Josh Tolentino: Ravens look physical. Can they play clean?

BALTIMORE — Toward the end of the Baltimore Ravens’ practice Sunday, I reached for my phone to type another note and discovered it had overheated.

The heat index had climbed into the 90s, and the device had spent more than two hours baking under the late-morning sun. My scorching work phone tapped out before the Ravens did.

Players pushed through more than 100 snaps in pads during the longest and most intense practice of training camp. Sunday’s session was scheduled to last 2 1/2 hours but wrapped after 2 hours, 7 minutes. The first-team offense and defense operated primarily at “thud” pace, making contact without tackling to the ground, while the reserves did full tackling.

Two weeks into camp, the Ravens are beginning to resemble the team first-year coach Jesse Minter hoped to build when he was hired this offseason.

They practice hard. They fly around. They look physical.

Can they play clean?

Their execution has yet to match their intensity.

Fortunately, it’s still August.

I counted more than a dozen penalties, including eight false starts by the offense.

Minter wanted Sunday’s practice to carry a game-like intensity, with each of the three units running roughly 34 plays. Players retreated to the sideline between series, discussed what happened and returned for another stretch of work. The setup was meant to test endurance while allowing Minter to gauge whether players could absorb corrections, communicate and execute as the heat and fatigue made everything more difficult.

That energy was most evident along the defensive line Sunday. With veterans Calais Campbell and John Jenkins back in the rotation, the Ravens’ run defense looked sturdier during full-team periods.

Physicality begins in the trenches, where the Ravens must prove they can hold their ground. Last season, the Ravens lacked the necessary beef up front.

“Good physical work, and I feel like we will be a little more ready to play now going into this week,” Minter said.

The Ravens were off Monday before practicing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They will host the Philadelphia Eagles in their preseason opener Saturday, marking the first game week of Minter’s tenure.

Baltimore appears capable of becoming the physical team Minter demands, though Sunday also showed the limitations of playing hard without playing smart.

Under former coach John Harbaugh, the Ravens committed 99 penalties last season, the fifth fewest in the NFL. Their pre-snap discipline was far less impressive. Baltimore’s 39 pre-snap penalties ranked 20th, and the Ravens committed more penalties at home (55) than on the road (44) while suffering the worst home record in franchise history.

Minter said the unscripted periods in Sunday’s practice offered the Ravens an opportunity to practice those key details. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle has emphasized varying the quarterback’s cadence throughout the preseason. If executed properly, it can disrupt a pass rusher’s timing, coax the defense offside and give the offense an advantage before the snap.

“That is really where you have to practice that stuff as much as possible,” Minter said. “We have to be dialed in and execute that.”

Minter described the cadence as a potential “real weapon.” On Sunday, the Ravens repeatedly aimed it in the wrong direction. The heat and workload surely contributed.

Still, better to expose the issue and adjust in mid-August than the season opener at Indianapolis.

If anyone benefited from the offense’s uneven outing, it was Tyler Loop. The second-year kicker converted all seven of his field-goal attempts, including three from at least 50 yards, and capped practice by drilling a 53-yarder.

At last, it’s game week.

The preseason might be easy to dismiss, especially when established starters like Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton barely participate. Still, Saturday’s exhibition at M&T Bank Stadium should offer the first look at whether Minter’s daily demands translate beyond the practice field.

When I asked Minter how satisfied he was with the team’s progress through the halfway point of camp, he pushed back on the premise.

“I don’t know that you’re ever satisfied,” Minter said. “You’re always trying to chase. To me, what you’re chasing in training camp is the best version of yourself every day, and you want that to continue to raise and raise and raise and raise.

“We’re really trying to chase detail, trying to chase execution, trying to chase just all the little things that can happen in a play where it’s not exactly how you drew it up — that to me is like problem-solving within the scheme. So, we will keep chasing all that. I like where we’re at.”

The Ravens’ most intense day of camp gave Minter plenty to like and plenty to correct.

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