Any time a team removes recreational activities from their locker room – typically due to poor performance – it becomes viral news around the NFL.
That was especially the case for a team like the Baltimore
Ravens, who were Super Bowl favorites in the preseason and fell flat on their faces with a 1-5 record to start the year. So when The Baltimore Sun reported last week that the Ravens’ coaching staff removed a ping-pong table and video game consoles, among other items, from the locker room, national media personalities dove right into the story.
On Wednesday, however, another report from NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo indicated that the locker room changes were made by veteran players, not the coaches, and Harbaugh confirmed that was the case.
“I was informed of it after it was gone by the equipment guy, and that the players, the veteran players, a couple of veteran players got together and decided they wanted to take that stuff out,” said Harbaugh before jokingly lamenting the loss of his pinball machine.
The Ravens’ next opponents, the Chicago Bears, responded with a video on social media of their players enjoying games in their facility, which gave the story more life. Baltimore got the last laugh with their 30-16 victory on Sunday.
On Tuesday, veteran cornerback Marlon Humphrey addressed the matter on his podcast, The Marlon Humphrey Show. Initially, he confirmed that the decision was driven not just by the players, but by one in particular, hinting that it was one of the team’s very best players.
Finally, Humphrey couldn’t resist revealing who it was: “Lamar Jackson. He said ‘we’re having too much fun up in here. Get this up out here,‘ so he got it out.”
Jackson confirmed on Wednesday that it was his call.
“I told Kenico, our head equipment guy, to take all of the games…turn the TVs off,” he said. “I appreciate [Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti] for putting that in there for us, but we had to focus.”
“I didn’t feel it was the time for that. We have a lot of work to do,” he concluded, though he did make it clear that he was not knocking his teammates for their work ethic or preparation,
It seems like the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar face of the franchise decided to get control of the locker room amid a terrible start. Did that singlehandedly inspire Sunday’s season-saving win? Probably not, but it’s notable that Jackson saw the need for something different and took charge.
