This Play-by-Play Goes Off the Field Too

It was the second day of training camp, and Ortege Jenkins was struggling. His passes were fluttering past the outstretched arms of receivers or--worse yet--landing in the hands of defensive backs.

Jenkins, a rookie free-agent quarterback hoping to land a job with the Baltimore Ravens, saw Coach Brian Billick shaking his head after each mistake, and feared that his days were numbered.

“I have to loosen up,” he said as a camera and boom microphone zeroed in. “If I can’t relax and just play “

Later that afternoon, a knock on his hotel-room door awakened him and there was that camera again, its bright light shining in his eyes. It was there to record the awful moment when a team official says, “Coach wants to see you. Oh, and grab your playbook.”

The cameras and microphones are everywhere at Western Maryland College. Nothing is out of bounds. The crew has been given permission to go just about anywhere--and it does, taking HBO’s television audience inside the Ravens’ camp on the weekly series “Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Baltimore Ravens.”

“‘Hard Knocks’ is as real as it gets,” said veteran wide receiver Qadry Ismail. “The biggest thing they are trying to portray is that professional athletes are just people. We’re entertainers, but our lives aren’t always that glamorous. There’s a lot of sweat, blood and tears that are part of training camp.”

With the program marketed as a sports reality series, the “Hard Knocks” cameras have taken viewers into huddles, Billick’s office, team meetings, players’ hotel rooms, cars and homes. Three of the six episodes have been seen so far.

It took NFL Films, a promotional arm of the league, to bring it to TV. As part of the agreement between the Ravens and HBO, team executives are shown a nearly completed version of the show on Wednesday mornings. Objections are rare, according to HBO and NFL Films officials.

“We’ve never done a show where we stayed with a team for this long,” said NFL Films on-site producer and director Bob Angelo. “We have much more access and cooperation from everyone than we’ve ever had. And as we are finding out, the longer you hang around the players, the more candid they will be with you. The access is nearly total.”

Last Friday afternoon, as talk around camp focused on the replacement for running back Jamal Lewis, who had suffered a season-ending knee injury two days before, the crew focused on Ozzie Newsome, the team’s senior vice president of football operations. He spent much of day with a cell phone at his ear, presumably talking to agents of players. At the time, as writers and fans wondered who the team was considering, only two people--Newsome and the sound man holding the boom mike--knew the Ravens had agreed to terms with Terry Allen.

Although the cameras and mikes are constant reminders to players and coaches that they are being filmed, most don’t mind.

“The camera is just part of life out here at camp at this point,” said defensive end Dwayne Missouri, a seventh-round pick from Northwestern. “At first it was a little weird, always looking up and seeing a camera, but now it’s just a part of daily life.”

Reality isn’t always fun and games. For instance, when a cameraman leaned over Lewis as he writhed in pain on the practice field, coaches and players sternly asked the cameraman to keep his distance. “It happens, but it’s rare,” Angelo said.

On the second show, 10 minutes were devoted to the death of Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer from complications of heatstroke.

“I don’t think we underplayed Korey Stringer at all,” Angelo said. “We asked quite a few people about it. It’s a 55-minute show. There’s a lot of ground to cover.”

Angelo grabs his camera and darts across the field to Billick, who is lambasting a player who he feels is slacking during a drill. Thanks to a wireless microphone on the coach’s shirt, Angelo doesn’t miss anything.

“I can’t think of any better way to develop a character than to hear what the character is saying--in response to criticism, in response to coaching, in response to the good and the bad that happens on a football field,” Angelo said.

He estimates that his crew shoots 125 hours of action every week for the 55-minute show. By Tuesday morning, eight producers have begun editing the raw footage.

By midafternoon, a rough cut of the program is viewed by Steve Sabol, executive producer of NFL Films; Rick Bernstein, executive producer of HBO Sports; and John Weiss, producer of NFL Films. Between 6 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., Weiss completes the program and sends it to the sound studio, where sound effects and narration are added.

At 7 a.m. Wednesday, a nearly finished episode is shown to Billick, Newsome and David Modell, team president and chief operating officer.

According to NFL Films and HBO, the Ravens only once have asked that a scene be removed. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the scene was one in which a player gestured as if he were cutting his throat. The reason for the edit was that the league has cracked down on such taunting gestures.

“They have not asked us to make any significant changes. I can’t stress that enough,” Bernstein said, “and anything that they did ask us to change in no way affected the authenticity of ‘Hard Knocks.’ ”

Self-consciousness isn’t a problem for veterans such as Tony Siragusa, who has a radio show, or Shannon Sharpe. They love the spotlight and provide comic relief. In one episode, Siragusa and some cronies pushed a heavy table against the door of a meeting room in which Sharpe sat with the other tight ends.

Said Siragusa with a straight face, “I hope they catch whoever is responsible for this.”

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“Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Baltimore Ravens” can be seen on HBO Wednesdays at 11 p.m., with a replay Thursdays at 8 p.m.