Ravens Offseason Program Geared Toward Avoiding Injuries
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — The Ravens opened their voluntary offseason program with a change in philosophy.
The goal is to cut down on injuries that helped derail the prior season.
"Philosophically, the program still stands on its own merits, but you make little tweaks," Ravens head strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders said. "We’re going to say, ‘OK, we don’t know what these guys have been doing.’ So, we’ll take a little step back and say, ‘OK, maybe spend a little more time in the evaluation process [and] add some other things to the program.’
"It’s just little tweaks to say, ‘OK, we’re looking at when we report for training camp and working backward from there, and just try to make them as good as they can be.”
There have been noticeable changes:
- The warmup is more broken down.
- The team is stretching more.
- Players are doing a little bit more for flexibility and just overall mechanics of warming up.
- Drills in the range of 10 to 12 reps have been reduced to eight to 10.
"So, I think they’re trying to tone it down a little bit and make sure that we’re really just getting into the groove of things and not really shocking the body too much," Saunders said. "I’m excited to see how OTAs and practices really start and how that schedule changes, and then training camp itself. I know in the training room, there have been a lot of positive changes. [I was] talking to some of the massage [therapists] that were here two years ago.
"They work on me at my house and stuff, and they said they’re coming back here for seven days a week they’ll be here. That was the first thing I had even heard about, so I’m excited for all the changes to come.”
The players are on board with the changes,
"I think it means you can believe in the process more because you know that the coaches and the organization is trying the best to take care of us," Pro Bowl fullback Patrick Ricard said. "They are conscious of the injuries we've had. In my opinion, you can't do the same things over and over again and get a different result. You're just going to be insane."