Speaker 1: Welcome to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Monday,
Speaker 1: October twenty eighth. The Ravens fell to the Cleveland Browns
Speaker 1: twenty nine to twenty four on Sunday, and the Ravens
Speaker 1: are now five and three on the season. Today we
Speaker 1: heard from head coach John Harbaught during his standard Monday
Speaker 1: afternoon presser.
Speaker 2: Okay, appreciate everybody being here, getting ready for Denver, looking
Speaker 2: hard at that team. A team has been playing really well,
Speaker 2: been hot, and we're gonna have a hands full, but
Speaker 2: we're looking forward to the challenge. You can't wait to
Speaker 2: get back at it this week. So what question do you.
Speaker 3: Have, John, You have made changes for a long defense,
Speaker 3: adding Dean and Thelman personnel with Marcus. Do you foresee
Speaker 3: making any other kind of changes to help the defense alone?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it depends what kind of changes are
Speaker 2: available to us. We're going to continue to turn over
Speaker 2: every stone with our defense and with every other part
Speaker 2: of our team too, you know, to to get as
Speaker 2: good as we can get it during the course of
Speaker 2: a long season, ups and downs, challenges, you know, good
Speaker 2: plays and not good plays. So it's a lot of
Speaker 2: things we can improve on. We'll do whatever we can do.
Speaker 4: You press confidence after the game, marks players and would
Speaker 4: go on to player in football in years. Do you
Speaker 4: anticipate when happen necessarily being a one game thing, and
Speaker 4: do you expect him to play against enders?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, I'm not going to probably try to
Speaker 2: get in too much about who's going to play, who's
Speaker 2: not going to play in the game. But I'll just
Speaker 2: reiterate what I said before. Marcus is a heck of
Speaker 2: a player. I have the utmost confidence in him as
Speaker 2: a player, as a person, as a pro. He's a
Speaker 2: great person. He's a hard worker, plays hard, practice is hard,
Speaker 2: does everything at the highest level. And I anticipate in
Speaker 2: playing great football for us, you know, all season and
Speaker 2: very soon.
Speaker 5: Is there any any thogal him not being active yesterday?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we don't ever really probably getting too
Speaker 2: much of the thought process and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: It just it goes the way it goes. We make
Speaker 2: the decisions that we make based on the best judgment
Speaker 2: we can make, try to do our best to try
Speaker 2: to do what we can go.
Speaker 6: You gotta spend a lot of time with defensive facts,
Speaker 6: catch the balls or practice one.
Speaker 5: Why isn't this sort of was it translating the games
Speaker 5: and what else can you possibly do?
Speaker 2: That's a great question, you know, that's a really great question, Todd.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's probably a lot of factors that are pretty hard
Speaker 2: to measure on that, but yeah, there's no doubt. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, we lead the league in those drops. They
Speaker 2: are interception wise, that's it's no secret. And those are
Speaker 2: those are huge plays. Man, there's a huge opportunity plays
Speaker 2: I'm gonna choose to look at like those players are
Speaker 2: going to get made, you know, and that's the upside
Speaker 2: for us. Man, That's that's low hanging fruit way I
Speaker 2: see it going forward. That's where you can make a
Speaker 2: huge difference in your play. I mean, how many fewer
Speaker 2: plays you have to play, how many fewer scoring opportunities
Speaker 2: they have? The difference in points, it's massive, you know,
Speaker 2: making those plays. So we'll make those plays. We'll work
Speaker 2: hard at it, and we'll continue to work even harder
Speaker 2: at it, you know, because because it's something that we
Speaker 2: want our guys to have confidence. And you know, we
Speaker 2: get guys with good hands, you know, they can catch
Speaker 2: the ball. So I'm pretty I'm very confident that we're
Speaker 2: going to do it. Going forward, but I'd like to
Speaker 2: see it happen real soon.
Speaker 3: On that slant.
Speaker 7: Touchdown, Ropemont Smith is screaming the whole way to come
Speaker 7: back across a lot of screwed.
Speaker 3: He's still in motion getting with the ball a snap.
Speaker 5: And are not ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they weren't.
Speaker 5: What's happening there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just that's what happened. It's every one of
Speaker 2: those are different, and uh, you know, we've had a
Speaker 2: few of those this year. I mean, if I watch
Speaker 2: defenses around the league, I can tell you it happens
Speaker 2: a lot. It's not unusual with all the no huddle
Speaker 2: and all the different things you get. But we didn't
Speaker 2: do a good job with that. You know, We've got
Speaker 2: to do a much better job with that. That's not good.
Speaker 2: Especially don't want to happen in the red zone, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's when you have it in the red zone,
Speaker 2: that's going to be a score a lot of times.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's what defenses face nowadays in the NFL.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of moving parts to the offenses, and
Speaker 2: when you're trying to match personnel and match formations, you
Speaker 2: got to be on point, you know, And we're not
Speaker 2: on point with that play.
Speaker 6: John, I mean, I know that's something you're continuously trying
Speaker 6: to improve it. But is it frustrated that it seems
Speaker 6: that it seems like communication issues blar up pretty often,
Speaker 6: it seems like to this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, I watch
Speaker 2: a lot of tape and I see it all around
Speaker 2: the league, and so I'm not gonna single out our guys,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna we're gonna coach our guys. You know,
Speaker 2: our guys are our concerned. So yeah, we're concerned with
Speaker 2: our guys and our guys being the very best they
Speaker 2: can be. So we'll chase that. We're gonna get it
Speaker 2: better and better and better. And uh, I don't know
Speaker 2: if we'll get it perfect, but we're gonna try, and
Speaker 2: we're gonna.
Speaker 8: Any Reds. Looking back at the fourth down decision, or
Speaker 8: wasn't the lack of execution when.
Speaker 2: You looked at the top, Uh, Well, I think if
Speaker 2: you look that, that's a pretty clear cut go you know,
Speaker 2: most of the time around the league, especially at the
Speaker 2: plus ten yard line, and I have confidence in our
Speaker 2: guys to get that, plus the ability to to keep
Speaker 2: them backed up, you know, is probably a real plus
Speaker 2: there at the ten. That's why, That's why it's a
Speaker 2: clear cut go. I think most of the time we're
Speaker 2: going to get that. Look at last week, we got one.
Speaker 2: It was more than that. It scored a touchdown on it.
Speaker 2: So my only regret, if you want to call it
Speaker 2: a regret, is that we didn't make it. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not in love with the fact that we didn't
Speaker 2: get it. I hate the fact that we didn't get it.
Speaker 2: So that's the disappointment there, John can I I just
Speaker 2: want to clarify something on Marcus Williams.
Speaker 8: You said yesterday it was a personnel decision, but you
Speaker 8: also said it was an internal type of situation.
Speaker 3: I want to make sure I don't I.
Speaker 2: Think I have anything else to say about that. You know,
Speaker 2: it's what we do. It's what there's a lot of
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things going on all the time,
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot of it's kind of our business,
Speaker 2: you know, it kind of belongs in house. It's between us,
Speaker 2: and it's not something that we need to tell everybody
Speaker 2: everything about. I don't think you're telling everybody about your
Speaker 2: family business. I don't think everybody's asking about everybody's kind
Speaker 2: of things. There's some things that we can just choose
Speaker 2: to kind of keep to ourselves, and that's going to
Speaker 2: be one of them. And you know, you know, I
Speaker 2: never get up here and talk about why we put
Speaker 2: guys up or put guys down. You know, I never had,
Speaker 2: so probably not gonna start doing that. Now.
Speaker 3: You're fishing depth concern on the defensive line this coming
Speaker 3: weekend with peerside the injury yesterea Travis is hurting or
Speaker 3: Benson PROTOCOLO.
Speaker 5: I mean, is a tough, tough situation right.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, tough situation we have to be. You know,
Speaker 2: we've got guys I would like to have those guys
Speaker 2: out there, but we also have guys that can step
Speaker 2: up and play, and got guys on a practice squad,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna have guys that are gonna be ready
Speaker 2: to go and stopping the run. This this game is
Speaker 2: gonna be really important, Chiles. It's gonna be huge. This
Speaker 2: is the running team, you know, and they run it
Speaker 2: really well and they run it a lot, so it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a big, big part of the game plan.
Speaker 5: Here's here's possibly a longer term thing.
Speaker 2: Or do you yeah, just like I don't know it's Monday,
Speaker 2: we'll see.
Speaker 5: That was your question along those lines, just in terms
Speaker 5: of the personnel, and I know you can't get into
Speaker 5: specific players and so with other players, but that's something
Speaker 5: you and Eric will will look out to trade deadline
Speaker 5: approaching that you guys will look hard at whether it's
Speaker 5: an drusher or another position and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I think that we definitely will because
Speaker 2: that's what Eric does, you know, Eric, and as guys
Speaker 2: do that, I'm not, you know, I like, I love
Speaker 2: our guys. I love our roster. I feel like our
Speaker 2: roster is really good, and I think every one of
Speaker 2: our guys is going to play really well down the
Speaker 2: stretch to the best of their ability. You know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know we lost the game. It's disappointing, it's tough,
Speaker 2: and uh and we hate it, you know, we all
Speaker 2: hate it. And we didn't play well enough to win.
Speaker 2: We didn't make the plays we needed to make, we
Speaker 2: didn't make the calls we needed to make to win
Speaker 2: the game. But that doesn't mean I don't love our players.
Speaker 2: I mean our players and our coaches. Uh, they're they're
Speaker 2: they're great. They're great players, and we're gonna play great football.
Speaker 4: John here, Yesterday was kind of a unique circumstance with
Speaker 4: your numbers on the he doesn't live with the injuries.
Speaker 4: What the pass u In the second half, you guys
Speaker 4: did blitz a little more than you typically have blitzed
Speaker 4: this year.
Speaker 5: Do you think that it's more mornings we got from.
Speaker 4: The scheme standpoint as the guys with the World One matchups.
Speaker 5: I know it's never just one thing, but.
Speaker 2: What are you Yeah, I'm happy with it a lot
Speaker 2: of times. I think if you look at the stats
Speaker 2: and all that kind of what you're referring to, it's
Speaker 2: it's not as consistently there as you're gonna want it
Speaker 2: to be. And I think some of that is the
Speaker 2: fact that we played some really mobile quarterbacks. We've had
Speaker 2: the kind of cage rush a little bit. That wasn't
Speaker 2: the case yesterday. You know, that's one I would have liked.
Speaker 2: You've gotten him off the spot a little more, a
Speaker 2: little quicker. So we did blitz, and they were getting
Speaker 2: the ball out fast most of the time when we did.
Speaker 2: But there's also times on play action, especially on first down,
Speaker 2: where he held it, and that's because you're stopping the
Speaker 2: run first and we weren't stopping the run as well
Speaker 2: as we have, you know, so we're playing run defense
Speaker 2: and you've got a transition and you've got the bigger
Speaker 2: guys on the field, and I think that's when the
Speaker 2: time really kind of stacked up in terms of him
Speaker 2: being able to throw the ball in some of those
Speaker 2: deep windows, some of those chunk throws. So you know,
Speaker 2: maybe that's somewhere we've got to do more blitzing, you know.
Speaker 2: And first and second down we did something you know,
Speaker 2: is that called a couple edge blitzeres that got there.
Speaker 2: So we'll be looking real hard at.
Speaker 5: That giving the decision on Marcus would what's your takeaways?
Speaker 5: Are theirs Washington's task to do a lot? And what
Speaker 5: was your assessmental Key in Eddie Jackson.
Speaker 2: I thought they played solid football. You know, they were
Speaker 2: in the right spot doing the right things, uh the
Speaker 2: vast majority of time. UH. And I thought they played hard, Uh,
Speaker 2: made some good tackles and and made you know, we're
Speaker 2: in solid position at the times, and I think for
Speaker 2: all of us, I mean, we all want to just
Speaker 2: make a few more plays, you know, get a few
Speaker 2: more get a few more pressures, get a few more sacks,
Speaker 2: Get a few more batted balls, Get a few more
Speaker 2: PBUs you know that'd be good. Get get in a
Speaker 2: couple of catch the ball in their receptions. You know
Speaker 2: those are that's the big one from this game. You
Speaker 2: know they you know, everybody wants to make plays. So
Speaker 2: I just think we got to keep chasing that.
Speaker 4: How was Kyle doing after the game, you got a
Speaker 4: chance to talk, Come on now, he was obviously frustrated
Speaker 4: to not being able to make that play.
Speaker 2: Before the touchdown as far as what.
Speaker 8: His mood, his mood, and he.
Speaker 2: Was really disappointed out the loss, you know, really disappointed,
Speaker 2: Like that's we all were. We were not we were
Speaker 2: not real happy about it. As you can imagine that
Speaker 2: no team would be. So no team is. And this
Speaker 2: is a tough league, man, I mean, you put so
Speaker 2: much into these games. You fight so hard out there,
Speaker 2: you stay on that sideline. Uh, you go to a game,
Speaker 2: you watch in person, you see what gets put into
Speaker 2: trying to win these games. So it's tough. It's disappointing.
Speaker 2: And then what you have to do is you can't
Speaker 2: live in it. You know, you gotta you gotta bounce back,
Speaker 2: and you gotta get going for the next week.
Speaker 8: Defense has been in the right spots majority of the time,
Speaker 8: were just failed to execute on plays. They've been credited
Speaker 8: with eight dropped interception, so they've had opportunities.
Speaker 6: But do you feel that.
Speaker 1: They are I do.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's we're we're we're contesting. You know,
Speaker 2: we we have one of the highest coverage tight coverage
Speaker 2: rates in the league right now. You know it's uh,
Speaker 2: we're in the right place the vast majority of time.
Speaker 2: When you compare it to the league, I mean there's
Speaker 2: a lot of there's a lot of tough things. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of good passing games in this league, and
Speaker 2: they give you a lot of tough stuff. I think
Speaker 2: we're the fourth ranked team in that sense in the
Speaker 2: league right now coverage wise, yet completion wise, they're completing.
Speaker 2: I think we might be around nineteen or twenty in
Speaker 2: terms of contested completions against us. So that's where it's happening,
Speaker 2: and we've we're getting thrown on a lot. You know,
Speaker 2: it's because the run defense has been good and people
Speaker 2: have been behind you get a lot of two minute
Speaker 2: passes and all those kind of things. So all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff is adds up to the ranking overall.
Speaker 2: But you know, we we were there, and I think
Speaker 2: we can make more plays. I know we can think
Speaker 2: and I believe our guys are gonna do it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, along those lines, on third downs, you know haven't
Speaker 5: been probably successful as you would have liked. And Yestery
Speaker 5: Cleveland was pretty successful there. And to that point about
Speaker 5: coverage and so forth, is it. What do you guys
Speaker 5: need to do better to close teams out on third downs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and defense, we one thing we need to do
Speaker 2: better is keep them get them in longer situations because
Speaker 2: it's a little tougher to really bring the heat when
Speaker 2: it's third and three, third and four, third and five,
Speaker 2: because you're overload, and then you leave run gaps and
Speaker 2: scramble gaps available, screens become more more more evident. So
Speaker 2: we just gotta I think, start off with you know,
Speaker 2: let's keep him from running it down the third one,
Speaker 2: third and two, third and three, even third and four.
Speaker 2: Let's get him in third and third and eight, thirty nine,
Speaker 2: third and ten plus more often. You know, that'd probably
Speaker 2: be the first thing that we can get after people
Speaker 2: a little more with the pass rush, and I think
Speaker 2: that'll help our third down quite a bit.
Speaker 7: John during the second quarter, I think you wanted to
Speaker 7: use the challenge flag for a first down when you
Speaker 7: hear from your guys that the Cleveland Broughs did did
Speaker 7: make the first down or does it look like it
Speaker 7: was pretty close like they were, you know from television
Speaker 7: like he was, shoot, yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: About I think I went back and watch the tape today.
Speaker 2: He's about six inches short, and we we talked about it.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you that they're looking at those upstairs now.
Speaker 2: So they look at that replay pretty close. And I
Speaker 2: walked down and I said, are you looking at it?
Speaker 2: You're looking at it, and they said they were looking
Speaker 2: at it. So when they don't weigh in, that's a
Speaker 2: sign to me that they're not going to overturn it.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to ruin. I don't want to
Speaker 2: throw that challenge flag and waste that time out when
Speaker 2: I got a pretty good indication because I know the
Speaker 2: replay officials looking at it upstairs already, that they're probably
Speaker 2: not going to overturn it, especially for like six inches
Speaker 2: on a fourth down and plus territory when they're probably
Speaker 2: gonna sneak it. And that's a real tough stop, So
Speaker 2: it seemed to me the better the more the prudent
Speaker 2: move is not to challenge that right there?
Speaker 8: Or does the team have an apprehension to use Lamar
Speaker 8: Jackson and sneak situations. You've seen that you use trying
Speaker 8: to Cohler over the last couple of years, and there's
Speaker 8: been different variations of using quarterback sneaks with Jackson when
Speaker 8: it was doing so yet running in certain gaps and
Speaker 8: situations just.
Speaker 2: What's yeah, that's probably it. I mean, we're not we
Speaker 2: run the markets gets nobody, nobody gives up more than
Speaker 2: Lamar and terms of doing everything he can to win
Speaker 2: the game. And we feel like if we're going to
Speaker 2: run a sneak, we can do it with somebody else.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got a bigger body and they're doing
Speaker 2: it a little bit, and we'll take that off of Lamar.
Speaker 2: That's really our thinking on it. We can still we
Speaker 2: can still turn around and hand off a jet sweep.
Speaker 2: Those are things that we work on. Let our opponents
Speaker 2: know that we work on those in those situations and
Speaker 2: we might be using them coming up here real soon,
Speaker 2: which is probably pretty good in case that we won't.
Speaker 2: You know, if I'm saying it. But yeah, that's basically
Speaker 2: our thinking.
Speaker 8: On it limits your abilities on the third down to
Speaker 8: not have Jackson in there to.
Speaker 2: Like six inches or foot you know, I think if
Speaker 2: we want to sneak it, if that's what we've decided
Speaker 2: we want to do, look at the Eagles and the
Speaker 2: sneak teams. You know they're not really doing too much
Speaker 2: on those plays. So when you sneak it, you're basically
Speaker 2: telegraphing what you're going to do. Anyway. Now, when if
Speaker 2: we want to tap sneak in some of those where
Speaker 2: we're coming to the line and like some teams do
Speaker 2: you see the Bengals and teams do that, We can
Speaker 2: do that with Lamar. Lamar has that ability to do
Speaker 2: that head and come up this year, but he can
Speaker 2: you know, tap sneak in an open gap if you want.
Speaker 9: I think you guys are still you know, near the
Speaker 9: top of the league and like disguising coverage shells before
Speaker 9: the snat the use of parimularly pressures for past pressure,
Speaker 9: has there been a learning curve at all, either with
Speaker 9: the players or with the coaches and getting.
Speaker 5: All that executed well, And has any of that I think.
Speaker 9: Led to some of the coverage busts and some of
Speaker 9: the other plays we've seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sure, I mean it's absolutely, I mean
Speaker 2: it's it's part of it. You know, when you do
Speaker 2: more and we've played you know, we've played how many
Speaker 2: top quarterbacks have we played? You know, in top passing
Speaker 2: games have we played? So I think we played a
Speaker 2: lot of the better quarterbacks so far. So you really
Speaker 2: want to have the ability to change the picture. You know,
Speaker 2: you can't just really line up against these guys too often,
Speaker 2: just show them what you're in. You know, you do
Speaker 2: that with the Burrows and those guys. It's tough. So
Speaker 2: that's always been what we've done. We've been a big
Speaker 2: disguise team. We've been a big sim team. We've we've
Speaker 2: blitzed from both sides. We've we've shown blitzeres one way
Speaker 2: and blitz the other way. Run out of it. We've
Speaker 2: shown one way and come that way. You know, we've
Speaker 2: shown shown edge and come come to the middle. We
Speaker 2: try to keep it moving, we try to keep people guessing.
Speaker 2: It's a big part of our defense. And you know,
Speaker 2: the execution part of it, for the most part, has
Speaker 2: been good. But there's been plenty of times where it
Speaker 2: hasn't been good now. I think it's part of the
Speaker 2: learning curve. Yes, I do think it's part of the
Speaker 2: learning curve, and I do believe the curve is going
Speaker 2: to keep it, you know, getting better as we go forward.
Speaker 3: It seem seemed frustrated by the kick return penalties.
Speaker 8: Yes, say they set you back in long situations.
Speaker 7: Do you do those returners have a green light to
Speaker 7: bring it out of the end zone?
Speaker 5: Do you get the sense they lose tracking where they
Speaker 5: are on the field.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's right. Think you nailed, but it's
Speaker 2: they do not have it. You know, we we we
Speaker 2: not that we can't have a green light, but we
Speaker 2: haven't had a green light yet this year. It doesn't
Speaker 2: make sense to us if they're gonna give us a
Speaker 2: ball at the thirty yard line, and the way the
Speaker 2: angles work, it's really tough to block that. You know
Speaker 2: that this new, this new style. When the balls kicked
Speaker 2: in the end zone, sou and I do think they
Speaker 2: lose a sense of where they're at sometimes, especially a
Speaker 2: young guy. You know, it's part of it for sure.
Speaker 2: And I also think that we didn't we didn't. We
Speaker 2: made some we made some bad blocking decisions on that,
Speaker 2: and I was really unhappy with that too. So those
Speaker 2: penalties we were were not not okay. And uh and
Speaker 2: even even you know, I mean Thyland Tiland plays great.
Speaker 2: I love Tayland, but he lost track of where he
Speaker 2: was going back and catching that punt too. He'll he'll
Speaker 2: tell you that, you know, and and he's he'll be
Speaker 2: back out there and he'll learn from that too, So
Speaker 2: that that hurt our offense for sure. Field position was
Speaker 2: a problem in the game.
Speaker 4: Did you see justin Tucker miss I mean, I know
Speaker 4: that's not an easy place to kick, you know, just
Speaker 4: that stadium in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just I think he probably he could explain it
Speaker 2: better than I could. It just didn't look like, you know,
Speaker 2: a great hit you know on the ball. Uh, from
Speaker 2: what I could tell. I watched it, I saw the technique,
Speaker 2: and I know what I think about it as as
Speaker 2: a former special teams coach. But uh, tuck, tuck and
Speaker 2: take way better than I can. So he went tough
Speaker 2: yesterday too. There was starting to tell the TV bos
Speaker 2: we were limited. We didn't think we could kick anything.
Speaker 2: We didn't want to kick much outside from you know,
Speaker 2: the thirty getting it to the thirty five. That was
Speaker 2: kind of our target line there. I think that was
Speaker 2: probably their target line just about right too, because there's
Speaker 2: always a crosswind going sideways there and it's hard to
Speaker 2: sometimes keep it between the uprights. From you get out
Speaker 2: past fifty, it's tough to make kicks there.
Speaker 9: I know that's an injured question, but was it illness
Speaker 9: that that kept Nate from being able to travel with
Speaker 9: you guys? Or was it something or was it the shoulder?
Speaker 2: There was no there was a there was an illness issue.
Speaker 2: There was an illness issue, and I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: allowed to really disclose it. But he's doing okay, you know,
Speaker 2: and hope to see him at practice this week.
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