Who needs sleep? The Ravens clearly believe they do.

Hoping to determine that they can gain a competitive advantage by gaining a little extra sleep in the morning, the Ravens are examining the sleep patterns of their players this offseason and cross-checking the results with sleep studies conducted by the United States military to see if they can benefit from tweaking their schedules.

According to the team's official website, the Ravens are considering adjusting their weekly practice schedule (for example, they could start their work days during the season at 9:00 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m.). The team’s medical staff is also looking into possible changes to their schedules for West Coast road trips and moving the players’ weekly day off from Tuesday to Monday. No changes have been made yet, writes Garrett Downing.

The most significant of the possible changes is switching the off-day from Tuesday to Monday. Most NFL teams report to their facilities on Mondays and have Tuesdays off, but the rationale behind a switch would be that it would give players more time to rest after games. It would not affect the amount of time they practice.

“We’re turning over every stone, looking at everything in our program, to find any way to get better,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh told the team’s website. He added, “It’s just about getting better, any little way we can.”

Harbaugh, who also spoke about these sleep studies in this NFL.com video back in April, might have gotten a pointer or two from his brother, Jim, who emphasized sleep when he was the head football coach at Stanford.