Early Birds: Eagles to practice with Baltimore Ravens in August

The Eagles will practice with the Baltimore Ravens in Philadelphia leading up to their Aug. 22 preseason game, Ravens coach John Harbaugh announced on Saturday.

This is the third consecutive season the Eagles will hold joint practices with an opponent. They practiced with the New England Patriots during the last two seasons, but the Patriots are not on the preseason schedule this year.

Kelly and Harbaugh are working on the schedule, but Harbaugh said the Ravens will come to Philadelphia three days before the Week 2 game.

The Ravens practiced last season with the San Francisco 49ers when Harbaugh's brother, Jim, was the 49ers' coach. Kelly and John Harbaugh don't know each other as well, but the joint practices were the result of their discussion at the league meetings in March.

"Jim has always spoken really highly of him and I obviously have great respect for him," Harbaugh said to Baltimore-area reporters. "We were just talking at the owner's meetings and were kind of wondering why we don't play each other more in the preseason, and wanted to see if we could work something out, and it looks like we're going to be able to do that."

Harbaugh spent 10 seasons as an Eagles' assistant, although his training camps with the team did not come at the NovaCare Complex. The Eagles do not open their training camp practices at the facility to the public. It is limited to invited fans.

Kelly enjoyed the joint practices with the Patriots and said in March that he would need to see the team's preseason schedule before determining whether to do it again.

"I do philosophically like the idea," Kelly said. "But it depends on who it is, how it's going to be run. I was very in tune to how Bill [Belichick] wanted to do it. We had a great discussion about; it was something I was on board with. I don't know if we're going or not with anybody, depending on how the preseason schedule comes out."

The Eagles have not announced their preseason dates, but they usually start two weeks before the preseason opener. The first game this year is Aug. 16, so training camp will likely open around Aug. 2.