—that would have been against the rules. I then realized I’m never going to fight my brother again. He’s too big.”

When the laughter dies down, Harbaugh quickly adds that on Thanksgiving night, the outcome will be different.

“This time I’m going to have his head under the water, and the little bubbles are going to be coming out,” he says. “It’s gonna be big. I can’t wait.”

Win or lose—or, as Harbaugh matriarch Jackie says, “If it ends in a tie, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”—John Harbaugh will have one hell of a story.