The Baltimore Ravens will move their team practice to the Saints’ indoor facility on Thursday after practicing outdoors in heavy winds at Tulane University on Wednesday.
The team will hold practice at the Saints’ facility at 5 p.m. ET, after the San Francisco 49ers complete their practice.
The Ravens will leave the team hotel at 2:45 p.m. ET and head to Tulane to get dressed and gather their equipment. The Ravens will then conduct their walk-through, which they call AACT (Alignment, Assignment, Cadence, Technique), outdoors for approximately 20 minutes.
After that walk-through, the Ravens will board the buses, in their practice uniforms and gear, and travel to the Saints indoor practice facility to conduct a full practice and special teams work.
“This wouldn’t have worked out if the coaches didn’t know each other,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh told ESPN.
Brother Jim Harbaugh’s 49ers practiced Wednesday at the Saints’ facility.
“The field at Tulane University was a little hard. The wind was OK, but we would rather be inside for the timing of our passing game,” Harbaugh told ESPN.
The Ravens practiced for nearly two hours on a makeshift 80-yard field stretching across the outfield at Tulane’s Greer Field baseball stadium and dealt with wind gusts up to 24 mph.
Besides getting approval from the 49ers, the NFL also had to give the Ravens approval to make this arrangement. After negotiations between the two teams and the league, the accommodations were made for Thursday and Friday. There is less of a conflict on Friday because both team’s practices are shorter.
Quarterback Joe Flacco told ESPN that the wind didn’t bother him too much, but said “If we are going to be playing in a dome we might as well practice inside.”
Rather than the heavy wind, Flacco said the “major issue” was the “pounding on the turf” the Ravens’ receivers and defensive backs were taking.
Baltimore had the option of working at the Saints’ indoor facility late in the afternoon or early Wednesday evening, after the 49ers finished. But John Harbaugh said Wednesday he and the players preferred to practice on schedule in mid-afternoon.
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