There would be times last season when Ravens tight end Nick Boyle would stare out the window at the Under Armour Performance Center wistfully watching his teammates practicing and preparing for a game that he was physically unable to play in. He felt like a kid again, forced to stay in the house and do his homework while his friends were outside playing.
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Ultimately, getting back on the practice field and an opportunity to play in games again did not bring him peace of mind. Instead, it served as a reminder of the gruesome left knee injury that he suffered in 2020 and only fueled doubts about whether he’d ever feel like himself again on the football field.
“Every day it was a mental battle,” Boyle said after the Ravens OTA practice Wednesday. “My wife says sometimes that I’m like a rollercoaster: One day I say I feel great and the next day I’m like, ‘Uh.’ She’s like, ‘I have to manage your emotions,’ and she did a good job with that, but that was tough. I think that’s with all injuries. Any time a player gets back out there and they don’t feel like they’re playing even close to where they were before, it’s a very demoralizing kind of thing. That’s kind of where you find who you are and what you do.”
If you believe his teammates and coaches, last year’s version of Boyle, vulnerable, emotional and clearly uncomfortable, has not been present at the team facility this offseason. To a man, they talk about the transformation that the 29-year-old tight end, who is amazingly the second-longest continually tenured player on the roster behind kicker Justin Tucker, has made.
He is noticeably leaner, having lost about 15 pounds to ease some of the pressure on his surgically-repaired knee. He’s moving better and with more conviction. The bulky brace that he wore on his left leg last year is gone and Boyle hopes for good. And Boyle’s smile is back, too.
“If you see him right now, he looks like a different person,” said fellow tight end Mark Andrews, Boyle’s closest friend on the team. “He’s ready to go.”
At Wednesday’s organized team activity workout, Boyle served as a lead blocker on kickoffs. He ran routes and was heavily involved in the team’s blocking schemes. It, for a lack of a better expression, felt like old times for one of the league’s best blocking tight ends. If you watch him closely, there’s still a little hitch in his stride, but it’s nowhere near as pronounced as it was last year, when just watching Boyle run was painful.
Nick Boyle said he’s dropped some pounds and he overall feels great. pic.twitter.com/xLpHXilQDB
— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) June 8, 2022
“He does look like a new guy,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said Wednesday. “He’s really worked hard to become lean. He’s moving really well. Last year, he just wasn’t the same guy.”
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This is the time of year for overreactions around the NFL, for players heralded for being in the best shape of their careers and primed for major breakouts. After what he’s been through over the past 20 months, Boyle has no problem keeping things in perspective. He knows that he has a long way to go and there will be many challenges ahead. However, he’s also come much too far physically and mentally not to appreciate what he’s already accomplished.
“There are days where I don’t feel as good and there are days where I feel like a million bucks,” Boyle said. “That’s still kind of working through it at this point, but it’s not like anywhere near last year and doing this and, ‘Can I go out there?’ I just feel so much better and I’m just ready to go. I’m really excited to be out there and participating.”
On a rainy mid-November night in Foxboro, Boyle caught a short first-down pass from Lamar Jackson and turned upfield. As he did, New England Patriots rookie linebacker Terez Hall lunged at Boyle’s legs to bring him down and his helmet connected with Boyle’s knee.
Patriots defensive lineman Lawrence Guy, Boyle’s former Ravens teammate, immediately motioned to the Baltimore sideline for medical personnel to come on the field. Ravens guard Ben Powers did the same.
An MRI showed that Boyle’s ACL was spared, but that was about the only piece of good news. His MCL and PCL were torn and so was his meniscus. His hamstring was ripped off the bone and he had a small fracture in his knee as well.
Boyle had surgery and set his sights on being ready for the start of the 2021 regular season. However, the need for another procedure on his knee ended those hopes. He didn’t make his debut until Week 11 in Chicago and even while playing 32 snaps in a late victory over the Bears, it became clear that Boyle was struggling physically.
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“Seeing people practice, watching the film, being in the meeting rooms, it was like, ‘I just have to try anything to get out there.’ It’s just so hard to sit back and watch when you’ve been a part of something,” Boyle said. “Maybe I wasn’t really good or ready, or my leg wasn’t up to standard, but I wanted to get out there and show that I’m here to really try and get back on the field. I feel like … sometimes people get injured and strain out injuries and don’t really want to get back out there. That was the number one thing I didn’t want to show. I want to participate even though I’m not really up to (it) playing-wise, but I went out there and tried to do it. It was just something that was kind of my attitude.”
After making his debut at Soldier Field, Boyle played just 10 offensive snaps the following week against the Cleveland Browns. He then missed the next two games before playing three in a row. Boyle didn’t play in the regular-season finale against Pittsburgh and his season ended with one catch for two yards in five games.
“That was a bad injury,” Harbaugh said. “Certainly, we all hoped he’d come back last year and be ready to go, but he just couldn’t do it, and then he did have a setback or two along the way. Now, it’s just all clicked, and he looks like Nick, but I would say, he looks a little faster and a little quicker than he did before.”
Boyle knew he needed a change of scenery this offseason, something to end the monotony of his rehab sessions in Baltimore and get him over the hump physically. The problem was the timing. Nick and his wife, Kristina, already had two young children and Kristina was pregnant with the couple’s third child. Uprooting his family for a couple of months felt harsh.
“It was a little hard to get (Kristina) to go, with the airport and stuff. Car seats and my 2-year-old and my 1-year-old. It’s like, ‘Oh my God,’” Boyle said. “She was really, really good about it and really supported me through this whole thing.”
In Arizona, Boyle embraced a strict diet, a new workout facility and an odd occasional workout partner. Former Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison worked out at the same facility Boyle was going to and Boyle initially steered clear of a player who had long tormented the Ravens.
“I was kind of like, ‘He’s a Pittsburgh Steeler, no one really likes him,’” Boyle said. “After a couple of days, I kind of broke the ice, started talking to him. I found out he’s a really nice dude. I just really trained with him, worked out with him and he’s really cool.”
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Harrison’s workout routine and the intensity he commits to it is the stuff of legend and Boyle joked that he was embarrassed and felt like an eighth grader around the “super strong” Harrison.
Boyle, though, also found a familiar face in his new surroundings. Andrews lives about 10 minutes from where Boyle’s family was renting a home. When his kids went down for a nap, Boyle would venture over to Andrews’ house and catch footballs with him from the JUGS machine. The two hung out often and had family dinners together.
“We had a good time out there, but I saw how hungry he was,” Andrews said.
In addition to his work in the gym and on the field, Boyle adhered to a diet, where he ate four prepared meals a day, but didn’t snack in between. His wife would make dinner, only to be told by Boyle that he wasn’t going to eat it.
When Boyle returned to Baltimore after two months out West, he weighed 262 pounds. Before his injury, his playing weight ranged from 272 to 278 pounds.
“Just a lot of de-loading on my knee,” Boyle said. “It’s like I like to say, ‘You take some load out of the car, and even though the horsepower is still the same, you get to move a little bit faster.’ Overall, I just feel way better.”
Boyle’s physical transformation from last year has made an impression on the coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman called it “unbelievable.” First-year Ravens tight end coach George Godsey lauded the physical improvements Boyle has made and the leadership role he’s taken in a position room with two rookie fourth-round picks, Charlie Kolar and Isaiah Likely.
Boyle is the elder statesman in the tight end room. As his younger teammates work to establish themselves as NFL players, Boyle is focused on re-establishing himself as the force he was before the injury. The early returns are good, yet there is much work still to be done.
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‘It’s almost like, with injuries like this, you’re thinking whether you’re going to be able to play the same or not,” he said. “That kind of fuels me every day to do that. Just consistency and work.”
(Photo of Nick Boyle: Katie Stratman / USA Today)
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