Biggest Overreaction From Ravens Minicamp

The Declan Doyle hype train needs to slow down. At least a gear or two.

It’s easy to get carried away this time of year in the NFL. Practices are non-competitive and the pads aren’t on yet and everyone is in the best shape of their lives and ready to have a career year. And when a team moves on from a set-in-his ways coach who had been in Baltimore nearly 20 years, and goes in an entirely different direction with a rookie head coach and rookie offensive coordinator who are very young and excited just to be here, it can lead to a lot of hyperbole and oversized rhetoric.

The more we study Doyle, the more we think he could be good. But there is also a history of potential play callers from the Sean Payton family tree failing pretty miserably and it is absolutely risky tabbing someone who is putting together his own offense for the first time and has never called play before and putting him with two-time league MVP quarterback in what could be his walk year amid a contract impasse in a Super Bowl-or-bust season .

So, yeah, everyone needs to slow their roll about how transformational and amazing an offense this is, since, technically, doesn’t even exist yet. If you can’t look “explosive” in seven-on-seven drills with guys like Jackson and Zay Flowers connecting against backups on air with no pass rush, then something is desperately wrong.

Come on man, what else would you expect?

Over The Top

Some of what was being suggested about a guy who just turned 30 and was basically a grad assistant at Iowa as recently as 2019 was a little cringe for me – hyper external timeline. He’s worked a few OTA practices and getting accolades that make him sound like Sean McVay making halftime adjustments to win a Lombardi Trophy.

“He is a genius,” Flowers said of Doyle last month, honestly. “He has stuff that I've never seen – plays and routes and stuff to help you get open. He teaches you in a certain way where you remember the plays where there's not too much stress on you. But, he gives you a lot, and he talks fast, too. I'm like, 'Hey, Coach, chill, chill.' He is a genius, though. I love it. We've been loving it so far.”

I get the zest to uncork a few veiled zingers at a former staff that wasn’t all that loved at the end but this is kinda silly so soon in this guy’s OC career. It also sends fans into a frenzy and creates unrealistic expectations. Flowers was picking up where defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver had left off commenting on Doyle earlier in that spring practice session.

Again, a little much for me.

“He is like a human computer,” Weaver said. “When he starts spitting out offensive information and plays from his past, it's like, he has this Rolodex of plays in his head. He's almost like he has a photographic memory.”

And as for Lamar himself: “The way Declan calls plays and his creativity with his mind — how detailed he is — it's mind-blowing."

If this is the case, we best not hear any grumbling about learning curves and figuring out how to string together play calls. No whining about calls not coming into the headset quickly enough or Doyle not able to make alterations outside of the opening 15-play script. Perhaps we should wait until he operates through a few regular season games with ease before we throw the G word around.

Doyle is going to have to fix a broken redzone and short-yardage offense. His offensive line doesn’t appear to currently have a starting center and his starting running back is 32, the age at which almost every halfback since 1970 has hit the wall.

Todd Monken is pretty accomplished and still became a head coach off a bad 2025, and he couldn’t find the right ideas and concepts to get this offense going last year.

Praise as high as what was being thrown around this spring needs to be earned. And that’s impossible to do in minicamp.

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