Playing hardball

OWINGS MILLS, Md. – At a time of year when the weather calls for a trip to the beach or a stroll on a golf course, John Harbaugh starts thinking about football.

“I’ve got the same feeling now that I’ve had the past 24 years going to training camp, whether it was at Western Michigan, or Philadelphia or Baltimore,” he said. “You just can’t wait to see the guys and walk out there on the practice field. You can feel that sense of excitement.”

This training camp will be unlike all the others for Harbaugh – and for many of the Baltimore Ravens.

The late July start, short practices and the option of sleeping at home – all the features of a Brian Billick training camp – have vanished. When the Ravens reported Monday to McDaniel College in Westminster, they were ready to sweat.

Billick was fired Dec. 31 after a nine-year run and replaced by Harbaugh, who waited more than two decades for this opportunity. He’s already coached the players at a mandatory minicamp and in other offseason practice sessions, but now it’s time to get serious.

“I feel excited, and I feel challenged. I’m looking forward to standing in front of an NFL team for the first time as a head coach,” Harbaugh said. “The framework of the program has already been established, but putting it into play in a training camp setting, when they’re all there focused on the season at hand, that’s different.”

Billick didn’t run an easy camp, but he placed a high priority on making sure the players weren’t overworked. If a veteran asked for an afternoon off, he usually was accommodated. That probably won’t happen at Camp Harbaugh. Or is it Hardball?

“It’s going to be challenging. The goal is to build a strong football team,” Harbaugh said. “The goal at training camp is not to come out fresh. You want to come out strong.”

Harbaugh, 45, learned the advantages of a tough training camp from his father, former college football coach Jack Harbaugh, and Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, under whom Harbaugh served as special teams coach from 1998 through 2006 before becoming secondary coach last season.

Billick had a policy of allowing veterans to spend the night at home after the first few days of camp. Harbaugh has mandated that all players must stay at the team hotel.

“There’s a certain camaraderie that goes with that, a certain sacrifice,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t see any reason for guys to be driving home at night during training camp.”

Harbaugh’s most pressing issue will be to find a starting quarterback. Kyle Boller, Troy Smith and rookie Joe Flacco will be given every opportunity to win the job. Harbaugh can’t think of a better scenario to determine which player deserves the right to start against Cincinnati on Sept. 7.

“This is the ideal situation because the players are going to make the decision by how they play. You don’t always have that, because guys get established at positions,” Harbaugh said. “The most pure form of competition is three guys battling for the ball, and that’s what we have here.”