Ravens Clips
While Lamar Jackson has been in attendance for parts of Baltimore’s offseason program, he is not on the field on Tuesday.
Via multiple reporters on the scene, Jackson is not attending the Ravens’ second OTA practice, which is the first open to the media.
It’s currently unclear whether or not Jackson was there on Monday — though the Ravens did not post any images of him on social media.
Jackson was there for Baltimore’s first day of offseason work and the club’s voluntary veteran minicamp under first-year head coach Jesse Minter.
Jackson has a $750,000 workout bonus tied to his attendance for at least 80 percent of the offseason program. In both 2024 and 2025, he waived that bonus.
For the first time in a few years, Jackson is set to play under a new offensive coordinator in Declan Doyle.
The Commanders and Ravens are both set for joint practices with multiple teams this summer.
The Vikings announced that they will be working with the Ravens ahead of their preseason game in Minnesota on Monday and the Ravens announced that they’ll also be working out with the Commanders a short time later.
That session will take place at the Ravens’ facility on August 26. The two teams will wrap up the preseason with a game in Baltimore two days later.
While the Commanders will be making the short trip to work with the Ravens, they’ll be the hosts when the Dolphins come to town earlier in the month. Nicki Jhabvala of TheAthletic.com reported that they will practice with the Dolphins before their August 14 game.
The Vikings will only have one home preseason game this summer, but they’ll get more than one day of work against their opponents that week.
The team announced that they will have two days of joint practices with the Ravens. They are set to work with the AFC North team on August 19 and 20 with the preseason game between the teams scheduled for August 22.
Joint practices have been a regular occurrence during Vikings’ camp in recent years. They have also worked with the Patriots, Browns, Titans, and Cardinals in recent seasons.
The Vikings will visit the Giants and Broncos in their first and third preseason games this summer. The Ravens will be hosting the Eagles and Commanders.
John Harbaugh gave the commencement speech at his alma mater over the weekend, and he used his own recent firing to illustrate a point about resilience.
Harbaugh, who was fired by the Ravens and hired by the Giants this year, spoke at Miami University of Ohio, where he played football in the 1980s.
“There’s going to be tough times. They’re going to show up, too. You might get a call with some bad news. Maybe about your job. Maybe they’ll tell you they don’t want you anymore. Time to move on,” Harbaugh said, via ESPN. “It happens. In those moments, I hope you’ll find resilience. And you’ll be able to rejoice in all the good you’ll still have. And all the people who still care for you. That you’ll come to understand that there is a great opportunity on the next horizon of your life. And you can still walk together into every uncertain future with the people you love.”
Harbaugh told graduates he wants them to know about the “amazing power of caring and encouragement” and how they can affect the lives of the people around them by pointing out what’s special about them.
During 19 years with the Steelers, coach Mike Tomlin worked 114 games against teams from the AFC North. In his fifth game as an analyst on NBC’s Football Night in America, Tomlin will be handling a game involving an AFC North team.
It’ll happen on October 11 in Atlanta, when the Ravens face the Falcons.
As mentioned on Thursday’s PFT Live, Tomlin’s assessment of the Ravens and quarterback Lamar Jackson promises to be must-see TV.
That opinion is based on just a few minutes of hearing Tomlin talk during an FNIA planning meeting on Monday about the challenge of defending Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, along with other things Tomlin believes Jackson needs to do as he gets closer to his 30th birthday.
I’ll defer the details to Tomlin. But his comments riveted the room. In general, you won’t want to miss anything Tomlin says before any Sunday night game. You definitely will not want to miss what he has to say during the pregame show before Jackson and the Ravens face the Falcons in Week 5.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
When Jaire Alexander stepped away from the Eagles last season, there was word that he planned to “focus on getting himself right physically and mentally before deciding on his future” as a player.
Alexander’s knee troubles led to the Packers releasing the cornerback after the 2024 season and he wrote in an essay for The Players Tribune that he struggled to deal with that release while likening the end of his seven-year run in Green Bay to a “divorce.” He signed with the Ravens, but had a poor outing in a season-opening loss to the Bills that left him “very, very embarrassed” and doubting his health. He would only play one more game as Baltimore deactivated him in order to try to recover on both fronts and eventually traded him to the Eagles.
Alexander wrote that he made the decision to step away without appearing in a game because his knee began troubling him again and that led to a repeat of doubts about his ability to do the job. He wrote that he “needed to listen to myself, and look out for myself, and put my well-being first.” Alexander’s essay outlines some of the ways he’s done that and whether he is considering a return to the field.
“People still sometimes ask me if I’m ever gonna come back and play,” Alexander wrote. “And, you know what . . . I’ll never say never — I still work out, and the knee’s fine now, so I’m in good shape. But for me, right now, the most important thing really is just to be in a good place overall. To be happy.”
Alexander had previously addressed his mental health and the detail he shares in the essay underlines how difficult last season was for him. His play when healthy in Green Bay would likely earn him a look if he does decide to play again, but it’s far from certain things will play out that way.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
Browns head coach Todd Monken spent the last three years overseeing the Ravens’ offense and part of that role involved the development of wide receiver Zay Flowers.
The process went pretty well. The 2023 first-round pick made two Pro Bowls while amassing 237 catches for 3,128 yards and 14 touchdowns during his three years playing for Monken.
Cleveland used one of its first-round picks on a wide receiver this year and Monken sees some connective tissue between what Flowers brought to his offense and what rookie KC Concepcion could be able to do.
“There are some traits that are similar to [Flowers],” Monken said, via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN.com. “But I love when people spoke about KC, it reminded me of Zay in that, in terms of how he practiced, what he brings in every day. And if you’re looking for that comparison, that I can compare, I believe he’s going to bring that like Zay did.”
Flowers has had the benefit of playing with Lamar Jackson and the Browns don’t have that kind of certainty at quarterback, but a quick transition to NFL life will help whoever winds up slinging the ball for Monken this fall.
The Bengals know they will be playing in Baltimore at some point during the 2026 season, but the timing of that game will be of some interest.
When the schedule is released on Thursday, head coach Zac Taylor and the rest of the Bengals will learn whether their annual road game against the Ravens will be played in primetime for the fifth year in a row. Taylor was asked if he’d be surprised to see things go that way during a press conference on Tuesday.
“I think I would be surprised, but prepared for it, if that’s what they choose to do to us for the fifth straight year,” Taylor said.
The Bengals lost their first three night games in Baltimore, but they snapped that streak with a win over the Ravens on Thanksgiving in 2025. This year’s matchup will look different from that one in one significant way as Jesse Minter is now coaching the Ravens. We’ll find out if the setting is also different in a couple of days.
