Ravens Glad To Have Veterans Back At Practice

With all the focus on the drama surrounding Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie, it was still great news to hear he had passed his conditioning test and joined defensive tackle Haloti Ngata back at practice yesterday. McKinnie spoke about his frustration on being unable to lose the weight he would have liked to in an article on BaltimoreRavens.com.

Ngata is back after becoming a father of what has been reported to be a ten-pound baby boy. While head coach John Harbaugh says he needs to get up to speed with the rest of the players, he acknowledges that Haloti feels he is ready to go right away. Somehow it's hard to doubt the will of the big guy who might be well over 300 pounds, but still has the athleticism to catch smaller players downfield on a regular basis.

Cornerback Jimmy Smith did not practice Friday after leaving the field on Thursday with some sort of back injury. Harbaugh gave a rare injury update on what he reported to be a total of 17 players who did not participate in yesterday's practice. Expect many of them to be at today's M&T Bank Stadium practice but the level of their participation remains to be seen.