Playing football provides a respite for Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, who is dealing with a horrific family tragedy.<\/p>\n
His older brother Ciarre Campbell faces murder and aggravated assault charges in the July 1 death of their mother, Nateal Campbell, according to Fulton County, Georgia, police records. Those records said the 71-year-old woman\u2019s body was discovered in her home in Atlanta\u2019s Buckhead neighborhood and that her throat was cut.<\/p>\n
Ciarre Campbell, 41, is still in custody after his attorney withdrew his request for bond in July, according to an ESPN report.<\/p>\n
Calais Campbell, who turns 40 on Sept. 1, spoke with media for the first time since the tragedy on Tuesday at the Ravens\u2019 training facility in Owings Mills, Maryland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to say these last couple months have been pretty tough for me and my family,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cBut (I\u2019ve) been working through it, and I really appreciate all the love and support and the prayers that have been coming from all over, really from all the NFL community, all the fan bases. So I appreciate the prayers. Continue praying for us because we need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reported to the Ravens at the start of training camp in late July and was excused from practice during the\u00a0first week to let him gear up for football activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the game of football a lot,\u201d Campbell said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a place (that) brings me joy. This is a very fun place for me to be. And so playing football has been great for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell acknowledged that training required an adjustment. He pledges to be ready when Baltimore opens the season on Sept. 13 on the road against\u00a0the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI work really hard (and) I feel really good where I\u2019m at,\u201d he said. \u201cPractices have been going well. I really like where I\u2019m at right now. The coaches did a really good job of letting me ease in and get myself where I need to be. September cannot come soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract in April to \u2060play his 19th\u00a0NFL\u00a0season in 2026 with the Ravens.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playing football provides a respite for Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, who is dealing with a horrific…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":977195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,4755,7,6,169],"class_list":["post-977194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-calais-campbell","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-ravens"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117120840724631078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}