For nearly a month each summer, Ravens players move from their luxurious homes to a two-story hotel, where they share a room that is smaller than some of their man caves.
Instead of fancy dinners with significant others, they eat in a cafeteria with 80 of their closest (and largest) friends. Nighttime trips to clubs are replaced by evening meetings.
As a result, their thoughts are squarely on football. Their circle of friends during training camp is composed of teammates.
It's the ultimate in team-building. And the road to winning Super Bowls increasingly has been starting in small college towns surrounded by rolling hills and not much else. The past four champions - the Pittsburgh Steelers (twice), New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts - have bucked the league trend, opting to keep their training camps in isolated suburbs rather than their regular-season headquarters.
Can keeping players away from everyday distractions during camp, as the Ravens do in Westminster, bring them closer to a title?
"I don't know whether it correlates to being a Super Bowl champion," coach John Harbaugh said. "But I know this: We believe in it very, very strongly."
The Ravens' goal at McDaniel College each year has been to improve the offense and maintain excellence on defense. But the purpose has always been to build focus as well as form a family.
For much of August, players' days begin at 7 a.m. (when they must check in for breakfast whether they eat or not) and end at 11 p.m. (mandatory bed check).
There is a full-contact, two-hour practice in the morning and a shorter, noncontact version in the afternoon. Players are constantly moving throughout the hotel with playbooks in hand because there are meetings in the afternoon and at night.
During players' brief free time, some try to grab a quick nap. That is, if their roommate isn't snoring or talking in his sleep. Only a handful of veterans get their own room (which is the only change in Harbaugh's camp this year), so most players fight over the remote for a television that gets about 30 channels.
Others convene on "The Porch," the bench outside the cafeteria. Between dinner and the last meeting of the day, cornerback Samari Rolle and quarterback Troy Smith are the ringleaders of a group that kicks back there and makes fun of teammates who walk by, joking on what everyone is wearing.
"The only thing missing is an old lazy dog," Rolle said of The Porch.
