Declan Doyle will call plays in a game for the first time when the Baltimore Ravens host the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday at 7 p.m. at M&T Bank Stadium, giving the offensive coordinator his first live test in the job as the preseason opener begins.
Doyle called the moment exciting, but he also framed it as a practical audition. He said the main goal is to watch the Ravens play, and that nothing can really simulate a Saturday or Sunday when real bodies are moving and real decisions have to be made fast.
The preseason opener is the first time Doyle will get to run the offense in a game after weeks of doing it in practice. He said he plans to script as much of the night as possible, a way to control the first few possessions and make the game easier to manage while he studies how the operation functions under real conditions.
That test, though, comes with limits. Lamar Jackson will not play, and most of the Ravens' starters will also sit, which means Doyle's first call sheet will not look much like a regular-season Sunday. The game will still matter to him, but it will be a narrower snapshot of how the offense works when the top names are not on the field.
What Doyle is really trying to learn goes beyond the first few plays. He has not yet decided whether he will call from the sideline or from the coach's box during the regular season, and he said he will try both places during the preseason before making that choice. His view of the job is simple: the play caller has to get the play to the quarterback quickly and with confidence, then keep the communication clean with the rest of the staff and the players.
Last year in Chicago, Doyle said his game-day job was mostly to give Ben Johnson the down and distance as quickly as possible. Now he is the one making the calls, and he wants to learn whether being upstairs gives him the best feel for sequencing or whether being closer to the quarterback helps him more. He said he has studied Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, and he pointed to Bill Walsh's idea that more decisions made in the air conditioning can lead to better decisions because they are based on data and facts rather than feel.
That search for the right spot is tied to a larger shift on Baltimore's sideline. Anthony Weaver spent the previous two seasons as the Miami Dolphins' defensive coordinator, and Head Coach Jesse Minter will handle Baltimore's defensive play calling. For Doyle, that means the preseason is not only about showing he can run the offense, but also about figuring out where he can be most useful when the games count.
By the end of the preseason, Doyle should know whether the sideline or the coach's box fits him best. Saturday night is the first answer, not the final one, and it comes with the kind of incomplete roster that will show structure and rhythm more than full-strength firepower.
