"My first weekend here last year, I didn't know anything," Flacco said. "Now I'm a whole year ahead."
The same went for the veterans. Cam Cameron 1.0 was a fairly complex system that had to be installed incrementally. It wasn't a night-and-day departure from the Brian Billick/Rick Neuheisel model, but it was close. Everybody spent the minicamps adapting to the new offense.
It all turned out for the best. The offensive line was much better than advertised and got better this offseason with the addition of top draft choice Michael Oher. The Ravens also added tight end L.J. Smith to soften the workload on Todd Heap, and Pro Bowl center Matt Birk to replace Brown.
There are always new players, so this camp has a back-to-basics feel to it, but most of the offense already is comfortable in Cameron's framework, so the stage is set for the game plan to evolve.
"It evolves with the personnel," Cameron said Saturday. "We've gained some guys and we've lost some guys, and we'll look and see how we can fit them in the equation. We're not going to go out and run the exact same offense we ran this past year. ... Our offense, pretty much, is designed to attack the defense we play that week."
The Ravens took a giant offensive leap last season, but they'll have to take another one to go from AFC runner-up to the Super Bowl. Cameron seems confident they can do that if everyone continues to evolve and adapt.
"We're playing chess here - this isn't checkers - and I understand that," he said. "I think our coaching staff understands that. We have to be better coaches. We have to be better players. We have to give our players more tools, scheme-wise, to work with. And then we've got to master the fundamentals of those plays. That started [Friday]."
The difference this year is that they aren't starting from scratch.
Listen to Peter Schmuck every weeknight at 6 on 1090 AM and visit his blog, "The Schmuck Stops Here," at baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog.
