Speaker 1: Welcome into Ravens Press Pass. It's NFL Combine week in Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: and both John Harbaugh and Eric da Costa have now
Speaker 1: met with the media. Now before we jump into coach Harbass,
Speaker 1: presser Garrett Downing and Ryan Mink will be giving their
Speaker 1: takeaways from these press conferences as well as what else
Speaker 1: has been going on at the combine, So make sure
Speaker 1: you check out the Ravens Lounge feed soon for that episode.
Speaker 1: You can also find Eric da Costa's Combine press conference
Speaker 1: in the Ravens Press Pass feed. So with that, here's
Speaker 1: what John Harbaugh had to say at the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three NFL Scouting Combine. All right, good to see everybody
Speaker 1: appreciate you being here. Been a great combine. What question
Speaker 1: do you have, Yeah, it's yeah. We've been texting back
Speaker 1: and forth here and there over the last ever since
Speaker 1: the season was over. So I feel like Lamar's doing
Speaker 1: really well. It's it's uh, it's just what it is.
Speaker 1: Part of the business, you know. It's what you expect
Speaker 1: when you have a great quarterback, when you make a
Speaker 1: great decision in the draft, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: we I think Lamar has done a great job in
Speaker 1: terms of developing as a quarterback and winning football games
Speaker 1: and competing and doing all the things that he does.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've done a great job in terms
Speaker 1: of bringing out the best in Lamar over the years
Speaker 1: and UH, and it's just evident the way he plays,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he's my quarterback, he's my guy.
Speaker 1: I love him, and UH as a coach, I just
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to seeing it get done. But it's
Speaker 1: not easy, you know, It's never easy. It's the business
Speaker 1: part of it. So um, but I'm really hopeful and excited,
Speaker 1: fervently hopeful, and I can't wait for it to get done.
Speaker 1: Not very much, you knows, as little as possible, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, our plans are for Lamar. One of the
Speaker 1: things we did and I think some of it was
Speaker 1: written about. But when we we had all these UH
Speaker 1: went through a process with the the offensive coordinator position.
Speaker 1: We we interviewed fourteen candidates. We had twenty one different
Speaker 1: different interviews. They were extensive interviews on zoom and in person,
Speaker 1: and of course that comes up, you know, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about how we're going to build an offense, and
Speaker 1: all those interviews were based on Lamar being in the quarterback.
Speaker 1: Lamar's the quarterback. How we're going to build the offense.
Speaker 1: So that's the direction that we're planning for per se
Speaker 1: where Yeah, well, I mean that's not black and white,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? What what is? What is
Speaker 1: that mean exactly? I've heard different words about it. Lamar
Speaker 1: and I had great conversation after the season about every
Speaker 1: aspect of our offense. Lamar is, I mean, he's he's
Speaker 1: he's Uh, it matters to him. You know. He wants
Speaker 1: to be involved in the wide receivers, he wants to
Speaker 1: be involved in the offensive line, he wants to be
Speaker 1: involved in the scheme. Uh. He wants to put the
Speaker 1: best he wants to be a part of the best
Speaker 1: offense in football. There's no doubt about it. So we
Speaker 1: talked extensively the week after the season that Wednesday or
Speaker 1: Thursday or whenever it was, and after that it was
Speaker 1: all by text back and forth. It's a fast moving process.
Speaker 1: As you know, there's no way anyone person besides the
Speaker 1: coach me doing the interviews. I'm the only one that
Speaker 1: can be fully involved in every interview and do all
Speaker 1: the interviews. You're not gonna have anybody involved with everything
Speaker 1: and certainly not a player who's you know, preparing to
Speaker 1: play football. But you do the best you can with that.
Speaker 1: I did the best I could with that. I think
Speaker 1: we all did. People like Anthony Weaver, who led the committee,
Speaker 1: was amazing, and the whole process and everybody involved in
Speaker 1: the organization, the candidates that were involved. I learned a
Speaker 1: lot and I'm really confident in the outcome. I think
Speaker 1: it's been said, it's been written, wisdom is in the results,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty fired up about the results of that search. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not something I'm gonna get too involved
Speaker 1: in terms of what we do or how we do it.
Speaker 1: But I will say this about Lamar Jackson. There's no
Speaker 1: bigger better competitor in football than Lamar Jackson. Lamar is
Speaker 1: a competitor, you know, and he's gonna want to he's
Speaker 1: gonna want to be a part of the best offense
Speaker 1: in football. And uh that's what I That's what I
Speaker 1: know about him. And I'm just looking forward to getting
Speaker 1: to work. Like, yeah, why he was injured, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody brings something to the table, and so
Speaker 1: many of these guys, I mean, what I found out
Speaker 1: Cliff is there's so many great coaches in football right now,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of like get you fired up. As
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a I'm a career professional football coach,
Speaker 1: and so that got me fired up. But Todd was
Speaker 1: unique for us. I think nigue for Lamar, and he's
Speaker 1: unique for our offense and where we're going to go
Speaker 1: and kind of our style. He's not he wasn't kind
Speaker 1: of locked into a system quite as much. He's been
Speaker 1: in every kind of system. He's coached at every level.
Speaker 1: He's run the ball, he's thrown the ball, he's protected
Speaker 1: different ways. He's played with four, four and five wide receivers,
Speaker 1: he's had running backs, he's played with tight ends. He's
Speaker 1: kind of done everything. You know. He's played fast, he's
Speaker 1: played out of the huddle. All those things I thought
Speaker 1: were things that we're gonna want to do going forward.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm excited about him. I just uh,
Speaker 1: we've already started building the offense, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't wait to get back to work
Speaker 1: after we get back from the combine. On that oh
Speaker 1: way back when first impression of Lamar Jackson when we
Speaker 1: drafted him, Um humble determined competitor. The first thing he
Speaker 1: said was, you know, I'm bringing a super Bowl to Baltimore,
Speaker 1: and and and I'm a believer, man, I believe that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Kind of getting back to your question, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's you know, things things, Things are tough, man. It's
Speaker 1: a tough league. You know, it's tough to win every game.
Speaker 1: I'm just talking to the guys. My good friends in Philly.
Speaker 1: My good friends in Kansas City won the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: right my good friends in Philly lost the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Are my good friends in Philly. You'd think they didn't
Speaker 1: win a game this year, right now. That's how they feel.
Speaker 1: That's how it kind of works, and that's how we felt.
Speaker 1: That's how we felt after our Cincinnati game, you know.
Speaker 1: And but everybody does their best, nobody does more than Lamar.
Speaker 1: I mean, I promise you it's your other question back there.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to skip over it. But if he
Speaker 1: could have played, just like all of our players, he
Speaker 1: would have played. There's no question in my mind about that.
Speaker 1: And he would have played as soon as he was
Speaker 1: ready to play, you know, hopefully would have been next week,
Speaker 1: the next week, I don't know, but uh, never doubt
Speaker 1: that about Lamar Jackson. I mean, he's gonna be out there,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be competing, he's gonna be given everything he's
Speaker 1: got in every situation. Just now, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think his focus was on getting himself back on
Speaker 1: the field. You know, you can talk all about that stuff,
Speaker 1: but he was thinking singularly about one thing, rehabbing, keeping
Speaker 1: the swelling out of his knee as much as he could.
Speaker 1: That's all he was thinking about. That's all he talked about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Tyler's a greatly The guys love him. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a competitor. They believe in him. I love Tyler,
Speaker 1: um uh uh. He's he's a young, developing quarterback. He's
Speaker 1: he's another competitor. He's one of our guys. So I
Speaker 1: got a great future right. Well yeah, Well here's the thing. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I don't have to do that because I don't have
Speaker 1: to do negotiating. So I'm on Eric's and Lamar side
Speaker 1: to get a deal done, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so the thing I do know is that both
Speaker 1: those guys are are good people who want to get
Speaker 1: the deal done. And then the rest of it's just business,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm sure they'll figure it out. But
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I'm sure that's challenging for the two guys involved.
Speaker 1: But I'm out of that. I'm I'm I'm I'm for
Speaker 1: the Ravens, and I'm for Lamar and Eric and us together,
Speaker 1: we're a team. Yeah. Well, you know, that's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I think that's still to be determined in terms
Speaker 1: of how we'll value wide receivers. I know Todd will
Speaker 1: have a big part of that in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: what he wants to do offensively. I'm excited about Rashad Bateman.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's not forget we we drafted Rashad three
Speaker 1: years ago, and uh, you know, Rashad's had a couple
Speaker 1: of nicks the last couple of years. But I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: he's supremely talented, supremely determined the football player, and he's
Speaker 1: he's chomping at the bit to get back here and
Speaker 1: go been. I've been texting him, you know, guys like
Speaker 1: the text been texting him. I did talk to Isaiah
Speaker 1: likely on the phone. We actually talked on the phone.
Speaker 1: That was a breakthrough, and you know, player coach relationships
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenties, but Uh, now he's a he's
Speaker 1: raider role cornerbacks. Yeah, it's funny you say that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that I've been I've been watching those guys on tape
Speaker 1: in between uh, in between interview sessions, so I've probably
Speaker 1: seen it. In my opinion, ten quarterback cornerbacks that could
Speaker 1: go in the first two rounds. It's loaded, and they're
Speaker 1: all they could. You know, they're all great players, they're
Speaker 1: all potential starters, first year starters. It's a great crew.
Speaker 1: Some of the nuances that make any opensive coordinator transition difficult,
Speaker 1: they're challenging. How do you think is kind of approaching
Speaker 1: the Well, the good thing about Todd with that challenge
Speaker 1: is is, uh, he's been there before in a couple
Speaker 1: of different situations, so he's experienced with that. He's not
Speaker 1: a first time coordinator. He's not a first time new
Speaker 1: coordinator changing jobs. He's done it in the NFL, he's
Speaker 1: done in college. He's done it both ways. So I'm
Speaker 1: not too worried about it. I think when you talk
Speaker 1: to him, you get a feel he's he's pretty secure
Speaker 1: and what he what, you know, how he looks at things,
Speaker 1: So he'll be fine, you know, you know, It's a
Speaker 1: good question. How quickly did it take the determined a guy.
Speaker 1: You gotta be careful not to do it too quickly
Speaker 1: because you can definitely make up your mind. Then you
Speaker 1: get like a little bias, you know, to your first opinion,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to do that because sometimes the
Speaker 1: more tape you watch it can definitely sway what you think.
Speaker 1: So you usually you know, usually know pretty quickly, but
Speaker 1: you gotta watch it all. That's a good question. Tampa Bay.
Speaker 1: Dave was a guy that we didn't know anything about.
Speaker 1: Talked to Coach Carroll about David, and uh, Coach Carroll
Speaker 1: really just gave a great recommendation in terms of who
Speaker 1: he was. And I would say it was all that
Speaker 1: Coach Carroll said him more he was. He's a great guy.
Speaker 1: He's a very likable guy. Uh, you know, a good
Speaker 1: family man, you know, a strong faith person. But man,
Speaker 1: his his command of the offense, not just the offense
Speaker 1: they ran in Seattle, but the one that the new one,
Speaker 1: the one that they've run for the last ten years,
Speaker 1: or than his ability to deal with quarterbacks, I just
Speaker 1: thought was off the charts. He's gonna do a good job.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying gritty is not your job. That's part's job.
Speaker 1: Thinking complicated one of Deshaun Watson. You think, okay, maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I probably didn't as much, you know, I was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking so much about those ramifications. I just
Speaker 1: felt like and put my trust in the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, we want Lamar and Lamar wants to be
Speaker 1: a raven and in the end, that's gonna work itself
Speaker 1: out in my mind, you know, and then you just
Speaker 1: let providence do its work. You let providence do its
Speaker 1: good work, and I trust in that. So whatever Providence
Speaker 1: ends up determining in the end, I'm gonna be all four,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think it's gonna be what's best
Speaker 1: for everybody. But I've always been confident that we're gonna
Speaker 1: have you know, it's gonna get worked out. And I
Speaker 1: still believe that. Ye do we fact well for the draft?
Speaker 1: You know? Um, I think the Scouts do that. You know,
Speaker 1: the Scouts a factor that him, and they'll talk to
Speaker 1: us about it. My interest is going to be does
Speaker 1: he have a good heart? And and that's you know,
Speaker 1: obviously that's that's how hard to define. But you know,
Speaker 1: bottom line, does he you know, does he treat people
Speaker 1: the right way? Does he respect other people? Is he
Speaker 1: fundamentally humble? And then but you still want confident, We
Speaker 1: still want competitors. We still want very tough, persistent, resilient people.
Speaker 1: And then you know, how what's their football character as well?
Speaker 1: I mean do they are they tough? Do they like football?
Speaker 1: Do they like meetings? Do they want to lift weights?
Speaker 1: Do they want to practice hard? Are they into it
Speaker 1: when they drive home a night? Are they thinking about
Speaker 1: football when they drive it in the morning? Are they
Speaker 1: thinking about football? Because I am all the time, and
Speaker 1: you want the people around you to feel the same way.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what we look for in players,
Speaker 1: probably because he's that kind of guy we just talked about.
Speaker 1: I mean, he thinks football all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's our kind of guy, you know. I don't know,
Speaker 1: we just I talked to it. We talked to one
Speaker 1: of the one of the receivers yesterday and he, uh,
Speaker 1: he played football since he was four and it's the
Speaker 1: only sport he played and he's pretty good at it. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I used it like multi sport guys though too. So
Speaker 1: football players come in all shapes and sizes, really, they
Speaker 1: really do. It's just kind of different than other sports.
Speaker 1: Much did you watch I watched. We watched a little
Speaker 1: bit of it. It was more in the in the
Speaker 1: context of him expressing kind of how his vision for
Speaker 1: our offense going forward. So we watched some of their
Speaker 1: tape doing it. I didn't sit down and break down
Speaker 1: Georgia tape. Didn't have time. It would have been nice, probably,
Speaker 1: but it didn't feel like we needed to. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, again, you know, he's talking
Speaker 1: about Providence doing it's good work. I think he's really
Speaker 1: good about that. You know, talked about make no oath
Speaker 1: for the future. You know, I think he's honest about that.
Speaker 1: That's probably the difference with him and all these other
Speaker 1: guys who you know, act like they're not you know,
Speaker 1: they're not open about opportunities that come along, you know. Jim.
Speaker 1: Jim's open about it. I think his players respect that,
Speaker 1: his coaches respect that, you know, and and uh, he's
Speaker 1: just an open book man. He's a fun guy to
Speaker 1: be around. I saw some of the Michigan guys here.
Speaker 1: They just laugh about, you know, how how fun it
Speaker 1: is to play there, and what a good guy he is, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I think he's a Michigan for life probably,
Speaker 1: But then again, you know, maybe God's got to the plan,
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Can you be too honest? That's a
Speaker 1: really good question. It's a deep question. It's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of honesty involved there, right. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: a good question for the philosophers, you know anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Willie tagger Man one of the best coaches in football
Speaker 1: about no doubt, groundbreaking person sending, groundbreaking coach, changer. He's
Speaker 1: a He's a game changing type of a person to me,
Speaker 1: one of the great offensive minds in the game for sure.
Speaker 1: He's gonna bring so much to our offense. Our players
Speaker 1: are gonna love him. I know Todd already loves him. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's a difference maker. T Martin going to quarterback coach
Speaker 1: is another guy really excited about, just not from the
Speaker 1: standpoint just of change, but the standpoint that I think
Speaker 1: he's been preparing for this for his whole life. He's
Speaker 1: a quarterback guy. He played the position, studies the position,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you this, when we interviewed him
Speaker 1: for it, he blew us out of the water with it.
Speaker 1: So we're still looking for a receiver coach. We're still
Speaker 1: looking for a safety's coach, could even be guys on
Speaker 1: the staff presently. We're just looking at all options. We're
Speaker 1: taking our time, so that's where we're at our staff
Speaker 1: right now. You know what's interesting is very few guys
Speaker 1: have too many issues. You know. I can remember starting
Speaker 1: off twenty five years ago, and half the guys had
Speaker 1: really pretty kind of legitimate issues. Like nowadays, they'd be
Speaker 1: like they'd they'd blow up issues. Everybody be talking about them.
Speaker 1: You know, college, it's tough to get through college nowadays.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of scrutiny, social media, cameras, phones everywhere.
Speaker 1: Now these guys are on it, man. I mean, they
Speaker 1: are prepared more than ever before. So it really doesn't
Speaker 1: come up very often. But I think when it does
Speaker 1: come up, you just got to decide where you draw
Speaker 1: the line. Organization draws the line at certain things that
Speaker 1: we don't cross over. That's because Steve Bishotti makes that decision.
Speaker 1: But after that we just try to judge who they are.
Speaker 1: As people say that again, I would advise the player
Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent honest. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: What is the best relationship quarterbacks. Yea. I well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a good question because relationships are always based
Speaker 1: on you know, everybody's different, right, I go back to
Speaker 1: honesty is a big part of it, you know, if
Speaker 1: as long as you can be honest with one another,
Speaker 1: even when it's a tough conversation. We talk a lot
Speaker 1: with our players about confrontation, and our idea of confrontation
Speaker 1: comes from my dad. Confrontation is it gets a bad rap,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of definition, you know, confronting things
Speaker 1: is a good thing. We want to confront everything, but
Speaker 1: we don't want to confront anybody. We're not about confronting
Speaker 1: one another. We're about confronting all the issues that are
Speaker 1: between us and being the best we can be. So
Speaker 1: when you got two people, a head coach and a
Speaker 1: quarterback that want to both be the best that they
Speaker 1: can be and want their team to be the best
Speaker 1: that they can be, then you're you're willing to confront
Speaker 1: everything related to football and being the best we can be.
Speaker 1: And that's the blayship of Lamar and I have. I mean,
Speaker 1: if Lamar's upset about something and he thinks something can
Speaker 1: be better, oh, he tells me. And if I've got
Speaker 1: an issue with something, you know, I ask him, But
Speaker 1: we have a conversation about those things, you know, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like that honest part of
Speaker 1: it just just saying, hey, what are we here for.
Speaker 1: We're here for football. We're here to be the best
Speaker 1: football team we can be. We're here to be the
Speaker 1: best football team in the NFL and prove it. That's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do every single day. So doing that,
Speaker 1: we can confront everything related to that. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's what the relationship be about the quarterback, but also
Speaker 1: with all your players. All right, thanks, all right, appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys. Similar to Eric da Costa coach, Harbaugh remains
Speaker 1: very optimistic that a deal will get done with Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 1: He said he met with Lamar after the season and
Speaker 1: they talked about every aspect of the offense. John took
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about the Ravens QB, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't be more clear he wants Lamar Jackson in Baltimore
Speaker 1: long term. Harbaugh also seems very excited about new offensive
Speaker 1: coordinator Todd Munkin. He said Munkin has worked with a
Speaker 1: ton of different offenses and all the things he has
Speaker 1: done are what the Ravens want to do moving forward.
Speaker 1: He also had great things to say about t Martin,
Speaker 1: the Ravens new quarterbacks coach, as well as newest edition
Speaker 1: Willie Taggart, who Harbaugh called a game changer. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Ravens Press Pass. Just a reminder, Dakasta's press
Speaker 1: conference is also available now in the Ravens Press Pass feed,
Speaker 1: and we'll be dropping the NFL Combine Takeaways episode of
Speaker 1: The Ravens Lounge soon as well. If you haven't done
Speaker 1: so already, make sure you subscribe, rate, and review, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back with you soon