Zay Flowers Blames John Harbaugh's Brutal Practice Style for Constant Ravens Injuries
Zay Flowers has some thoughts on why the Baltimore Ravens kept getting hurt, and he's not keeping them to himself.
The Ravens wide receiver went on the '4th and South' podcast with Jarvis Landry and Leonard Fournette and pointed the finger squarely at how Baltimore practiced under John Harbaugh. The Ravens finished 8-9 in 2025, a season that doubled as Harbaugh's 18th and final year with the team.
Injuries were a constant problem throughout. In a Week 5 loss to the Houston Texans alone, Baltimore was without seven Pro Bowl players including Lamar Jackson, who was dealing with a hamstring issue.
Flowers didn't dance around it. He went straight at the workload and what he believes cost the team over the course of the season.
"Full pads all the time. However many practices in pads you can get, every single one. We're doing one-on-ones in Week 17. Week 17, we're doing one-on-ones, everybody out there, we're tired, we're still going," Flowers said. "That's why we had a lot of injuries. Because of how we practiced, how we went. The load was heavy."
It's a direct shot at Harbaugh's program, even if Flowers didn't frame it that way outright. The Ravens were consistently one of the more physically demanding teams in the league under Harbaugh's watch, and Flowers is now suggesting that came at a cost.
Zay Flowers had one big question for Jesse Minter
Which makes his first conversation with new head coach Jesse Minter pretty telling. Before anything else, Flowers wanted to know what practice was going to look like going forward.
Minter had worked alongside Jim Harbaugh back in 2017, so he understood the culture Flowers was coming from.
"He worked with Harbaugh in 2017, so he knows how it was, how we worked with Harbaugh. So he says, 'You're going to get your work, but it's going to be a little easier on your body. You're going to be fresher for the game.' That was the first talk I had with him: How's practice going to look?" Flowers added.
That kind of message lands differently when you've spent years grinding through the schedule Flowers described. A locker room that has dealt with that level of physical wear is going to notice a change in approach pretty quickly.
John Harbaugh has since moved on to the New York Giants, where he'll bring his own practice standards to a new group. How that plays out for his new roster will be worth watching as the season gets closer.
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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 8:43 AM.