Fighting Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens, trying to move forward from a 5-11 season, decided to have a giant brawl in mini-camp. For a team that was pathetic on offense and had major regressions on defense last season, new coach John Harbaugh seems to be a welcome change. What I don’t understand is why his players are letting so much emotion become involved in a mini-camp which is designed, in some part, to build teamwork. After a disaster of a season, every player from Ray Lewis to 7th round pick Allen Patrick should be focused on rebuilding that team. Here’s what Harbaugh had to say:

“Guys are competing, so tempers flare a little bit”

The only competition out there is for a roster spot, and I’m not giving somebody a spot who can’t control his temper against his own teammates. This is football - expect to get knocked around. I agree more with what Trevor Price had to say:

“Go ahead, wrestle each other, pull each other’s facemasks, yeah, great, wonderful, have fun. Now we gotta go play the Patriots. They won 18 straight football games. The Giants won the Super Bowl. Do we really have to prove we’re all men?” Pryce said.

“If we can get all this out of the way now, scrapping and being undisciplined and 80 men jumping in a pile together, fine. So now we’ve proved I’m tough, you’re tough, hooray, we’re all tough. Are we a good football team? What’s more important, proving you’re tough or proving we’re a good football team? That’s how I look at it.”

Pretty much sums it up. And to answer are they a good football team? No, clearly not.