On a drizzly night in Towson this fall, Chris Hewitt Sr. leaned forward in his seat, keeping a watchful eye on the player he knows better than any other.

A punt came sailing into the arms of his son, Calvert Hall cornerback and returner Chris Jr., who zigged around the first defender unlucky enough to try to tackle him. Chris Sr. pumped his fists and shouted down at the field, “Get busy with it!”

Moments later, another play for the Cardinals: Calvert Hall’s 6-foot-7 tight end J.T. Taggart snagged a tough sideline pass over the coverage, moving the chains on third down. Hewitt looked back to his right to a figure taking refuge at the top of the stands, dressed in black as if attempting camouflage himself while snapping a quick video of his own son on his phone.

Hewitt pointed right at his coworker, Willie Taggart, sharing in the pride that only two football dads can fully understand.

As Calvert Hall’s season winds to a close against Loyola Blakefield on Thanksgiving, it will end a season that Ravens assistant head coach Hewitt and running backs coach Taggart have enjoyed watching their sons as teammates. Next season, J.T. heads to Maryland, while Chris Jr. looks to return for his senior year.

But the families — by virtue of their work, their sons and the very houses they live in — have built a quick bond that seems likely to carry on past this season, thanks to the unusual trappings of football, team chemistry and shared dreams.

You might call the entire kinship between families the brainchild of Chris Sr., who acted quickly when the Ravens hired Taggart in 2023. He knew Taggart, who had most recently coached Florida Atlantic for three seasons, would need a place to live.

Luckily, he knows a good realtor — his wife, Tanisha. With his own wife, who incidentally is named Taneshia, still in Florida, Taggart admitted he needed the help.

“You know how that is,” Taggart said. “My wife wanted me to go look, and I’m like, ‘I can’t find a house for you. You’re gonna be mad at me if I do it.’ So having that family atmosphere up here, working with Tanisha helped a lot.”

Taggart has spent much of his career on the move, taking his family from Kentucky to California to Oregon as a football coach. His youngest son J.T. knew Florida as well as any of the states he lived in, so leaving for Maryland wasn’t a great sell: “He wasn’t too fond of moving this time,” Taggart remembered.

Chris Sr. again struck up a conversation with a suggestion. His own son was at Calvert Hall, a Catholic school with a good football program. Today, Chris Sr. admits that his ulterior motive was bolstering his son’s football team with J.T., a standout recruit.

“There’s a great player coming in from Florida, and I was like, ‘Man, hey, we got to get this guy,’” said Hewitt, who also serves as a defensive pass game coordinator and secondary coach for the Ravens. “Yeah, so I recruited him to get a dude to Calvert Hall. It was totally selfish. Trust me.”

Whatever groundwork Chris Sr. laid, coach Josh Ward and Calvert Hall closed the deal quickly. Chris Jr. was one of the first to introduce himself to J.T., who found himself swiftly wrapped up in the brotherhood of Ward’s program.

“[Chris Jr.] is a coach’s son, so he knows what it’s like, and he helped me fit in the program,” J.T. said. “My first summer here, it felt like home.”

Willie noticed when the grumbling that his younger son initially made about moving again turned to silence.

“I think what got me was when I came home one day, he wasn’t home,” he said. “I’m like ‘Where’s J.T.?’ Oh, he’s out with his teammates. Whoa. It was kind of early on. I just wanted to see how long it was gonna go and it just started going. I was like, ‘This is pretty cool.’”

Chris Hewitt Sr. always quietly hoped his namesake son would play football, taking after his dad. His wife was the harder person to convince.

Chris Jr. began lobbying his parents to play tackle football in middle school, but initially Tanisha was skeptical, not wanting him to get hurt. It was in seventh grade when the Hewitt men decided it was better to act quickly and ask for forgiveness later — Chris Sr. clandestinely signed up his son for the Perry Hall program. “We were keeping a little secret,” Chris Jr. remembers.

Heads butted when Tanisha found out. But ever the salesman, Chris Sr. said he was able to sway his wife between his tearful son and his own persuasion.

“I said, ‘Babe, I played football my whole life, and I turned out all right,’” Chris Sr. said. “‘I might have a few screws loose, but I still got my wits about me.’”

Chris Jr. is a dynamic playmaker with the ball in his hands, and in his early years in the game he preferred playing receiver — “I wanted to score touchdowns,” he said. But in the last year, he’s switched to corner, which has increased his recruiting profile. If he has time, Chris Sr. will look at tape with him.

“For me, it’s all about his effort, especially when I’m looking at defense and I see his ass not running to the ball,” Chris Sr. said of his son. “I’m like, ‘Come on, man, what the hell are you doing?’”

J.T. had a more straightforward path to the game, which he played while watching his dad run practices at college football programs across the country. Initially he was a quarterback like his father (who played at Western Kentucky), but an eighth grade growth spurt convinced coaches to make him a tight end and defensive end.

Even though he liked dictating the action under center, J.T. embraced the change, using his length and IQ to become a better receiver. During the pandemic, he and his father ran drills and watched film to hone his skills. And once he stopped playing quarterback, he started hitting people more.

Before he played tight end, J.T. was split between basketball and football. But the physicality helped push him toward a future on the gridiron.

“Something about the contact — there’s just something I love about it,” he said. “It’s just in my blood.”

Having football in your blood, however, only takes you so far.

One thing Chris Jr. and J.T. did before this Calvert Hall football season to extend their inherited advantages was go to the Ravens’ training facility throughout the summer, waking at 5:30 a.m. and lifting and training before the pros took the weight room and the field. Neither coach said they coaxed their sons to do it — getting in the extra time was completely their choice.

Said Willie of his son: “He’s got that love in him — that’s how you know his mom did a good job with him.”

J.T. drove himself, while Chris Jr. hitched a ride with his dad. He had to listen to his father’s reggae music along the way, a small price to pay for the extra training. J.T. spent the summer watching Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely in camp, while Chris Jr. has been a fan of Marlon Humphrey for years.

“This is why I play corner,” said Chris Jr., sidestepping that his father coaches cornerbacks. “Because I was watching Marlon.”

The fathers have different approaches to watching the game. While Chris Sr. claimed that he tried to blend in, during a game against Mount St. Joseph this year, he wore Cardinal red while sitting prominently in the middle of the stands and shouting to his heart’s content. Taggart, who is used to being apart from the crowd on recruiting trips, prefers to watch from field level if possible. But it’s tough to resist the temptation to intervene with his own coaching points.

“Sometimes I wanna get down there to say something to him — he knows that, too,” Taggart said, grinning. “So he tries not to look at me whenever I’m there. He loves the fact at Calvert Hall their sideline is away from the stands, so he ain’t got to worry about that as much anymore.”

The Cardinals’ (7-4) campaign ends on Thanksgiving, and so does J.T.’s and Chris Jr.’s time together as teammates — though maybe not forever. J.T. is committed to Maryland, a program that has recruited Chris Jr. throughout his high school career.

“I think it was two years ago, he was ready to commit to Maryland because it was like one of the schools that really loved him,” Chris Sr. said. “He was ready to commit to Maryland, and I was like, man, come on man. You’re too young to do that. Let’s let this process play out a little bit.”

Taggart’s experience as a college head coach has helped the Hewitts navigate the increasingly complicated world of college football. He’s given them tips on dealing with recruiters, when to schedule visits, and how to get the most out of showcases. “It’s good to have Willie, because it has been a long time for me [since college],” Chris Sr. said.

One of the hopes that both fathers share is that their sons will stay relatively close. Chris Sr. would like to keep seeing his son’s games, which he’s mostly been able to do thanks to the Ravens’ travel schedule, which usually leaves Friday nights open.

For Taggart, the NFL calendar has been something of a revelation. His older son, Willie Jr., played for him at FAU, but he missed a lot of those high school memories while chasing his own football ambitions in the college landscape. Now, Willie reflects, he’s a grandfather, and he can’t stop thinking about how quickly time passes.

“You realize this is the last year that he [J.T] is in the house with us,” Taggart said. “My wife and I talk a lot about embracing this time, this moment, trying to make every game I can and make sure I’m there to support him.”

Chris Sr. also feels the urge to weigh in at times, to chide his son for his effort or point out when he can play harder. But the most overwhelming emotion he feels is something he can’t quite get on an NFL field — at least not yet.

“I really enjoy just going to the games and going to watch them play,” Chris Sr. said. “I feel so much pride in watching him going out there and living his dream.”

It’s the end of a football bond — for now. The Taggarts have a little salesmanship to do.

“I told J.T., ‘Now the next recruiting starts,’” Willie said. “‘You’re gonna have to recruit Chris Jr. to the Terps and [keep] the team together.’ There you go, we’ll see.”