OWINGS MILLS, Md. - Practice hadn't started yet. The few thousand fans a sembled weren't paying attention and even the media was not yet on the lookout for the return of . It was the last quiet moment of the day for the quarterback, as the door to the locker room swung open and he was about to take the field; it was the last private time when the cameras wouldn't be chronicling his every move and all of Baltimore would not be obse sing over how he looked in his first training camp practices since his season-ending knee injury Sidney Jones IV Jersey . If ever there was a window for Flacco to waver, limp a little, show some hitch in his giddy-up, this was it. Instead, he quickly burst into a full jog and then nearly something like a short sprint, darting out to catch up to lumbering offensive linemen and . For as good as Flacco has looked during two spirited practices to open camp, watching him away from the football has been equally impre sive. He shows no signs of awkwardne s. He seems to be trusting his surgically-repaired left knee after injuring multiple ligaments last season. If not for the brace he intends to wear all season, you probably wouldn't have known the former Super Bowl MVP was coming back from anything of this magnitude. Of course, there will be more hurdles ahead, and Flacco is smart enough to realize that he may need to curtail his workload a little at some point this summer. But the early returns on the franchise quarterback have been overwhelmingly positive, and after another offseason in which this organization once again bestowed him with a record contract, the 31-year-old seems primed to pick up where he left off: as one of the most durable, productive and clutch pa sers in the game. "I feel good, I really do," Flacco told me after signing as many autographs as he could following the team's second full practice of the summer. "I'm really not thinking about it out there. I mean I had a guy step on my foot today as I threw a go route -- so obviously they were close to my left knee as it was out there -- and I didn't even think about it until afterwards. Like, 'Oh man, that was close.' So that was big. It wasn't like I was jittery back there because I don't want to step into my throws. So we'll see when we're out there for real, but I haven't really noticed anything to this point." Flacco is taking a nice, rich workload with the starting offense, doing so the past two days in some fairly oppre sive situations. Of course, the are taking every precaution; he is the sole player on the 90-man roster out there with a red jersey on (the other quarterbacks are wearing black), and the defensive players are being cautioned regularly about the need to keep their distance from the $20 million-a-year man. But Flacco isn't holding back much and feels like he is on the same upward path toward a full and rapid recovery he has been on for quite some time. "I've told him three or four times, it's just great to have him back out there," said Yanda, a perennial Pro Bowler who sets a physical tone for this line with his mauling play. "He's our leader. He's our guy." Of course, the unit is making a particular point of protection now, even with the no-contact rules in place. "We're trying to keep them as far away from the quarterback as po sible," Yanda said. During Friday's se sion Flacco uncorked a few big-time throws. He seems comfortable planting and following through, which is generally the last hurdle for quarterbacks coming back from this injury, especially against live opposition. He was even sharper than he was during Thursday's outing, as Flacco's deep ball looks in midseason form. He delivered a beauty of a bomb on a fly route to down the left sideline despite being pre sured and forced to throw off his back foot, and then hit rookie speedster in stride on the other side of the field next time up. "I definitely felt good today," Flacco said. "Yesterday, I felt good but I know I mi sed a few. Today I just felt like I had a good day. And that's how the progre sion is going to be. Already today, things don't feel as fast. Like yesterday I #12 Jersey felt the quick-game stuff felt fast, but today I was seeing it the way I expect to see it. So I'm optimistic about it." Until he takes a real hit in the area, Flacco won't know exactly how he will respond. He's seen guys like require 4-6 games in their return from ACL surgery to look like their old selves, firing through and planting as they normally would, but hopes to avoid an awkward phase at the start of this season. "I hope I don't have that, and I feel like I don't," Flacco said, "but I won't really know until I'm looking at myself on game film. But in my first couple of days out there I did make a point to keep asking the coaches what I looked like." His teammates have been raving about what they've seen, but then again, most of them were already impre sed enough by Flacco's performances during OTAs. "He seemed confident and wasn't back there hobbling around or stumbling or his footwork was off," said Pro Bowl safety , a newcomer who is eager to pick off a few pa ses in camp Quandre Diggs Jersey . "You couldn't tell he just had surgery in the offseason. It's definitely a positive sign ... To have him back and leading this team says a lot about his character, his toughne s and why he's one of the best, and why he's a Super Bowl winning quarterback. He's got the 'it' factor, and it brings everyone else's level up." Flacco has already been clicking with his favorite target, tight end , who himself is trying to return from battling a career-threatening hip injury the past few years. The synergy between those two seems as strong as ever. "It doesn't feel any different than it did a couple of years ago throwing the ball around," Pitta said. All of this is new to Flacco, of course. He was one of the NFL's true ironmen prior to getting his knee ligaments torn Week 11 against the . True to form he stayed in the game after suffering the injury to lead a wild victory, but then everything changed. Flacco rarely mi sed a rep in practice, much le s a series in a regular-season game, through the first eight years of his career. But doctors quickly confirmed he was looking at surgery last November. From that point on, he made a goal to be back out with his teammates for the first full practice of the summer. Mi sion accomplished on that front, with few setbacks along the way. "There might have been two weeks where I came in after the weekend and felt really stiff," Flacco said of his lengthy rehabilitation, "and I might have had two or three days through the entire time where I kind of got frustrated. But it was really just a proce s. "And being out there and getting field work over the last week has helped it even more. I went out here the first day (of limited work last week), and I didn't notice it, and that made me really optimistic about what it would feel like during camp. And through the first four days where we were basically doing just an hour of individual (drills) with all the rookies and injured guys, and now having two days of practice, I don't think about it out there. "Now, I don't know what I'm going to feel like after four days of two-and-a-half hours at a time, but I'll tone myself down and watch myself, because as soon as you really start feeling good you just want to go, go, go, go. But you have to be smart about it, and it's tough to do because you are so competitive and you want to go full force like you always do. And I think I have the ability to do that right now, but at the same time you don't wan to be stupid about it. I'm really just getting back, I'm really not even eight months (removed from surgery) yet, so I have to be really smart." As for the rest of his offseason beyond the rehab, well, it was typical Flacco. He's still all about football and his family, and all of the millions in the bank and the Nationwide commercials haven't gone to his head. He's still a homebody and anything but a man about town, albeit in a much bigger home now. His growing brood (he and his wife have three young boys now) keeps him busy. The last time I had a long sit-down with him -- at camp two years back, still on his first child -- he bragged about not changing diapers. I told him good luck with that, and sure enough, he's now a veteran at changing them now, too. "I still get out of it if it's po sible to get out of it, Cedric Ogbuehi Jersey " Flacco said, "but if I'm home alone watching the kids, then I'm definitely changing diapers. But I don't make a point to do it." Flacco, a Delaware boy to the core, still hangs with the same friends from high school and still takes the annual big family vacation to the Jersey Shore for the week of Fourth of July, just as you might gue s. "It's really the same thing as always," Flacco said. "This year I did finally end up buying a place down there, but until this year we would all still go to my grandparent's place. Three bedrooms. Little tiny living room. Little tiny kitchen. We'd pack 25, 30 people in there. So this year I bought a house and so it's a little bit different but at the same time it's still the same. I'm improving it a little bit, but it's not like we're going to be down there by ourselves. It's going to be all the same people, like, 'Hey, come on over.'" Flacco still gets a chuckle out of the "Is Flacco Elite?" memes. He hadn't seen the sign at the Republican Convention but did hear about it: "People still tell me about it, like I gue s it's really become a thing," he said, but most of the time he's too tied up playing bouncer/police officer/referee to his children to notice too much of what's floating around in pop culture. By the sound of it, he might want to start wearing that red jersey home with him, and make sure the boys (ranging from ages 1-4) don't go too hard on dad with appears to be a triumphant return for the home opener now just six weeks away. "They're crazy man, crazy," Flacco said. "Training camp is much more enjoyable now; I get a little time off! But no, being a father is incredible. It's so much fun. They have C.J. Prosise Jersey all the energy in the world. I definitely don't have all the energy at 31; it's a young man's game. But it's crazy, they're awesome. It's nonstop. They want to beat me up and beat each other up. It's crazy. I love it." More notes from Ravens camp Veteran receiver pa sed his conditioning test Wednesday morning, leaving corner as the last still to comply.Pitta continues to make plays, though things will ramp up a bit with the Ravens in pads the next three days in contact mode. "It's just another practice to me," the tight end said. continues to work hard in his Achilles recovery and is making great progre s. He's in good spirits and his presence walking the sidelines during drills is impo sible to mi s. The team figures oft-injured receiver , yet to really even practice fully since being taken in the first round a year ago, can be ready to practice within a few weeks, but there isn't a firm timetable yet.
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