Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he changed Friday’s schedule from a full practice to a walkthrough so players are ready for Saturday’s scrum.
Harbaugh felt the players were emotionally exhausted from Thursday’s social justice meetings and physically tired from the string of padded workouts.
“You make all the decisions about what’s best for the team and it was clearly better for the team to enter a season schedule,” Harbaugh said on Friday.
An email from Ravens PR on Friday said the team’s morning practice was over for a “team unification session around social justice reform.” But a source said the Ravens have actually reunited for a movie review and position meetings, describing it as a transition from training camp to a regular season mode.
Harbaugh said the Ravens’ full statement on social justice came from a 2.5-hour meeting Thursday afternoon.
“At the end of the day, I was surprised how emotionally spent I was and how good everyone was,” Harbaugh said. “We had some really interesting, deep, thoughtful and empowering things that were said both ways, but with love.”
Harbaugh added, “I’m proud of the organization and the opportunity to be truly on the forefront of change. We’re doing our best. We know we’re not going to change the world overnight. But we can change our world., our family, our cul-de-sac to try to create that kind of atmosphere in our individual worlds. That’s what our guys are trying to do. “
The decision to practice on Thursday came after a series of conversations Harbaugh had with the players in the morning. There was talk of attending social justice meetings on Friday, but Harbaugh didn’t want to wait and chose to cancel Thursday afternoon’s meetings for those discussions.
“Frankly, I really wish everyone could be a part of a soccer team or like a soccer team in their lifetime,” Harbaugh said. “Because being part of a football team is a unique thing. A football team comes from many different places, races, spaces and religions, from different points of view. They have to come together and come together. hold together, even given their differences. “
Harbaugh said there had been no discussion on whether players will protest by not playing games.
“I think we’re going to play, the guys want to play. But I don’t know for sure. I would be surprised,” he said. “It’s not something we talked about. I can tell you this: that guys want to make a statement that lets people symbolically know how we feel and are united. Sometimes the greatest shape unity is the fact that we respect the opinions of others. “
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