Baltimore Ravens Training Camp News and Notes: August 6

OWINGS MILLS, Md.— The Ravens returned to the Under Armour Performance Center today after practicing in front of more than 20,000 fans at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Head coach John Harbaugh called today a "grind day," as there was a lot more hitting than has been going on in the last week.

At one point in the early portion of practice, during one-on-one blocking drills, Kelechi Osemele was handling Sergio Kindle in dominant fashion. Kindle is more of an outside linebacker than defensive end, but Osemele showed the tenacity, power and leverage that made him such an impressive prospect.

Osemele did make a couple of errors, but while he didn't get everything right on the first try, he often corrected the mistake immediately after.

Another lineman who had a strong showing today was defensive tackle Haloti Ngata. In his first full contact practice of training camp, Ngata showed a quick burst and the ability to shed blocks with ease.

It was a physical, up-tempo practice where the defense had the upper hand for most of the day. It's tough to tell the full extent of a defense's success when they're not allowed to hit the quarterback. However, the defense continued to throw multiple blitzes and tight pass coverages at the offense.

One player who played particularly well in the secondary was cornerback Lardarius Webb. All throughout camp and again today, Webb has validated the amount of money the Ravens spent on him this offseason.

From snap to whistle, Webb contests everything. Whether the receiver is big, fast or both, Webb is able to cover them well. At one point, Webb was hip-to-hip with a receiver, then when the receiver came out of his break, so did Webb. The pass was low and away and Webb still intercepted it.

Some highlights for the offense came when Joe Flacco audibled at the line and hit Ed Dickson over the middle for a touchdown. Flacco also threw a perfect pass to Torrey Smith on a deep fade route along the sideline.

Both Dickson and Smith spoke after practice on how they feel about Flacco being their quarterback.

Dickson said, "I'm excited for him to be my quarterback this year." Smith echoed Dickson's thoughts: "I'm on the Joe Flacco bandwagon."

Although there have been days when the offense does better than the defense and vice-versa, Smith talked about how the camaraderie of the team doesn't change: "Everyone is competitive, and you want to win and beat each other down every single play...We are a family both on and off [the field]. It makes us all better."

Notes

• Matt Birk, Bernard Pierce, Jimmy Smith and Courtney Upshaw did not practice today.
• Ed Reed was in attendance, but didn't practice either. Emanuel Cook filled in for him.
• Marshal Yanda started practice, but didn't finish it. Coach Harbaugh said, "I felt like he had enough."