When Baltimore cornerback Marlon Humphrey stepped to the microphone for his press conference on Tuesday, he had something on his mind other than the Ravens’ joint practice with the Washington Commanders that morning.

“I want to start by just saying life is really real, I would say,” Humphrey said. “Being 27 years old, all of my teammates – older than me, younger than me – you never think about a guy that was just in the league, playing with the guy, life could end so soon.

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“To Alex Collins, he was a funny teammate. I think he made everybody laugh. But I just want to encourage everyone – whoever’s listening – just tell your people that you love them because you truly just never know. I just wanted to say that, and lots of prayers to Alex Collins and his family.”

Collins died on Sunday night when his motorcycle was involved in a traffic accident in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.

Humphrey and Collins were teammates in Baltimore in 2017 and 2018, the cornerback’s first two NFL seasons.

Collins had the best season of his five in the NFL in 2017, when he ran for 973 yards and six touchdowns on 212 carries and caught 23 passes for 187 yards in 15 games.

“It was kind of crazy – his journey – for me,” Humphrey said. “He was on the practice squad, and we’re both running down on scout kickoff — fast forward to however many weeks later, he was about to have 1,000 yards rushing, so it was kind of a very ideal story. A lot of times, a practice-squad guy may not think he’s starting running back in the same season, but to kind of see that journey for him, it was surreal. I’m sure it was a surreal feeling for him, but also it was also you really can start low and get where you want to be after already getting drafted earlier, going to the bottom and then coming back, so a lot of ups and downs, but it can happen.”

The former Hoover High School star and Alabama All-American and the Ravens practiced with the Commanders on Tuesday at the Under Amour Performance Center in Owing Mills, Maryland. The teams are scheduled to do the same on Wednesday in advance of their preseason meeting at 7 p.m. CDT Monday at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland. ESPN will televise the contest.

Baltimore opened the preseason with a 20-19 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday, but as a Pro Bowler in three of the past four seasons, Humphrey did not play.

Humphrey finds joint practices such as Tuesday’s against the Commanders in some ways more beneficial than preseason action.

“To me, this is actually kind of almost better than preseason,” Humphrey said. “It’s much harder to tackle without going to the ground, and you’re covering elite guys every single play doing your one-on-ones. You’re put in good and bad positions, so I think for a lot of guys – me, Roquan (Smith), Marcus (Williams) – we’re kind of taking these days as they’re our two preseason games. (We don’t) know how much preseason action we’ll see. But I think joint practices, it’s some of the best you can really get.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.