Andrews, Likely & Others: Ravens Press Conferences 9/12/24

Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Thursday, September twelfth, and the Ravens are preparing for Sundays home opener coming up against the Las Vegas Raiders. As we get ready for that game, today we had a chance to hear from the coordinators, so let's kick things off of Special teams coordinator Chris Horton.

Good to see everyone. Hope everyone's doing well today.

I thought we had a really good two days, just really trying to really focus up so we can go out and put our best foot forward. Thought from the game just you know, in the very limited amount of plays that we played, I thought our guys played hard, they played physical. There's always some things that we're going to continue to work on, so we could just really try to improve how we go out there.

Weekly questions with your.

Personal pression In the new kickoff of yours.

You know, I like the play. I think it's a it's an opportunity.

I said this before you know there's a there's a ball being kicked off and there's a ball being tackled.

That's that's football.

So you know, anytime that could happen, you give the guys on the field an opportunity to go play a play. Those guys are fired up, they're excited, So I feel pretty good about the play.

That to be a little bit of an overreactor here, but it doesn't.

Didn't seem like there was a lot of difference in the Chiefs certainly seem more willing to give up that thirty yards on the kickoffs. I mean, do you think that will change based on situations in various you know, scores or games.

You know.

I can't really speak for the other teams across the league. I think I said this last week. Every team's gonna be different. Every team's gonna do what they feel is best for their team, or they're gonna do what they think they want to do right for the other coaches.

But I think for.

Us, any chance, any chance we get, I think to play the play. If I feel good about what we're putting out there, we'll continue to play the play.

Chris, you guys have made just one of your last six fifty yard plus field litt attempts.

Do you see any pattern to those, to the operations on those kicks, any anything that you're concerned.

About going forward?

Not at all.

I don't think I don't think there's anything to be concerns earned about. I think I think the thing with Justin is, as always, let's just let's just play the next play, right, And I think I think when you when you think about those those last six kicks, uh, there's every kicks different, Every situation is different, right, every every element is different. Obviously, the object is to get the goal, get the ball between the goal posts, right.

Have done better?

But I don't think there's anything to be to be concerned about because I think every kick, when you look at those misses, they're they're different. Every the someone were sixty seven. Some are the end of the games, you know, and things like that. So I don't like, again, I don't think there's anything to be concerned about. He's in a good spot. He's still a heck of a kicker.

Chris, do you feel that there's concerns party?

Maybe the detection unit since point since a point point shoot, there's been four fifty plus attempts that loss anything makes just.

An entire operation.

Again, No, not at all I think.

Uh, I think again, when you look at you look at the situations. Uh, if it's a if it's a colder day, right, the ball is gonna be a little bit lower the ball, you know. So I think I think for us man, we're just focusing on, like, obviously being as good as.

We possibly can on that play.

Uh, that's getting a getting a field goal, block, getting upon block.

Those those aren't things that we want to see.

Obviously there's something that might have happened in those situations, but I don't think there's any concern with protection or anything like that.

I think feels out.

I thought I thought Jordan was good.

You know, he had those two punts inside the inside of the twenty, you know, and again we had very we had very limited opportunities.

Right, and that's that's good.

I I encourage that if you're only punting the ball twice, that means your offense is moving the ball, right, So I'm I'm encouraging that. But then when he does go out there, he does it, he's doing a really good job. I thought he had a great a great spring in a great camp, and uh, I think that's gonna continue to carry over the more opportunities he get on the field.

Up as defensive coordinator Zach.

For one, obviously you guys had the coverage mixed up for on the second Touchhown was worthy. But how overall, how do you think communication went as far as getting the getting the call in the rope on and I mean everything you guys like to do pre snap at defensive line.

I thought it.

I thought it was all right. I don't think it was good enough. I don't think it was up to our standard. And you know, me personally, just I look at it as a coach. You I look at yourself first, so you know, I look I take full responsibility of that. And you know, we look forward to the challenge of responding and and doing things to our standard. But it was okay, but you know here in Baltimore, okay, it

Whatd you what did you learn from that experience? Obviously the first time in that spot too, Like you just said that, you sort of put it on some of it on yourself. Would I guess what what's your biggest takeaway from during the week one to week two.

I'll just say, man, just you know, keep keep us simple, keep it simple, keep it simple. Felt like, you know, try to do too much in certain situations and you know, cost us.

To play a little slow.

Man.

We got great players here.

Just allow him to go out there, play fast, do their thing, and everything's gonna be alright.

John pointed to the substitution in particular. Snowship.

Was that an area where you think you maybe could have simplified a little bit or where did you come around?

Definitely, definitely we had we had we had a couple of different personnel groups going in and uh credit to the chiefs, they did some things that were kind of messing with us a little bit. But I definitely feel like the substitution, uh thing could definitely get cleaned up because I look at it, like, you know, we cost us, uh two timeouts that we could've used towards the end of the game that you know, offense could have used.

So it's it was, like I.

Said, it was a learning experience and uh, something we learned from.

You know.

Obviously not really surprised that that Trenton didn't play for percentage that snaps the peak you did last year.

Still some really good players linking deflection inpourtant quarter.

You know, does the intention to get Trenton develop him to a level where he can be sort of an every every down linebacker.

Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean Trent did Turnt to the heck of a job in the game. Like you said, he made some plays, especially in key moments that that third downplay was big. Gave us a chance to u uh go down either tie or win the game. And I think, like you said, he's going into his second year and he's gonna continue to play more and more as we g as we get going, what do you wanna.

See from him to get that trust.

And that then just keep coming out here working, Just keep coming out here working. We got a lot of good play, We got a lot of good players, and you know a lot of them are gonna play.

Similarly, we saw Neighborings play a little bit more on defense trams as in the game, but not too much.

What does he need to do to get more.

Of those stabs during just aside, tru uh Nig's gonna They's gonna be fine. There's gonna play a lot a lot of football, uh for us. Gona play a lot of great football for us. So I think, just like you said, just continue, Uh like I said with Trent, just continue to come in and continue to work. And uh he played, he played. He played well in the game as well. So uh, the better he plays, the the more he's gonna be out there. But Nig's gonna play a lot of football for us.

I know there's a lot more to to it, but yeah, what is it like to see a guy like David the.

Job os or like wait.

Birth the way he did kind of come out with her for some pass or some success.

For I'm I'm proud. I'm proud of uh job man like job. All he's done is work so hard to get back. I mean he's came back earlier than what uh people thought he was gonna be uh back, And the biggest thing I said with him is just staying healthy. He's he's very talented. When he plays, he's productive. You

Play real good football for us.

I think we got a just a glimpse of what he could, uh, what he's gonna be for us this year.

Render to him after getting that sack, and it's very us.

What has that?

I mean, it means a lot to him.

Man, You're gonna just imagine a guy who's who's come in with high expectations, who hasn't been able to play a lot for things that are out of his control. I mean, you can't really control a lot of injuries he's had, and for two years he's had to sit on the sideline and watch and I'm pretty sure hear all the noise about about him and how he's not been out there. So we love it. We love that he expressed himself. We love that he was fired up.

He asked you and again into the game and then what you expected it to be like your first game in real game. Now you've done it.

Are there any takeaways from the inside from the substitution stuff.

I would say that it happens faster.

It happens a lot faster in the regular season than the preseason, which I try to anticipate. But you know, I have just said when you don't know until you know, so now I kind of get a gauge of real like regular season speed. And like I said, it's something that I that I'm learning, I've learned, I've learned from and look forward to, uh, you know, getting better this this week coming up?

Is there's one the.

Relief thinking about sort of the curve of NFL offenses. I mean, you're going against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid in the Week one. It doesn't get more challenging than that. I mean, is there some relief from like, okay, like e everything else.

I can handle.

Nah, there's there's no relief. It's a week to week league, man, And like I said, I respect every single player and coach in this league, respect every offense in this league, and every every game is different in its own so you don't know, uh what you're gonna have to do to to come away with a win in this game. So it's not a relief. Like you said, Uh, what happened happened. Now we're looking forward to his next challenge. We know it's a good football team coming in here.

Zach, talking about the.

Raiders they had, you know, they were pretty efficient offensively except for the turnovers.

I was you know, looking at their dose.

Do you think, all right, well, there's ways to help maybe continue that, trying to force those or otherwise, you know what, it's the key to trying to keep them from being as efficient as they were.

Yeah, I think we have to.

We have to try to limit the ex limit the explosive plays. Like we gave up too many exposive plays in in UH week one. We had to limit those. They have great playmakers. We have to be able to cover their skill and then stop the run. So I think we stopped to run and cover their skill obviously.

I think a lot of people when they took Bowers kind of expected that they're to be a twelve personnel team.

But I think Bowers in Mayland got like fifteen snaps together.

I guess what we're kind of stuck out to you about maybe how they use their personnel in that week.

One man, I thought they probably would play more twelve personnel thirteen personnel, But like I say, it's week to week, so they could come out and flip the script this week.

So we're preparing.

We're preparing for that, We're preparing for what they did in the first game as well.

We also heard from offensive coordinator Todd Munkett, well, with the new.

Offensive line, it kind of helped up them one at the first game.

The ship They're good. I'm excited moving forward, you know.

So there there's a lot to build off of really, to be honest, with all the guys that played.

So often here week one and week two, especially for young players, the root for improvement is really you often see really big jumps.

Do you expect that?

What I do? We saw it last year from US.

I can't speak to other teams, but I can speak from the Texans games to the Bengals game on the road. We were significantly better, significantly cleaner. Our operation was better, our execution was better. Time will tell, but we had a great practice today. So I'm excited to see you know where we've come in a couple of days.

Tiger said, there was a lot.

To do at all.

What are some of the things that you saw that making hopeful going into the two?

Just being cleaner, you know, that's probably as much as anything. I mean, what makes it hard to stack plays? Penalties, you know, missed assignments. Call's got to be better. I got to do it better during the week because the the points didn't match the yards, and you need to have a match.

It's it's about points, not about yards.

It looked like Lamar was pre active before his snap, but all the point and then you know, using the pre snap weapons that he has available. I guess just from your kind of view, how did he do and getting you guys into that best play that.

You have on the menu.

He was great. He was great. He did a great job.

Really tough environment, you know for all of us, you know, to start the year off there loud, you know, silent cadence. I thought he did a great job. But although I thought all the guys handled it, we weren't. We weren't clean by any means where we want to be. But from that standpoint, I thought he did a great job and the guys did a great job.

We were asking John earlier this week about Roger rose Garden. He said, makes sense to kind of keep developing him, especially in these early weeks. Obviously, I'm sure you worry about him basing an elite pass rushers, rushers like he did against Chris Jones last week, but is it also does the staff feel like it's part of the process to expose him to some of these elite pass rushers.

Some of that.

Rodgers is going to be a heck of a football player. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. So we got to continue to develop him, keep keep you know, getting him in the game. You know, he's going to get out here every day and practice against a really good defensive line.

And We're going to continue to seek growth.

We really don't want any of our guys on an island against a great pass rusher, so he's not the only one.

We got to do a great job.

Of change of protections and chipping and doing all the things you have to do against some of the elite players in this league.

Her partnership kind of work the way you wanted it to, or Mark got double teamed a lot.

So Lamar has a big game.

With Well, there was no thought that that's how it would turn out. Did we intend on playing the tight ends a bunch?

Yes.

Did we anticipate we'd have that amount of snaps? No, you know, we didn't anticipate that, and that's not the norm. You're not gonna have eighty snaps or something like that in a given game, you know, per se. But I think we do a really good job of trying to find ways to distribute the ball, and we're gonna have to continue to do that. We've got a number of excellent skill players that deserve to get the ball, and that's what we're trying to do.

Sometimes the ball just finds them and sometimes the game goes that way.

You know, we didn't have a ton of two minutes. Last year, we had two in that game, you know, and they were extended two minutes. I mean there was probably a total of fifteen snaps in two minutes, which at that point, the whiteouts are happy and the running backs aren't happy. And when you're winning, the running backs are happy and the whiteouts aren't happy. So that's just the way it goes now, I'll tell you. And that's that's the way it works in this business.

You know.

The good news is we have a lot of really talented skill guys that they give you a lot of you know, a lot of opportunity to move the spread the ball round.

We also heard from offensive line coach George Warhawk.

Tell us a little bit about when when we heard you out there with the team, you had this.

Call after you say hi you Yeah, that's a nervous tick. Oh that's a nervous that's just me being excited. Right.

So, uh, when we're an individual and we're going, I go. If you notice, I'm right behind them when they're going. So it's a nervous stick. I've had it for forever. But it's about being intent and playing with some intensity.

Okay, George Obviously there's a very human element to what's transpired the last month of you know, what has this process been like for you as far as you know, the Ravens reaching out to you joining the team and just you know, from a football standpoint, kind of joining this in the in the midst of it already.

Yeah, being pretty ramped up.

That's that's a big question, first and foremost. I mean, the situation was tragic. Uh, Joe and I were both in the World League together. I'm not saying we were close close friends, but we're a very good acquaintances. If he had a question, he called me at calling back. If I had a question, I call him, he called me back. So what happened here was tragic. The fact that John trusted me enough to call me, I'm impressed with that.

And I'm grateful for that.

But the situation I walked into, what Joe had done here made it very very easy. The group is well trained, they're very smart. They work their tails off. It's important to them, and that's what he did before I got here. That's what he built as a foundation. So the whole deal is tough, and we're just trying to make the best of it.

So Georgia.

I mean along those lines, I mean, how much of your job do you feel like is getting this offensive line.

Kind of schematically ready to go and how much is being there for.

Guys who probably pretty down still from loss.

Well, in terms of the football side of it, I mean, the situation doesn't matter. I mean when you come in, you got to get guys ready to play and the deals. You got to win games, right in my opinion, for us to have a chance to win games, we have to be exception what front and we have to play hard. We got to play fist go, we got to play smart. That's that part of it. The grief part of it. Anybody that's dealt with death, I've dealt with it in

As far as the action, you have, the coaching aspect of it, and working with so many young players, I would expect you have the opportunity You've got all these young pieces in some new spots and trying to really a chance to mold and help these these young men grow into what you want to be.

What's that process been like so far?

Oh?

The first thing was me just trying to figure it out what the foundation was, right, what they've been taught, how they communicate, what the schemes are.

I've got a pretty.

Good feel for that now, and so now it's just a matter of me getting them to function the way I want them to functions.

Some aspects it's different than Joe's.

Some aspects is very much the same, but just getting them to buy into that and to go about it that way.

We're in a similar vein Pretici.

We're just you need to know you how would you describe your coaching?

A lot.

Uh?

Intent?

Aggressive, h And we want to be dominant, and so when we're at practice, we want to practice in that manner. We're an individual, we want to go about it in that manner. And when we played football, we want to play football.

In that manner.

Did your background odd also? I mean you had sort of a natural report with him coming in.

I love Todd, Uh, I'm so impressed with him. I was impressed with him in Tampa, and I'm more impressed with him since I've been here. The job he's doing, he's much different than he was in Tampa, how he calls the game, how he looks at the offense.

So yes, his him.

Being here helped me be here, and then him being here is helping me adjust quite a bit.

George.

To know that there was such a source of frustration in the game about these illegal formation penalties that you guys got dinged up, I mean, are you pretty confident after looking at that that all that's behind you guys?

More as I certainly hope so?

Uh.

I would say that was my fault though, because.

I knew they were going to be sticklers about it, I didn't know how big a stickler there was gonna be, all right, I mean, I thought in practice we had done a pretty good job of being legal, and apparently we didn't do a good enough job.

So before I.

Blame our players, it's my responsibility to make sure we're doing it right, and I didn't do a good enough job in that regard.

Beyond that element, what did you like about the the offensive lines performance week wanted? And what would you like to see a focus on it, cleaning up.

For going in.

I love the mentality and how we played. I thought they were physical. I thought they played the whole game. They never blinked, which gave us a chance at the end to have a chance to take it into overtime. I think technically we had to clean up some stuff. It's not those aren't big cleanups. It's just being consistent with footwork, being consistent with hat placement. I'm straining to finish a little bit more.

Of course, it looked like the Greater spent a lot of time in Week one lining up Christian Wilkins next to Max Crosby and over the.

Right side of the line. How inclosing challenges that and you know what kind of with the guys here to do this.

Those are good players, I mean, and sometimes there's not much you can do but block them right. So with ninety eight right Crosby, they're gonna move him.

All over the place.

So it's based on the defense, based on the call, based on what they're in.

He does like to play on the.

Right side, and I'd say he's probably over there seventy five to eighty percent of the time, but he will be on the left side. Ninety four is a good player as well, So we're gonna do our best the scheme anyway we can get to them to help those guys out. But at the end of the day, when it's third down and we're throwing the ball, we can't worry about where those guys are. We gonna worry about worry about how we go about our business and us blocking them.

So those guys who were starting for the first time fullaway and.

Whereas, did you feel like they were even maybe better players at the end of that first game than.

They were at the beginning of it. I mean, did you see progress over the course of the game.

I would say no. I would say they've been doing that in practice, right. I'm really impressed with Voorhees, just how he goes about it. I practice. You guys watch him every day. I mean, he goes hard all day time. He's very intent about how he wants to play. And Daniel was growing into the position. I thought he did some really good things, so I wasn't surprised at all.

No.

I expected him to play well for I don't know if you.

Were able to look at the study Ronni's Familey early in his career, but it seemed like he had a really impressive opener. I guess, what have you kind of seen from him? And what kind of player you know, can he be at this stage of his career.

The miles that he has, Well, it's funny because I don't look at Ronnie as a nine year vet.

I was thinking about that today. I knew I had to talk to you guys.

I think I got all these young guys, and then I thought, Ronnie's in this ninth year. Ronnie feels like the way he moves like he's a fourth or fifth year player. All right, So I still think his healing is extremely high, and I still think he's an excellent player right now, and I still think he can be a better player. So it's not a matter of wear and tear or age.

On the tire.

Is just us getting to play a little bit better than he is and just taking in an inch at a time, a week at a time.

What do you say to Roger rose Garden when he has it's how first rep you know that his NFL create comes to the bench, How do you coach him and get him that gather there.

Welcome to the NFL. It was bound to happen at some point in time. It was just a tough situation. It was an unusual look.

And again, this is something we didn't expose him to. If he was a veteran, we would expect him to handle that a little bit better. But he's a rookie and he set on him how he thought he should have and he didn't let Daniel help him enough.

So that happens.

When you talk about all these new starters, new pieces, a lot of change from last.

Year to this year.

How valuable is it having Tyler Linderbaum at center kind of just anchoring the whole thing and being in charge of the operation.

It makes it very, very easy. But it's just not Tyler. I mean, the whole room is plugged in. So when you go in there again, I still have questions. I'll ask, Okay, how'd you guys communicate this? And they'll explain it to me, and I'll look at it and I'll think about it. I'm like, okay, can we look at it this way? Would that be a problem? So that W'll come from Ronnie, I'll come from Patrick, right. All of them will give me input on how they how they have played and how we're playing.

Now I apologize, this guy asked, but I'm just scarious. You know, day one on the job, when you come in. Then when you came in, there's tough circumstances like how did you approach the room?

How'd you go about that?

I just said, listen, I don't know what you guys are doing exactly. I'm gonna listen as much as I can. From a schematic standpoint, Uh, from a technique standpoint, I'm gonna ask you to do some different stuff. And that's pretty much how we approached it. So like on the practice field, the techniques we're doing. It's hard to come in here and coach football the way somebody else did. All right, so uh, technically we're gonna do it the

In the locker room.

We also heard from two tight ends. Let's kick things off with Mark Andrews.

What is it about Isaiah that makes him? They're dangerous?

There's a lot, you know, there's a lot you know when I say that he's got a natural or act for football, he does. I think that he and I have a similar way of you know, running routes are getting open and you know, but in different ways. I think that something that's special about him is his yak. He's extremely competitive and he's an incredible teammate too. Everybody wants to be around him.

How many questions does he ask you on the daily?

Is he constantly picking your break?

I feel like we think the same way now.

Yeah, yeah, Mark, if you recommend him getting at the smaller year size after after Thursday's game.

Yeah, you know, it's uh. He we worked the toe drag and all that stuff all the time. Things are going to come our away park.

I think a lot of people might not recognize that the Breakers defense last year was pretty dang good at the top ten.

A lot of metrics that they did pretty well at Week one.

I just what kind of things out to you about how they go about their business.

They got a lot of guys, you know, they got a lot of really good players, and it's gonna be a tough matchup for us, you know, but it's one.

That we're excited about.

Next up is tight end I say, likely what did uh? What it was your takeaway from the game last week?

Uh?

I say, really just finishing. I mean, just be able to finish drives, finish plays, finishing little details within everything, and just be always, you know, when we go out there to put points on every drive that we have. I mean, you're playing a great team like them. I mean, every drive counts, and that's just you know, something we gotta harp on going into the next game.

You have that kind of performance, you know, But I'm sure that's it's to your point, there's the the end that you know.

How do you how do you kind of look at it? I mean you look at as a you know, a great game. How do you how do you kind of view that?

I say, just incomplete? I mean just understanding that everything I did good, everything you know that happened good in the game, it wasn't enough. I mean, so just harping on, you know, the little things going into that game when you know you're watching over it or you know when you play them again.

I mean, just understand that.

Every rep, every little thing in that game matters, and that to take every play as serious as it could be, the one that costs us.

I hear Patrick Mahomes's advice about the Waite cleats, Yeah, I did.

I did hear the White cleat coming. I mean that's obviously you know news.

Coming from a vent.

Is that something you might pursue in the future, Yeah, I mean I look into it, But I like my cleats.

Do you think teams will play you differently after a game like that?

I feel like, I mean, you know, I feel like everybody in our offense can go the distance, can have it, you know, a career game. So I understand that, you know, anybody in our offense, whether it's from Lamar and Derrick, Henry bay z Mark, I mean, anybody can have that type of day to be able to take over a game, to be able to put our you know, our team.

In the best possibility to win.

So I mean just having you know, those type of guys in the offense where you guys have to play everybody you know correct or you know, responsible to be able to go to distance.

I mean, it's just something you gotta prepare for.

To have you get the home game final really must win is not right, but it's you gotta get home after coming a loss. You're gonna have this support behind you. How important do you feel someday is for you guys to get to where you want to go?

I mean I feel like every week's important. I mean our mantra every week is to be one to know when the weekend. So treating every game, you know, like it's the last one to be able to just you know, always start that winning streak and keep it. I mean, we preach on momentum, so you know, this week would definitely be a right step to building that momentum.

Was there any part of you after the game that thought if I wore one size shoe lowerdown?

I really just say, just you know, just always making sure, I mean, just taking that next you know, millisecond to make sure I'm in bounced to be able to you know, celebrate and have that type of moment to be able to.

Go for two.

You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. If you want more of a breakdown of this week's game against the Raiders, head over to the Lounge podcast feed. We actually sat down with Ravens starting quarnerback Brandon Stevenson had an interesting conversation about his mindset and mentality going into this year. So check out that episode. Also, if you're going to be at the game on Sunday for that home opener against the Raiders, make sure you get into