The Ravens have a decision to make this offseason—kick the can down the road another year by assigning Lamar Jackson the franchise tag, hand him an enormous contract (one that would assuredly go down as one of the most lucrative in league history), or, if all else fails, allow him to test the market as a free agent. While the Ravens will occasionally splurge on players they deem worthy of a long-term commitment (they signed Roquan Smith to a five-year, $100-million extension upon acquiring him at this year’s trade deadline), those impulse buys have been few and far between, with ownership preferring a more frugal approach.
Apparently, that philosophy is consistent throughout the Ravens’ organization, even cutting financial corners when it comes to housing journalists like Jay Glazer, who said he had a nightmare experience while attending their training camp in the early 2000s.
“It’s Ravens family week, so every hotel is booked. So I’m staying in this crappy little dumpy place. It’s freaking disgusting. It’s $29 a night,” Glazer said of his accommodations, which included a twin bed and the lingering stench of cigarette smoke from previous guests. “I look around the room. I don’t have a problem with the French fries on the floor or the spiderwebs in the window, or the pieces of wallpaper ripped off the wall, but what the f--- is up with all the blood splattered all over this wall?”
Glazer eventually got in touch with a manager, who didn’t share his level of concern, nonplussed by what appeared to be the remnants of a crime scene. “So I bring him down, and by the way, I’m supposed to meet Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine for dinner, who are coaches for the Ravens at the time. And I said, ‘Hey man, I don’t have a problem with the spiders or the French fries, but what the f--- is with the blood all over the wall?’” the popular Fox Sports analyst told Olivia Dekker and Jerry Ferrara during his appearance on Unleashed. “And he literally says to me, ‘Oh, I got to call housekeeping.’ I said, ‘Housekeeping?!’ You should call Homeland Security! What are you calling housekeeping, like this happens all the time?”
Glazer’s replacement room wasn’t much better, moving across the street to a hotel that looked like something out of a Stephen King novel. “He’s like, I’ll get you the best hotel room in town. Well, the best hotel room in town is across the street at this inn that’s a converted schoolhouse like the freaking Shining,” said Glazer. “So I call Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine, and I say, ‘Hey, are you guys at the pub?’ They say, ‘Yeah.’ ‘I need you to get the biggest steak knives you have over there and come meet me at this hotel. Because I’m sleeping with these knives.’”
The Ravens, after years of holding training camp at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, have since moved their summer operations to their new Under Armour facility in Owings Mills, where Glazer and other reporters covering the team hopefully don’t have to wield steak knives to protect against the threat of impending doom.
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