Over the past several years, if you were looking for quarterback Joe Flacco on the sideline, all you had to do was find Dennis Pitta, and vice versa. The BFFs were practically inseparable.
These days, however, there's a bit of a comical hierarchy.
After dislocating and fracturing his hip for a third time, Pitta is now in the WBAL radio booth for the first four games of the Ravens' regular season. That means he doesn't get the perks of being an NFL player anymore – not even when traveling on the team charter with Flacco.
When Pitta boarded the Ravens' flight to Cincinnati, he quickly learned that he was seated near the back with the other team employees and media members. That's where he got some playful ribbing about how he was back with the commoners.
Pitta mostly spent his time mingling with his former teammates until he had to go back to his seat for takeoff.
"He's in the back of the plane," Flacco said Wednesday with a laugh. "I'm not going to let him sit right next to me and cramp my space – that's for sure."
With his usual deadpan humor, Pitta broke down the whole situation while joining "Unscripted" this week.
The team has flown on Omni Air International for its first three road trips, which doesn't have the traditional first-class seating arrangement past Ravens flights have enjoyed, where players' seats fully reclined and they had individual little pods.
"The plane is all normal from front to back. You have a small first-class section for the coaches, but from Joe Flacco back to Garrett [Downing], it's all the same seating," Pitta said.
"So I've been pushed to the back, I don't get to sit with the players anymore, but I still have the same seat as Joe Flacco. So I feel good about it."
In all seriousness, Flacco said it's always good to have ex-teammates around the facility. Linebacker Zachary Orr, who retired this offseason because of a newly discovered congenital spine condition, is back serving as a coaching/scouting assistant.
Flacco even personally got a report on how Pitta did as a radio analyst.
"I definitely asked Stan [White, WBAL radio broadcast team] after the game how he did," Flacco said. "I'm not going to go back and listen to the radio copy – I don't care that much. I'll just kind of take everyone's word for it."
