Picture this: You compete in a 100mts race on Saturday. You come first. You compete in a 200mts race on Sunday. You lose. Why? The muscles, bones, and every little part of your body hurt to some extent after a single race. And to do it all over again the very next day? You are bound to lose because you are injured. You won’t be able to give your very best. Something of that sort could have happened with Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers.NFL Insider Ari Meirov shared a clip from Flowers’ recent appearance on 4th And South w/ Jarvis Landry & Leonard Fournette. During the show, the 25-year-old wideout, who is entering his Year 4 with Baltimore, declared that under John Harbaugh they were always in full pads, doing 1-on-1s late in the season, and “it’s why we had a lot of injuries.”
Baltimore Ravens players reportedly got a lot of injuries under John Harbaugh’s reign
Ravens longtime head coach John Harbaugh left Baltimore for the New York Giants this offseason. The injuries in part reportedly happened during Harbaugh’s reign. Now, the Ravens will have a new head coach, Jesse Minter, and the first thing Flowers asked him about was the late-season adventure of wearing full pads.Minter said, “It’s going to be a little easier on your body.” Flowers’ question made the podcast hosts laugh out loud, but the wideout got the reassurance he needed from his new coach.Most NFL coaches want their players well-rested when it matters most: late in the season and during the big games. But Harbaugh probably followed a different trend in Baltimore, where players were subjected to extensive late-season workouts that reportedly led to many injuries. This theory could be shared with another head coach in the league: Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson. But through a different context.
Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson probably shares John Harbaugh’s thought
The 2025 season was Johnson’s first year as a head coach. Previously, he was the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator under HC Dan Campbell.Johnson expressed his satisfaction with the Bears’ early Week 5 bye in 2025. “I actually like where that bye week is,” Johnson said. “Because it usually takes about four weeks into the season to find out who you are as a team, what you do well, what you don’t do well, and that’s a good time, so we can reflect on that as a coaching staff.So, we can hone in on what we want to be for the remaining three-quarters of the season. It can take up to half the season before they really start to mesh and come together.”Maybe Harbaugh shared a similar perspective. But Flowers didn’t appreciate it at the grassroots level (gridiron level to be precise). So, perhaps that wasn’t what the players wanted all these years, or at least since Flowers’ 2023 season.Anyhow, as for Baltimore’s star QB Lamar Jackson, there is a whole different theory of being injured. As explained by Nick Wright of First Things First.
Ravens QB Lamar Jackson shows signs of immaturity every single season
First Things First host Nick Wright said that the 29-year-old signal-caller shows signs of immaturity. “I think there are a lot of signs of immaturity with Lamar Jackson,” Wright said in December 2025. “Within the game? Doesn’t face much adversity. But when he does, I think we see some immaturity.The way he uses social media? Speaks to immaturity. Being damn-near 30 and not figuring out how to not get sick every winter when your job demands you be at your best every winter? Speaks to immaturity.”Wright further said that Jackson was the only starting QB in the league who couldn’t avoid getting the seasonal flu and missing practice: “He’s the only franchise quarterback in the league that we expect every winter to get sick and have it show up on an injury report.”
