Childs Walker: 5 things we learned from the first week of Ravens training camp

Eight practices into training camp, the Ravens have signed their top wide receiver to a mammoth contract extension, gained familiarity with an overhauled coaching staff and seen their newest additions don full pads for the first time. As they turn their attention to next week’s preseason opener, here are five things we learned from their first full week of camp:

Lamar Jackson aside, Zay Flowers is as important as any Raven

We can agree that Flowers is the best wide receiver the team has ever drafted. He sealed that case with 1,211 yards and a Pro Bowl appearance last season.

But this summer has felt different, and not just because of the $140 million contract extension Flowers signed Tuesday. There is no DeAndre Hopkins or Odell Beckham Jr. to distract from his status as the Ravens’ preeminent pass catcher.

Players and coaches gravitate to him throughout practice. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle checks in with him frequently. As he begins Year 4, he’s one of the organization’s made men, right up there with Jackson, Kyle Hamilton and a few others.

With the money and status will come more national scrutiny. Several analysts have blanched at the price tag, even though the deal is in line with those signed by peers such as Drake London and Garrett Wilson and will likely be dwarfed by other wide receiver paydays over the next few years. If Flowers fumbles at a crucial juncture as he did in 2023 or misses a must-win game with an injury as he did in 2024, his failings will be measured against the hefty chunk of salary cap he’s eating.

There are skeptics who will never be convinced he’s a true No. 1, given his diminutive stature and modest production in the red zone.

You get the second-biggest contract in franchise history, and the discourse around you intensifies. That’s the deal.

But the Ravens have no doubt they’re investing in a blue-chip asset who will keep them on the cutting edge of NFL offense.

“I think it’s the ability to take that guy, put him in a lot of places to get him the ball,” coach Jesse Minter said. “So it may not be that guy that lines up outside and every play is a one-on-one situation, but it’s a guy that affects defenses by motioning, affects defenses by being on one side versus the other. He has that ability because he can not only take the top off the defense [but] he can catch the underneath stuff. He’s elite with the ball in his hands after the catch. There are so many different ways to have him affect the game, and that’s what he is for us.”

Flowers’ importance to the Ravens is magnified by the lack of sure things behind him in the team’s receiver corps. Rashod Bateman is the closest to a proven running mate, but he’s trying to bounce back from a dreadful 2025. Rookie Ja’Kobi Lane has turned heads with spectacular practice grabs, but can he do it more consistently than he did in college? Fellow rookie Elijah Sarratt is off to a slow start in camp. Devontez Walker has flashed, but he was targeted all of eight times last season.

This team needs Flowers to be great and healthy, because the drop from him to Jackson’s next-best target is steep.

Minter sees a 25-year-old who’s ready for that burden. “I really do,” he said the day Flowers’ extension was announced. “And it’s just by how he operates and the positive energy that he brings. I do think he takes great pride in being a leader in that room and wants that room to be great as a whole and not just him, which you love for your key players. So he just keeps being himself and letting that naturally happen as he just continues to make plays and become a leader for us. But he’s certainly headed in that direction to being one of the pillars of this organization.”

When the hitting began, Vega Ioane was the guard who was promised

The pads go on the second week of camp, and we finally get an honest chance to evaluate the players whose work depends on brutal contact. This year, that meant our first real gander at the Ravens’ first-round pick, who’s expected not only to start but raise the standard at a position where the Ravens floundered in 2025.

The good news was that Ioane looked every bit the guy who’s supposed to step in as an above-average starter, ragdolling the more experienced defenders across from him. In that sense, he’s reminiscent of Tyler Linderbaum, the last plug-and-play lineman the Ravens drafted in the first round. He just feels like a player they’re not going to have to worry about for the next four years.

Veteran teammates said as much.

“I see everything I want to see from a pro, especially an early draft pick and an offensive lineman,” said left tackle Ronnie Stanley, the dean of the position group. “He comes in, and he is all about his business. He looks like a seasoned vet out there. I am not worried about him one bit.”

“Man, he feels like he has been doing it for a while now,” Minter said. “And it shows up in how he operates, shows up in his retention of everything.”

Ioane is not the only young blocker who has stood out. Tackle Carson Vinson looks much improved. He stood up rookie pass rusher Zion Young on Tuesday, provoking a testy response.

“He plays with a violence and a physicality mindset that I really like,” Minter said, noting that Vinson is making a strong push to be the team’s swing tackle.

These are necessary signs for a group that’s one of the least certain on the roster, with an ongoing battle at center and a lack of proven depth.

Ja’Kobi Lane makes catches few can, but he’ll be judged on his mastery of the mundane

Lane becoming the breakout star of training camp was as predictable as a sunrise.

You saw his highlight reel from USC, and it was obvious he would make the poetic catches that pierce the drudgery of early-August practices.

Lane did just that Tuesday, somehow reaching out to snatch the ball with his right paw as he was falling backward, with cornerback Nate Wiggins eating up his personal space. In real time, it looked like a magic trick. Reporters spent minutes trying to piece together what we had just witnessed.

A few minutes later, as if to say that bit of prestidigitation was no fluke, Lane reached down with his Mrs. Incredible arms to scoop in a pass that was about to hit the grass.

“He is a very different player, but the guy that I was around that his hands remind me of is [former New Orleans Saints All-Pro] Mike Thomas,” offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. “Mike Thomas had these strong hands where he could pull it down in a way, and you threw it in the vicinity and you felt like he was going to go get it. There is a lot of that feeling. He is a very friendly guy to throw to.”

There’s no greater generator of camp buzz than a rookie making catches that defy belief. It’s especially true for the Ravens, always searching in vain for a long-limbed receiver to pull down contested catches in the red zone.

We all remember past examples: Breshad Perriman, Miles Boykin, Isaiah Likely.

In some cases, early pyrotechnics foretold in-season production. Just as often, they did not. That is a point to keep in mind as we try not to get carried away on the Lane train.

There’s no question his upside is tantalizing, and only a terrible curmudgeon would deny fans their excitement over this new sensation.

Just remember the knocks on him as a draft prospect included pedestrian route running and inconsistent college production. In other words, Lane will have to convince the Ravens he’s a complete receiver so he’s on the field enough to produce the highlights fans expect. We know he has the spectacular in him, but he’ll need to be just as good at the unspectacular.

The good news, Doyle said, is Lane is proving to be a dogged self-critic: “Every single day — he grabbed me right before we came off the field — and he is like, ‘Hey, Coach, I messed up this.’ I am like, ‘Hey, you recognized that you made a mistake. Now, the next step is, let’s fix it before that happens.’”

Tavius Robinson has turned into a surprising linchpin for a defense that’s still taking shape

We have yet to see the front seven the Ravens hope will set a foundation for their return to defensive dominance. Nnamdi Madubuike, Travis Jones and Calais Campbell have yet to take full-team reps as they work back from injuries and, in Campbell’s case, family tragedy.

With so many starters missing, we saw worn-out defensive linemen near the end of Thursday’s hot slog of a practice. On the other hand, the absences have allowed for extended looks at young defenders and pushed returning veterans into less familiar roles.

Robinson falls into the latter category, with the Ravens using him as an interior rusher at least as often as they ask him to fire off the edge. He has disrupted more than a few plays this summer.

The Ravens have long fancied edge defenders with inside-outside versatility a la Za’Darius Smith and Pernell McPhee. If Robinson can be that, he could hold on to the expanded role he carved out last season, even with flashier talents such as Trey Hendrickson and Mike Green in the same position group.

“He can do so many things because of his traits, his attitude, his body type — not everybody is built like that,” defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said. “He has a mindset where he does not care where he is rushing from. Sometimes you get those edge guys who do not really want to reduce inside the tackle — he does not care.”

Coaches have always gushed about Robinson’s willingness to take on any task, his refusal to loaf through any rep. Outside linebackers coach Harland Bower called him the dictionary definition of how the Ravens want everyone to play.

“He’s violent-minded. He plays with his hair on fire,” Bower said. “He picks up the play of others around him.”

Bower talked about Hendrickson, Green and Robinson not as individuals but as a three-headed monster that will “give tackles fits” with different looks.

Robinson might never be a double-digit sack producer. Come the end of the season, he’s not going to be the No. 1 reason this revamped defense succeeded or failed. But every successful team needs supporting players who keep the whole picture glued together.

Enjoy Declan Doyle now, because his name could get hot in a hurry

The first week of camp is not the time to anoint a 30-year-old coach who has yet to experience his first game as an NFL play caller.

We’d be foolish to assume Doyle will be an upgrade over Todd Monken, an excellent coach at multiple levels, before we see his offense in real games.

That said, the Ravens’ new offensive coordinator has made a striking early impression, winning players’ trust, crackling with energy on the practice field and offering sharp answers to reporters’ questions. You can feel his brain humming when you listen to him talk football.

It can’t be easy to take command of a room featuring key players older and far more established than you. But to a man the Ravens’ offensive stars, from Jackson to Flowers to Derrick Henry to Mark Andrews, have lauded Doyle’s imagination and gift for holding everyone accountable on pertinent details. He hasn’t even decided if he’ll call games from the sideline or the booth above, but they seem convinced he’ll lead them to a promised land they never quite reached with Monken or Greg Roman before him.

Some of that is typical camp optimism, but you don’t usually hear NFL players throw around the word “genius” so loosely.

Which is all to say that, if the Ravens light up scoreboards, don’t be surprised to see Doyle near the top of teams’ head coach wish lists come January. Finding the next Sean McVay is a white whale for plenty of NFL owners, so a young offensive wizard who kills it in interviews is bound to tantalize.