Ravens excited to have Joe Flacco back ahead of Bengals matchup in Week 1

The Ravens have been marred by a rocky offseason, but at least their quarterback is back under center

OWINGS MILLS, MD -- At the mere sound of the question, Ravens receiver Mike Wallace closed his eyes, and raised his arms to the heavens, as if he had seen a vision. He was asked if there was any sense of relief at having starting quarterback Joe Flacco finally back on the practice field, after he missed the entirety of training camp and the preseason, ahead of a Week 1 clash with the rival Bengals.

"We were excited just to have that guy back," Wallace said. "Just to see him, and bring him in the huddle, and to have him calling the plays, just gives us more confidence. He's our guy and he's a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Anytime you are in a huddle with a guy like that, it's always going to bring more confidence to your team, and we're excited about that."

Wallace may not have been bowing as if he'd seen some deity, but then again perhaps he was. After all, he and the rest of this offense had spent the summer enduring the prospect of Ryan Mallet as the starting quarterback, amid a swirling and ongoing -- if self-imposed -- controversy about whether or not to sign Colin Kaepernick as a backup, and with the team trying an indoor football castoff for a spell as a reserve passer as well.

A pretty picture, it was not, and while significant concerns remain with this offense – specifically, can the offensive line stay together; whether there's anything close to a feature back on the roster; how did they get so thin at tight end so soon; is there a true downfield threat on the team -- Flacco's mere presence is a comforting sight.

He was nowhere to be seen on the practice field from the first day of training camp until just a few days ago, experiencing lower back discomfort. The Ravens, under a cloud of injuries, suspensions, retirements and just plain bad luck all around, took no chances, and essentially kept the former Super Bowl MVP in bubble wrap until September, knowing any chances of having a modicum of success moving the football started and ended with the $23 million-a-year quarterback.

It was a prudent business and football decision, though it did little to comfort the masses around here who have been frustrated with two straights years of tepid offense, of a complete lack of balance with the run game, and with the franchise's historical issues identifying and developing young receiving talent. With recent first-round pick Breshad Perriman, a constant injury concern, again more hurt than not in the preseason, with the loss of last year's top pass catcher Dennis Pitta to another devastating hip injury and with Flacco throwing nary a pass to late-offseason free agent signing Jeremy Maclin, it's safe to say expectations are restrained at best about how or when this unit comes together, at least outside the Ravens' practice facility.

"The expectations are what they always are," Flacco said. "We want to go out there and run the ball well and we want to hurt people down the field and we want to put points on the board. Just because we lost some guys and we had some injuries, your expectations don't change."

Of course, Flacco doesn't know exactly what to expect when he is exposed to full contact for the first time on Sunday in Cincinnati, in a stadium that has been a house of horrors for him (in career games at Paul Brown Stadium, Flacco has completed just 58.5 percent of his passes for just 5.57 yards per attempt and just 12 touchdowns to 15 interceptions with a brutal rating of 61.2). The former first-round pick isn't sure exactly when his back became an issue, but it started to bother him enough when lifting weights with some rookies right before the start of camp to notify the trainers, and Baltimore's long, uncertain wait to get its quarterback back would become a weekly summer subplot.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh was quick to come to the defense of his beleaguered offense with the season kickoff nearing and him finally getting a semblance of his regulars back (Ronnie Stanley, Danny Woodhead and Ben Watson are among some of the other players injured or returning from injury on offense who are practicing again).

"He was good, he looked sharp," Harbaugh said of Flacco's practice form, adding that he is "way past" any Kaepernick talk and not commenting directly on former Raven Ray Lewis' assertion that Baltimore was going to sign the former 49er until a controversial Tweet from the quarterback's girlfriend derailed it. "There have been no setbacks through the entire process -- which I think we said all along that was the main thing; no setbacks. And if there were no setbacks we were really sure he would he ready to go. So he's ready to roll."

The Bengals, who have no shortage of players who have accrued multiple suspensions for on-field hits, are well aware of Flacco's status, of course, and given the fact Baltimore lost its right tackle to free agency, right guard to a season-ending injury, is still uncertain at center and basically never had its starting offensive line together in the preseason, well, it might not be too long on Sunday before Flacco has a more keen understanding of precisely how sturdy his lower back is.

"I don't really care," Flacco said when asked about getting hit for the first time. "If I'm not fine, I'm not fine, and if I'm fine, I'm probably not going to think about it. That's the truth of it -- once the ball drops and once we're out there I'm going to be dropping back and playing, and I'm either going to notice that I got hit or I'm not going to notice.

"And usually when you get hit you don't see the guy and you get up off the ground and don't really realize it. So I'm either going to be doing that, and having not thought about it, or I'm going to be hurting and obviously thinking about it. So, either way it is what it is."

Both Flacco and Harbaugh said that as far as they knew from doctors the quarterback is not in any greater danger to reinjure the area, and Flacco is not one to overthink things, anyway. He is is nothing if not unfazed, confident and unflinching in his optimism in both his self and his team. But if you parse out his words, it's telling the order of which he mentions things and the import he places on the defense. If Baltimore has a top five defense -- and is able to finally mount a ball-control offense on the ground (which requires a play-caller committed to actually sticking with the run) -- then they may be primed to overcome some other deficiencies, at least on paper, and get back to a playoff spot. If not, the season could go sideways again, and big changes could be looming in 2018.

"I feel really good about us if our defense is doing all of the things they've been doing all of the preseason and what we've seen in all of the training camp practices, then we're going to be tough to beat," Flacco said. "If our offensive line plays solid and lets our backs and receivers do their work and gives them time to do those things the way our defense is playing, then we'll be tough to beat."

The joy at having Flacco back was palpable throughout the Ravens locker room on Wednesday. No one has to answer any more questions about when he'll actually practice and play anymore, and no one has to guess where the next pass from Mallett might end up. Not that Flacco is coming off a stellar year himself, as he struggled mightily a year ago and suffered the first serious injury of his career in 2016, a knee tear that ended his season.

But no one is dwelling on that now.

"He looks the same," Wallace said. "We hold him to a standard when he's out there, so he don't get any excuses. It doesn't matter if he missed two months or two days, if he comes back and he steps on the field he's got to be our guy, and he is our guy. And he did that. He came back and it was like he had only missed one day ... So we want to build on that and be the best offense we can be."