At Rookie Camp, Ravens' Flacco Continues to Learn

OWINGS MILLS, Md., June 18 -- Joe Flacco is slowly getting used to all of the changes that come with making the jump to the NFL, particularly as a quarterback who also is a high-profile first-round pick.

"It's obviously different than being in college, when you're the starting quarterback and you know everything that's going on," the Baltimore Ravens rookie said. "When you're the rookie and not familiar with running the offense, you try and go out there and act like you are."

Flacco isn't the only one who has had to make adjustments the past 10 weeks, as the Ravens held a series of mandatory and voluntary workouts.

Baltimore's players are getting used to life without quarterback Steve McNair and tackle Jonathan Ogden, both of whom retired during the offseason, and are settling into life with new coach John Harbaugh.

But Flacco, the 18th overall pick and the de facto quarterback of the future, has been the center of attention for much of the offseason. The Ravens even postponed their rookie minicamp (originally scheduled for May 20-22) to this week, just to accommodate him. An NFL/NCAA rule limits rookies to just one minicamp while their schools are in session; Flacco attended the mandatory minicamp (May 9-11) and then returned home to New Jersey until May 30 (the last day of exams at the University of Delaware).

"Basically, our guys have dubbed it the 'Flacco Camp,' " Harbaugh said.

But the three-day session, which ended Wednesday, proved to be so beneficial for all of the rookies that Harbaugh said the team will consider holding rookie camp at the end of the offseason in the future.

"They're so much further along than if we'd had this camp at the beginning before they had been through the offense twice," Harbaugh said. "For a lot of these guys, it's their third time through the offense, and it showed up in their ability to operate the offense and run the routes. . . . There's more teaching going on because you dig deeper."

For Flacco, the most important thing was getting as many repetitions as possible. "Every single rep, you learn something," he said.

Flacco missed one passing camp in late May because of the NFL/NCAA rule -- he spent the week at home in New Jersey, throwing with his father and brother -- and during the other workouts, he split time with Kyle Boller and Troy Smith, his competition for the starting position. At rookie camp, it was just him and Brad Roach, a free agent signee from Catawba College.

"Is he making more mistakes or less mistakes? Well, he's not making the same mistakes," said Harbaugh, when asked how Flacco was responding to taking the majority of the snaps. "There are thousands of mistakes that are out there to be made from a quarterback, and that's why it's such a hard position to play. I don't know if there's anything in sports that is more difficult to do than be a really good quarterback in the NFL. There are a lot of layers to it, but he's pushing through those layers right now pretty good."

Offensive coordinator Cam Cameron has been helping Flacco adjust by using plays similar to what Flacco ran in college.

"We've always done that with young quarterbacks so they really don't have to perform and learn at the same time as much," Cameron said. "Once he gets his feet on the ground, and he starts to learn NFL defenses, starts to grasp our defenses, then we start demanding more of him in terms of what we want to do different than what he did in college."

Flacco said he feels he has a pretty good grasp of what the Ravens have given him so far. He certainly was putting the work in; he said he usually arrived at the team's training facility at 5:45 a.m. and stayed until dinnertime. He and Roach are roommates, so they've been helping each other learn the playbook.

"You first get here, and you're trying to pick up the offense, and you're in a new situation, a new environment, and you've got 800 different things on your mind," Flacco said. "Now that you're able to get that base knowledge for it, go out there and do it every day, you're able to feel a lot more comfortable on the field, which makes you feel more comfortable everywhere else."

Ravens Note: Quarterbacks, rookies and injured veteran players will report to training camp at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., on July 21, and the rest of the veterans will arrive two days later. The Ravens are scheduled to have two-a-day practices on 20 days. They will break camp Aug. 15. Their first preseason game is Aug. 7 at New England.