Welcome to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Thursday, January eleventh. The Ravens don't have a game this week, as they have the AFC's number one overall seed and a first round by, but they are still putting into work. They're practicing this week, really focusing on themselves, their own skiing and the fundamentals as they get ready to find out their opponent this weekend and the eventual division round
game coming up next week. Today, we had a chance to hear from coordinator, so let's kick things off a special teams coordinator, Chris Horton.
What a great week for us to just come out here and really just focus on us. That's been the message to our group, man, is just let's figure out the way this week of how we can help ourselves and you know, get better at the things that which we're going to need to do in order to make some plays this postseason. So our guys are out there working all six phases field goal, fild goal, block, pump
on return, kickoff, kickoff return. You know, we get this opportunity, you know, and so again our focus is mainly about us right now.
Questions for so much do you like.
Having Dubernet back on the practice field, and do you feel the way that Thailand.
And and Justice have stepped up that you you know, really have some depth there and some good options going into the playoffs.
It's amazing to see him back out there. I'll tell you this. I think you guys know how how I feel about him. I know how our team feels about him, and I know how the guys in you know, the guys outside feel about him. He's a heck of a player. And just to have him back out there running, and it just goes to show, you know, to what we do.
I think, just fundamentally across the board, with the depth of having Thailand back there, coming out there making that play against the Rams and scoring that touchdown, having Justice out there versus Miami and he popping that big return. I mean, it just goes to show to all eleven guys really of our depth of if you put a guy back there, if we've blocked to play the right way, we can create those big plays. So are we excited to have him back?
Of course.
We're the trades Like speed is obvious, but other than that, where the traits that makes a good.
I think one speed speed for sure is everything, but you gotta have some vision. You got to be able to, you know, find the whole one is not there. And a guy that can a guy that can break some tackles, a guy that will run through some warm tackles, but but really just a downhill, vertical guy. And it's got to be a guy that's going to make some great decisions holding on to the football. You know, we talk about that a lot. Is very important for any of
our returners. That's first and foremost a guy that that can protect the ball. So you know, all those good things.
Chris, I mean you you McDonald's booth, I mean your coordinator now, and you both started as coaching interns. What do you even remove about kind of those days starting. I mean now that your coordinators, you know, you get, but what was it like at the beginning with you guys.
You know, honestly, at the beginning, I think I'm gonna speak for myself here, but you know, we didn't we didn't know. You know, we were just we were just two young guys just trying to figure out our way. And we got the opportunity here when the Ravens was starting that intern program, you know, and Mike and I
shared an office, you know, so we got it. We gotten to kind of get to know each other a little bit, and uh, throughout throughout the course of the year, I was still on defense at the time, so I had not moved to Special Teams at the time, so I was still working on defense, and we just kind of got to know each other. We set in that office together, uh, broke down plays, drew cards, you know, for the scout team. And then as the season went on. As a young guy, you know, you don't know what's next.
You know, we're sitting in the office like, Hey, what's gonna happen? Are we even going to be back here? Do we need to go find another job? You know, and all those things coming, uh they come into question. But this placement stability, it lets you be yourself. You know, you come out, you do a great job, you stick around, and then here it is ten seasons later and I'm
standing up in front of the podium. You know, it's a Special Teams coordinator and uh, I mean it's it's been great man, and uh, just just to watch what when Mike's done, and we talk about it all the time of kind of where we've come from to where we are now. It's just it's just been an amazing process of you know, just put your head down, go to work, and uh, those those things will pay off for you. All right, appreciate, Thank you guys.
That was special teams coordinator Chris Horton. We also heard from offensive coordinator Todd Monkey.
So when you don't have an opponent for the weekend, how do you structure practice? I mean it's obviously not game planning, but basically, what are you trying to get out of practice for this week?
Improve the Ravens offense. That's what you're trying to do. You know, when we had a bye week, the guys had the week off, so there's a lot of things we were able to improve on from a coaching staff standpoint, you know, self, scout, who we want to be moving forward, utilization of personnel, all those things. But we did the players here, So now you're fast forward six weeks later, five or six weeks later, you have a chance to kind of work on things that somewhat from a game
planning standpoint, but more about us. Because the way we protect, the way we pass set, the way we run routes, how we structure things, how we do it better, that's to me. That's what this whole week's about.
Okay, I've been to practices, but what you're seeing in Dobbin Cook.
Well, we're excited to add a talented player to our roster, you know, and I agree with what coach said things said yesterday. You know, we look at more as a potential weapon and than just someone that we've added to the roster. So you know, now catching up, catching him up to speed, you know, in terms of terminology and you know what we call things.
But it's not hard.
Just got to you know, continue to wrap him and you know, see where it goes from there.
To the story yesterday about how you know, back in the season, texadent call them. You know, I'm going to give you the key to the offense as far as making checks the light, that kind of thing. What are the having working now whole year? What are the traits de Lamore has that has allowed him to thrive succeed in doing that part of the game.
You'll change the way.
Well, first off, he's highly intelligent, so he understands what you're asking to do and what you're allowing him to do. And when the situation presents that. That's probably as much as anything, and he's embraced wanting to do that. Not every quarterback wants that. Not every quarterback wants that on their plate and be empowered to change a plate, the line of scrimmage or to put themselves out there where. Okay, now they made the decision to change something to the
line or protection, but it starts with him. He's diligent, he's intelligent. He's certainly more than capable of, you know, seeing things, what the defense is presenting to him and how he can get us into a better play, get us into a premium play.
When you when.
You got here, you didn't know John Harbald really really very well. You've certainly worked for a lot of head coaches over the years. Now do you've been with him for almost a year. What do you think are kind of a standout trades.
About the.
Consistency, I think if you said his day to day approach, his positive energy, his connection with the team. I mean, I've never brought on anybody anybody like that in terms of whether we've won, whether we've lost, in terms of his approach, and I think that that allows you when you have a season as long as we do in terms of sustaining for the long haul.
When you draw interest from other teams for their head coaching vacancies, how do you balance taken you know that that part of you know, the interest that you've been shown, and also you know, planning for your current team.
Well, it's not hard because you know, I'll be able to talk about that at a proper time when when that comes up. But the bottom line is, we have we have a chance to do something special here, you know, and our team, our focus is on this week you know, and where we're headed and finding out this weekend who we're playing and then come up with a great game plan and giving us the best chance to be successful next week.
I guess you, Mike Anthony, you know other other coaches in this in this organization. What does it say about this team this year that there's so much interest in the assistance.
Well, says a lot about the organization, says a lot about our players, says a lot about our coaching staff. You don't do it alone. I mean, you gotta have a great staff, great organization, uh, and a great team players that believe in the plan and are able to execute at a high level and let's really.
Sit out to you about Lamar and this.
Leadership this season. You know, Lamar is another one that and what I've seen over the course of the year that does a great job in terms of balancing success and disappointment and coming back to the office, coming back in the building with a great frame of mind. You know, you know, he has a great way of compartmentalizing some frustration, competitiveness, success, disappointment, all the above that comes from playing in the NFL and walk in the building with a smile on his
face and like, Okay, let's go to work. That's that's that's a unique trait because it's hard, I mean for what we do in all of us handling success, handling disappointment and then walk in the building saying, Okay, what's next.
That was offensive coordinator Todd Munkey. And know we also heard from defensive coordinator Mike McDonald.
Chris Wharton was talking about kind of what it was like to come up from the intern level and really grow as a coach.
In this organization. I mean, when you when you.
Reflect on all that time that you've spent here, you know, under serve of a culture that John created. If you do become a head coach one day. What do you think you've taken away from from that to sort of get.
You that thing?
Oh?
Man, Uh, there's so much.
There's so it's just we're so fortunate and lucky to be around first of all, the organization. But the organizations when you think it's just it's made up of people, right, and the alignment that comes from the top here. You know when I was when I was an intern, Ozzie being the general manager, starting with him, starting with Steve, now working with Eric and really everybody throughout the building, and then ultimately John and and the person that he
is and the leader that he is. You just have you have great role models you look up to, and you know that are high integrity, high character individuals and just phenomenal leaders.
So the easy guys to follow.
And if and when that opportunity presents itself, you know obviously you want to you model model that behavior after them.
Like on that note, you know, how do you balance the the the interest that you're drawing from other teams with you know, your task in your current role?
Yeah, I mean this is this is the first time I'm going through it, so you know, not a lot of experience to draw off of. But you know, the way the schedule sets up, you just have to deal with with how it's structured. So right now this week, uh, there's a lot of work that we're getting done here
in the building. Not necessarily for future opponents. I mean there's some there's some backward kind of being done behind the scenes, But our focus right now with our guys is trying to improve and really stay sharp and ramp up and make sure we're at our a game you know, to come next weekend.
So when we're here, that's what we're focused on.
And then fortunate I can trying to compartmentalize it and then you know, work on you know, the zooms and things that happen at night, and I'm doing those at my house.
And I asked Todd this just as a follow up, like, what does it say about the Ravens organization and this staff in particular this year that there's so much interest from other clubs around the league in these coaches yourself included.
Well, I got reference early.
It's it's about we have we have phenomenal people here, and the organization and the team has helped us, you know, put us in these types of situations all these coaches. I think now you understand what type of talented people that we have. So I'm excited for you know, the coaches that have opportunities, they definitely deserve it. Phenomenal human beings, great leaders, great coaches, So you're rooting for them throughout
the process. And I think also we all understand that, you know, you know, there's a mission here involved as well, so we're all we're still laser sharp focus on on what on the goal at hand, and we all know that's you know, obviously that starts with next weekend.
To clarify, I guess the rules you're not allowed to talk in Perth until.
After July twenty second, correct, right, But you've talked to teams at night, like when you're at home.
On zoom and stuff.
We've already done that, yes, okay, just.
Like we know it's one of four different teams. You know you could you could play next weekend, but you've played all those teams. How does that help in terms of preparation knowing that now you can't put together an elaborate game plan, but you do have some working knowledge of golf.
Yeah, it's it's always it's it's a there's different things going on when you play a team twice, you know, so you have to have an understanding of what your thought the thoughts were going into the game, and a lot of times there's path dependance involved in how they've operated going into that game too, So variables changed things
like that. But you know, you try to have a great process after you play them to kind of debrief and figure out, hey, this is how we played them, this is how we probably should have played them next time. We got to think about, you know, these things, and so we have that information available.
Our guys are doing a lot of work right.
Now and behind the scenes, but like I said, a lot of the focus right now out it's it's not easy to prepare for like four possibilities, you know, so as it starts to come into focus, you know over the weekend, now we can kind of sit down and go full steam ahead, you know, going in the next week.
Like does rook wanna have a sort of.
Ability or knack to like make the teammates he's playing around better? And it's so sort of how does that kind of a man best?
Absolutely, it's a it's a secret sauce man and there's a there's a there's a magnetism to him. That guy's gravitating towards Hi nashly. He always has great energy. I think I think it just you can't you can't help being around a guy like that that plays the way he plays the passion that he has and uh, and not be attracted to that, you know, and and the way he plays it in terms of just getting to
the football. You know, if you're not if you're not playing with him, then it just it pops out on tape and the guys realize that obviously, you know, just a tremendous leader all around. So you know, the guy's respect him for just how he operates.
Like, how much do you have you conversion John about these opportunities the.
Well, we had an interesting plane flight to and from Houston the.
Other day, so we had some we had a we had a time to that. We had a great conversation on the plane and just very very very thankful about his support that he's he's given to me and probably the other the other coaches as well.
So he's been awesome experience.
Like on Monday night for you, I mean it was uh, I mean, obviously we talked to John about it.
So it's it's his family, but I mean it's it's.
Your family in a way together.
What was that experience like, it was a phenomenal I mean, it was just it was a great It was a phenomenal experience. Something we laughed about. It's you know, however the story was going to play out with the with the plan and everything, but uh, it's something that will
cherish for a long time. You know, there's a lot of work that goes in, dedication that goes into getting to that point for that team, and you realize when you're in the stands that there's that the families are involved too, you know, the wives, the children, you know, just friends of coaches and things like that, all the fans. It's uh, it was it was a pretty it was pretty cool to see it kind of come full circle.
And then obviously we were on the field afterwards and just the you know, the joy that everybody had from you know, seeing the whole process through.
Uh, what was a was a special time. For sure.
You haven't watched a lot of football games as a fan.
Anymore that feel weird or had that.
I haven't been in the stands in a long time, but it was cool. Yeah, yeah, I had a beer.
It was good.
You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. The Ravens will not have a game this week. They will continue practicing Thursday, Friday, and then on Saturday at M and T Bank Stadium. The Ravens will find out their opponent by this weekend. Once the games are over this weekend, they'll know who they're playing and find out whether they're playing on Saturday or Sunday of the Division around next week at M T.
Banks Stadium.
If you want more of a breakdown of where things stand right now, head over to the Lounge podcast feed. We sit down with Michael Pierce this week for in depth interview about his new contract and what made him want to sign here in Baltimore to that contract extension. Make sure you leave a rating in a review and make sure you hit that subscribe button as well. Thanks, we'll be back with you tomorrow