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HomeSportINTERVIEW: Hard Knocks Director Says Baltimore Ravens 'Have a Chip on Their...


Bundled up in a coat and hat outside M&T Bank Stadium, home to the Baltimore Ravens in Maryland, is Hard Knocks producer and director Tim Rumpff. He has spent the last couple of months nested with the kings of the AFC North, the team whose name derives from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, which tells the story of a distraught lover who receives a visit from a single raven.

The stadium is just a 30-minute stroll from the poet’s house and a 20-minute walk from his final resting place, but Rumpff grew up over 40 miles away from Baltimore, in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“I grew up coming to some Ravens games and a lot of Orioles games,” Rumpff tells me. But his team was further afield, “Growing up in Maryland, right outside DC, I naturally grew up more of a Washington fan.”

But all is forgiven because the Ravens didn’t exist until 1996 when Art Modell, the former Cleveland Browns owner, relocated the franchise.

Rumpff reflects on the glory days of his Washington team, “When I was born, I think Washington was in the Super Bowl – they lost – around that week. They haven’t been back since I was eight.”

The last Super Bowl win for Washington was in 1991, when they beat the Buffalo Bills 37-24.

But Baltimore’s last Lombardi Trophy came home to Charm City in 2013 when Joe Flacco led the Ravens to a win in New Orleans, kicking out quarterbacks Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady on the way.

The Ravens, who Rumpff has spent time around through his work on Hard Knocks: In Season With the AFC North, have the chance to repeat history this year in a poetic way – as is in their blood. A stat has been floating around the internet that caught Rumpff’s eye that every 12 years, it’s in this team’s fate to return to the Super Bowl and bring one home.

Lamar Jackson Hard Knocks
Hard Knocks: In Season with the AFC North. Lamar Jackson turned 28 on January 7.

Photograph by AP Images/Courtesy HBO

“It’s not only every 12 years, but I guess every 12 years they’ve won it with a 28-year-old quarterback. Lamar [Jackson] just turned 28,” Rumpff says, a knowing smile on his face, “It could be true.”

If it is, Rumpff will be on the front lines, capturing every second of it. He and his Hard Knocks team have been with the Ravens since they took on the Philadelphia Eagles in week 13 of the regular season.

At the time, the Ravens were a quiet feature in the show. “It was in a tough spot because obviously the first week they’re on the show they lose to Philly and then the second week they’re on a bye, and the players really weren’t around,” Rumpff tells me, “as someone that’s been embedded with the Ravens, I’m certainly excited for where the show is going with more and more Baltimore content.”

Baltimore is now the last AFC North team standing and the star of the show.

With the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns not making the playoffs and the Ravens handing the Pittsburgh Steelers their final loss of the post-season in Wild Card weekend, the future of this season of Hard Knocks rests with Rumpff and the Ravens.

“This year was completely different than anything we’ve ever done just because doing an entire division with four teams simultaneously, I have to say, it’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done in NFL films,” Rumpff says. “From a storytelling perspective, it’s the most difficult, but also just from the execution because in each city, we’ve got around 15 crew members embedded with the team and then the NFL Films team back in New Jersey. So, we’ve got anywhere between 30 and 40 people that have their hands on the show at some point. It’s a lot of manpower that’s going into pulling this off.”

Rumpff reveals that there’s “maybe 300 hours of footage just in Baltimore each week to make that 1 hour of television”, meaning there are approximately 1200 hours for editors to cut down each week with just a two-day turnaround.

“That’s my favorite thing about working on a show like Hard Knocks. If something happens on Monday that’s important – sometimes even Tuesday morning – you will see it on the show the next day/that evening,” says Rumpff. “When we get down to only one team left and say they win the Super Bowl, if something significant happens that Monday after the Super Bowl, I’d expect to see it in the show on Tuesday. It’s really amazing to be part of a production that’s able to do that.”

John Harbaugh
John Harbaugh in Hard Knocks: In Season with the AFC North. Harbaugh has been head coach of the Baltimore Ravens since 2008.

AP Images & Getty Images/Courtesy HBO

That same tenacity and grit that’s required to churn out an hour of compelling television in the cutting room in just 48 hours is reflected in the show’s subjects.

“[The AFC North is] the toughest division. It has a personality of its own,” says Rumpff.

Everyone knows to expect a brawl whenever these teams come together, and the winner will be whichever team can keep up the fight the longest.

That fighting spirit is a mirror of the cities each team resides in.

“That helped as a starting point,” Rumpff says about finding the narrative thread between the four teams. “We had to make sure that we lean into that in each city.”

There’s a famous quote in the 2005 Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn film Wedding Crashers, where Carson Elrod as Flip exclaims, “Crabcakes and football, that’s what Maryland does.” It’s a sentiment taken personally by the city, so much so it decorates local bars like Loch Bar in Baltimore’s Harbor East.

Football is in Baltimore’s DNA. There are murals of the Ravens’ quarterback around the city, on walls and stoplights. There are custom donuts at the Dunkin’ Donuts near the stadium; ‘Ravens Flock’ and ‘Poe’s Purple’. You can buy Ray Lewis’ favorite Chicken & Donuts at Lexington Market on N Eutaw St. Everywhere you go, you can see a slice of the meaning this team has for the city.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to be out in the community at some events that Roquan Smith has done,” Rumpff tells me. “You can see those kids’ eyes light up when they see him. They look at him not just as a football player, but as someone that they want to be when they grow up.”

Roquan Smith
Roquan Smith #0 of the Baltimore Ravens stands on the sidelines during the national anthem prior to an NFL football wild card playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium on January 11,…


Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

Smith is the team’s Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year nominee this year and had a key feature in episode three of Hard Knocks: In Season With the AFC North where we see the work Smith puts in off the field to make sure he’s at the top of his game.

It’s this dedication that draws Rumpff into telling stories at NFL Films.

“As a fan, a lot of times we see these guys as gladiators on Saturdays or Sundays or Mondays, and getting to see the other side of these players – what they’re like at home, what they’re like as fathers, how much hard work they put into it – it’s not just, hey, show up on Sunday and run around for 3 hours and you either win or you lose,” Rumpff says. “It’s hours of studying film and lifting weights and watching every single little thing that you put into your body. So, being able to see that close-up and document it so other people can see that as well has been an amazing experience. “

Rumpff studied Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland and recalls what led him to want a career telling stories from the NFL.

“I can remember being a kid, and they used to have Super Bowl recap shows. They ran all of them simultaneously back to back to back on ESPN the night before the Super Bowl,” he says. “I remember watching those every single year. Once I graduated from Maryland, NFL Films was one of the places I applied to and was fortunate enough to be brought on there in a seasonal role. That was, I think, 18 years ago at this point.”

Rumpff’s spent time around some of the NFL‘s most notable athletes, having directed on Netflix series Quarterback and Receiver which documents the lives of the likes of Patrick Mahomes, Justin Jefferson, and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Matthew Dissinger and Tim Rumpff
Matthew Dissinger and Tim Rumpff attend the Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s “Quarterback” at TUDUM Theater on July 11, 2023 in Hollywood, California. Rumpff served as co-director on Quarterback.

Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images

I ask Rumpff what he’s noticing that’s different in Baltimore, particularly about the types of players they craft.

“They’re serious,” he says. “They know when to be light, they’re very close, and they do joke around at times, but it’s very clear coming in – and maybe it’s just because we are coming in so late in the season when it’s the home stretch, and they haven’t had necessarily the playoff success that they’ve wanted in the last couple of years – that anytime we’re talking to guys in interview settings or we’re listening to meetings or even listening to their wires during practice, you can tell they’re not satisfied with ‘Hey, let’s win this one this week’ or ‘Oh we won the division. Sure, that was a goal of ours, but that’s just one small goal.'”

Rumpff says “They have a chip on their shoulder, and things that they want to accomplish. Ultimately that’s the Super Bowl, and that’s jumped out at me from the very first day I was here.”

Any fan of the team will remember the heartstopping moment last season, where Zay Flowers fumbled the ball on the goal line during the AFC Championship Game. It essentially ended the Ravens’ season, even with 15 minutes left in the game.

Now the Ravens are about to head into Buffalo, where they’ll meet Lamar’s biggest competition for this year’s league MVP award, Josh Allen, and Hard Knocks is showing us how this team is preparing to tackle the playoffs.

“I was wondering if, as soon as playoffs come around, everyone will kind of tighten up,” Rumpff says of capturing the team amidst the one and done stakes, “and I think you see that a little bit. It’s more of a focus, though, than a nervous energy.”

Each year, the NFL is expanding in popularity and accessibility.

The Ravens/Steelers playoff matchup was watched by over 22 million via its Prime Video stream, which set a record for most concurrent viewers ever to the service.

On top of that, the league now allows for multiple games a season to be played overseas, in cities such as London and Munich, where the fanbases are almost as – if not more – dedicated to their teams than hometown locals.

“I think for so many years, [the NFL] was kind of ‘Hey, just watch the games on the weekends and that’s it.’ Now, it’s almost 24/7,” Rumpff says. “Fans want to know what the players are like, not just on the field, but what are their families like, what are they like on a random Wednesday night after working so hard all day and now they have the game of their life coming up on Saturday.”

Hard Knocks gives us that ticket in, and it’s where Rumpff gets his joy as a fan-turned-insider. “For me, I think it’s having the ultimate opportunity to take a peek behind the curtain,” he says. “Being able to tell those stories is something special.”

Hard Knocks: In Season With the AFC North airs on Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, and is available to stream on Max.



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