Ch-ch-changes: Harbaugh's new way of doing things is catching on

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It has become something of an NFL cliché in recent years, the notion that a new head coach or general manager taking over a losing team must before all else effect a dramatic culture change throughout the entire organization. First you supply a sweeping shock to the system, rejecting much of the way the team previously did business, and only then can you begin to revive, restore and rebuild.

If there's a general blueprint for turning things around in the NFL, it would fall within those basic parameters. That's exactly the process that's well underway in Baltimore this offseason. From my vantage point, the transformation project that John Harbaugh's Ravens have become is the league's most intriguing storyline to watch as the 2008 season looms.

In Baltimore's case, the dynamics in place are undeniably and deliciously combustible. You have a veteran-laden team that has long since grown set in its ways, but not without a great deal of success being realized this decade because of those methods. And you have a untested rookie head coach in the enthusiastic and energetic Harbaugh, whose determination to remake the Ravens into a more cohesive, disciplined, and less self-destructive unit is his every waking hour's goal.

As they say in the movie trailers, something's gotta give.

I talked to some sources within the Ravens organization this week to check in and find out how it's going in Harbaugh's attempts to teach a pretty old dog some very new tricks. Are the Ravens, who will return 19 of 22 starters this year -- including all 11 on its veteran-led defense -- being remade from the dysfunctional and disheartened 2007 unit that was fairly well torn apart by both injuries and the long-standing fissures that have existed between the team's ineffective offense and dominant defense?

Does Harbaugh at this point have enough team leaders who have bought into his program, thereby bringing the rest of the roster around to his vision of Baltimore as a resilient and resourceful club ready to shed its league-wide reputation as an undisciplined and somewhat self-centered collection of players? And after the debacle of last year's 5-11 collapse, could the still-talented Ravens be in the midst of building the foundation for one of those quintessential NFL worst-to-first turnaround stories?

People in position to know in Baltimore say Harbaugh, the former longtime Eagles special teams coach, has already made a remarkably quick impact on how the Ravens approach their work, how they think of themselves, and how they regard the importance of team chemistry.

"Everything has changed,'' said one Ravens source. "Everything. From the actual lockers, to the layout of the locker room, to the practices, to the weight program and how we lift. Our players even look physically different. They're bigger and stronger. That's been a huge difference, especially among our younger guys. It's very, very impressive.

"Just one example is that we used to do our lifting based on seniority. Now it's by positions. So the guys all compete against each other, against the guys they play with. There's more conditioning. High-tempo practices at all times. Lots of energy. Lots of accountability. It's a different mindset. We had become more of a walkthrough, stand-around program. But we've gone to the other extreme, and the players have responded.''

Not that the results were immediate by any means. Sources indicate there was a pretty strong locker room backlash to Harbaugh's new code of conduct in the early months of his tenure, with several players challenging him on such detail-oriented edicts as no slouching in meetings, no feet up on chairs, no hats pulled low over the eyes, and the wearing of game jerseys at practice. Harbaugh's priority at every turn has been to instill a sense of discipline to everything the Ravens do, believing that nothing typified Baltimore's lack of that essential ingredient to winning quite like its meltdown late in that Week 13 Monday-nighter against undefeated New England last season.

You remember that one. The Patriots would have never had to suffer the galling fate of losing at 18-0 in the Super Bowl if the Ravens' vaunted defense hadn't self-destructed beneath an avalanche of penalty flags and personal fouls in the pivotal moments of the fourth quarter. No other snapshot so perfectly sums up what needed fixing in Baltimore, and that near-upset ended by the Ravens' own hand seemed to presage the demise of coach Brian Billick's often-successful nine-year run.