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OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- On the first day of the Baltimore Ravens' full-squad training camp practice, quarterback Joe Flacco ran smoothly onto the field, zipped passes to his receivers and confidently took full control of the offense. In short, Flacco appeared perfectly healthy Thursday after offseason knee surgery.
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Flacco, however, has not played a game since Nov. 22 when he walked off the turf at M&T Bank Stadium against the St. Louis Rams with a torn ACL and MCL. He spent the next eight months making sure he was ready for the start of this year's camp.
Mission accomplished.
"It's felt really good," Flacco said. "I was really optimistic the first day I went out there, and within a couple minutes, I really just forgot about it. Not that it is going to be like that the whole time, I don't think, but it was just a really good sign. I felt like it was a good sign as to how I may feel moving forward. We'll see after weeks at a time on it."
Flacco, 31, took most of the snaps on a sweltering day at the Under Armour Performance Center. However, he did have a bit of a different look. Flacco was wearing a protective brace on his left knee. He plans to wear that brace during practice and games throughout the 2016 season.
"If it helps a little bit, that is huge," Flacco said. "I'm not going to leave a risk, and then have something happen and say, 'What if?' I'm going to wear it; there is no reason not to."
Flacco can't be too careful because much of the Ravens' season hinges on his health. He led Baltimore to the playoffs in six of his first seven seasons as the starter.
After he went down with the knee injury, Baltimore lost four of its next five games en route to a disappointing 11-5 finish -- the first losing season under John Harbaugh, who is entering his ninth year as the head coach.
Flacco's teammates said it was difficult to determine that he was injured at all, judging by the way he performed on the first day of practice.
"He seemed confident and wasn't back there hobbling around or stumbling or footwork was off," safety Eric Weddle said. "You couldn't tell he just had surgery in the offseason. It's definitely a positive sign."
While Flacco feels good, he is not overly concerned about playing in preseason games. He said the goal is to be fully healthy for the season-opener Sept. 11 against Buffalo.
Flacco will use the practice to sharpen his skills after the layoff. He already holds franchise records for most yardage (28,322), completions (2,479) and touchdowns (162).
"The goal is to make sure I'm as healthy as possible [for] regular season game one," he said. "I haven't directly talked to John [Harbaugh] about it. I talked to the doctors a little bit, and I'm not ridiculously worried about playing a ton in the preseason. The way our practices are out here and the way we compete and how competitive they are, I'm going to get plenty of work out here. Just talking to them -- you want to keep it [safe] -- I've played in a million games, and to put it at any further risk of getting hit in a simple early preseason game probably wouldn't be the smartest thing. I'm not really too concerned with that stuff."
--In his first practice, Flacco did not have at least three wide receivers who were on the roster -- Mike Wallace, Steve Smith and Breshad Perriman.
Wallace did not practice on the first day of training camp because he failed his conditioning test. When asked if Wallace was close, Ravens coach John Harbaugh said, "I'm not going to get into all that. Either you pass it or you don't."
The Ravens signed Wallace in the offseason to provide quarterback Joe Flacco with another downfield threat. Wallace is a proven veteran with 414 receptions for 6,307 yards and 49 touchdowns over his seven-year career. However, he has some work to do before he officially plays for Baltimore.
Smith was placed on the physically unable to perform list entering training camp. Smith had initially announced that he was retiring at the end of last season. Those plans changed when he tore his Achilles mid-season. Smith hopes to be back for the regular season opener.
Perriman started training camp on the physically unable to perform list after injuring his knee in offseason workouts. However, arthroscopic surgery showed that he did not have a torn ACL and could be available at some point during training camp. That was much-needed news for the former first-round pick. Perriman injured his knee during the opening training camp last year and was out the rest of the year.
