Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh and his staff are returning to the Under Armour Performance Center, according to the team’s Twitter account. It’ll be their first time back in the facility since it closed in March due to social distancing regulations from the coronavirus pandemic.
This marks the second phase of the NFL re-opening training facilities. The NFL allowed teams to open their facilities to 75 employees back in March, as long as it didn’t include coaches and players not rehabilitating injuries. Under the second phase, the NFL is allowing teams to expand to 100 staff members, including coaches.
Baltimore has used video conferencing to hold virtual meetings and workouts with players. Though not ideal, it’s gotten the job done thus far.
“My understanding from talking to [Head Coach] John [Harbaugh] and others is that those meetings are going OK,” Ravens president Dick Cass told “The Lounge” podcast. “They wouldn’t be much better if the players were remote and the coaches were in the office rather than in their homes.”
With coaching staffs returning to team facilities, it’s another check mark on the list to football returning for training camp. Though the pandemic has made any true return to normal football far from a guarantee, this is a big step towards what Cass projected back in May.
“We believe by the time of training camp, we’ll be able to test players and coaches, and those who meet together a lot, multiple times a week and be able to get results fairly quickly,” Cass said on the team’s in-house podcast, “The Lounge.”
“If the infection rate is really low, as I expect it will be by late summer,” Cass said, “and we have adequate testing, and people are careful when they leave the building, I think there’s a really good shot that we’ll be OK.”
The Ravens are currently set to kickstart their schedule off against the Cleveland Browns on Sept. 13.
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