Welcome to the Raves Presspass Podcast. It is Monday, January fifteenth. The Ravens are preparing for a Divisional round matchup coming up at Mt. Bay Stadium. Today, we had a chance to hear from head coach John Harboll.
Okay, good to see everybody. Appreciate you guys. We are deep in the preparations. Last week we spent time on all four of the potential teams doing the plominary work, a lot of film study, a lot of analytics, things like that. Since then, since Houston one, we have been dialed in on Houston since the end of that game till now, continuing till about seven thirty tonight, and then we'll see if we have to pivot to Pittsburgh. So that's where we're at with that. What question do you have, John.
You mentioned Houston. I think when you guys played week one, you talked about it would be very good football team. What's different about them now? About them you know then versus Netflorks.
Yeah, I mean there are seventeen games different, I'd say, you know, coaching experience, all the things that a good team does that continues to improve throughout the season. They've done a really good job of that. Obviously, they're very well coached. They have really good young players, some veteran players as well, and they've continue to improve throughout.
It's Monday, and you don't know for playing Saturday or Sunday.
How's it impacting you the practice schedule.
Yeah, it'll just depend that. We're just waiting to see. We'll do our normal week either way. So if we play Saturday, or week will start tomorrow. If we play Sunday, our practice week will start on Wednesday.
So have you just told your players just you know, you play it by year right now?
Yeah. I told them to be ready to come in the morning for Houston, or we will come in the afternoon to do our prerimary work for Pittsburgh.
Thanks for Saturday at the stadium.
Did you get stuff accomplished? I mean not knowing still again what.
Lies in the store?
I thought it was really good, Jerry. I mean we had an hour and a half practice. You know, we're running around fast, timing, execution, good spirits. It was cold and windy, and we had a sense of the stadium. I think it was good to get in there psychologically, you know, just to feel that, you know, just even driving down to the stadium. He kind of felt like, Oh, it's like a game, you know, because that's what we do.
We drive to the stadium for our home games. All of that, to me helped us stay kind of psychologically in the right place.
John, what will go into your evaluation of whether elevate Dalham Cook as soon as this weekend?
It'll be you know what's we have options. The nice thing is, but the way the rules are now, we have those options. So we'll just look at it and say, from a game plan standpoint and opportunity standpoint, you know what makes our team thus strongest at this particular time based on what we're going to try to do offensively?
John, weavest do a lot over the years about preparing for weather conditions, probably usually rained, but I mean, in this case, the forecast is for it to be very cold and usually cold for here.
Is there anything to do to prepare.
For that or not?
Really?
Well, I mean it's not gonna be as much. It's not gonna be as cold as it was in Kansas City. It's not gonna be as much snow as there was in Buffalo. So we're good.
We're good.
It's good. We feel okay, about it.
I'm sure we'll see more later this week, but say, Flowers, is the expectation that you would practice this week.
Yeah, we're pretty optimistic about everybody, and then varying degrees of optimism with certain guys, and uh it really, I mean it's just like any week. You just have to see it unfold. I mean, some guys are good to go, other guys are gonna be more day by day.
How big was this rest week just for you seeing however players coming.
Back the the health or just how far can you say it again? How good was the rest week were you guys from that standpoint with health or energy, you just kind of getting to see time off. Yeah, I think it was good, you know, just from the mental standpoint, also certainly the recovery standpoint. I mean, it's it's it's
late season, a long season. We had a lot of very physical games, very physical games down the stretch, and they were all Every one of our games is a meaningful game for us and for our opponent until the last one, which was still meaningful for them, and most of our guys played. So I think the mental rest was valuable. You know, you work hard to get that buy. I don't think anybody's ever requested not to have the
buy when they aired it, have they? So it's definitely a positive, you know, and I think I know our guys looked at it that way, and we had a really good week of practice, so we did what we need to do.
I recognize you don't you can't look ahead. You mentioned you know you were looking at the four teams you might play. There's also teams you can play the AFC Championshiame, you have not seen yet this year. How much time do you spend looking at even those teams this week?
Well, that's the that's preliminary work that we do. So we will look at the two teams that are playing in the other divisional game this week with the individual you know, the coaches and the staff that are assigned those jobs, and they'll have all that information organized, you know, after we have an opportunity for gonna play those guys in one of those teams in the game, John, Because.
So much rides on this afternoon's game kind of you know, when you play who you play everything.
How much will you be watching this game?
It's gonna be hard not to watch, you know, it's gonna be hard not to.
I like to.
I'd like to think I'll have the bulk of my work, my own personal work done by then. I mean, you know, been working hard at it for you know a lot of days now. Even though those other teams a lot of it seems like it's wasted. You still do learn a lot of football. But as far as the Houston stuff, it's gonna be hard not to keep an eye in that game, for sure.
Is there any level of frustration or anticipation with just how circumstances force the game to be moved in Monday and your certainty on who your opponent is when you're playing, your entire schedule is forced to be not until figured out until tonight.
Yeah? Really, I mean no, there's no frustration. It's just it's the way it goes, you know's it's okay. We're excited to be in this situation. We're fired up to have an opportunity to play in the divisional round of the playoffs. That's that's deep in the playoffs, you know, as we see it, and we're hoping to you know, do the best we can put our best foot forward player, our best football game of this season. That's really that's all, it's on our minds as.
Much as you were able to absorb the games in between work this weekend.
Was there something maybe you saw that maybe you wrote down and said, that's maybe something I've taken note of and I should be passing along of the guys.
Anything you've gleaned from any of those games.
Uh, yeah, you probably do. From a playoff standpoint. I mean, there were teams that came out and played really well. There were teams that came out and didn't play well, you know, and you take notice of that and you try to say, well, why, you know, why are those things happening to that team? That's not something they expected. So it's I think I think all the guys do the same thing. You know, I might mention it somewhere
along the way to some degree. But the game last night, both teams played great, you know, So we just got to be focused on playing our best football. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, we want to be focused, but we want to be loose at the same time. Those two things are very important. And that's Suppo. Shoot for.
John, it's been they were coming about a year and now since you guys promoted Scott la to spending conditioning coordinator. I guess, you know, considering all the attentions of Kaid to Steve fairly, what made you guys decide to kind of keep it in house and what have you been impressed by for you guys saying it will be being strong everything that kind of.
Goes in that condition.
Yeah, you know, couldn't in the in the end looking back on it in terms of making the choice to stay in house and to go with Scott and and the rest of the staff there, Uh, we have a great, great group with Ron, with Anthony, with k They're all all three do a fantastic job. And uh, Sam roseen Garten, I'm putting that category as well from a performance standpoint. But Scott led it and it was really a a
an evolution of what we had been doing. We felt we were doing a lot of great things in the weight and we felt like we had a really good program. And you know, I have a lot of respect for Steve Saunders. I think he did a worked really hard and did a heck of a job and and made us a strong and in condition football team. And then Scott,
you know, through the circumstances that take place. They are what they are, and Scott stepped in, uh and you know, maybe a little bit of a tough, sick circumstance, right and I just handled it just gracefully and aggressively and did a great job. I think he's I think he's one of the stars of the season, you know, not just Scott, but the whole group that I just mentioned before that weight room is one of our star uh stars of the season. For sure. They've done They've just
done phenomenal. The guys love going in there. They work really hard. I think it's very comprehensive in what we do. And I'm in there. I'm in there every day, you know, with people and you know, maybe not quite as much weight you know some of the guys, but uh, but but I think it's just a great environment that we have in there.
Yeah, you know, when you look at this team, obviously there's better guys. Guys have won a young talent Mike McDonald and what you've done and Todd as well in yourself, what just stood out to you, I guess from the makeup of this group staff. I'm sorry, the team, the team.
I just think and believe, I believe that This is one of the most connected teams I've ever been around, you know, And I think it starts with the fact that I really believe they love one another, and I think they have a kind of a spiritual connection that
runs through the whole team. I think the guys you can just tell when a group of people like being around one another, like working together, trust one another, believing one another, and want to see everybody succeed, you know, the idea that if one of us succeeds, we all succeed. I see that with this group. There's much more than any other team that I've been around in you know, forty plus years of coaching. So that's that's a real, real joy to be around. And it's a reflection of
all the people that are involved. It's a reflection of all the different individuals that go up to make the group, the culture, whatever you want to call it, the environment, the worldview that they take on, the challenges that are in front of them. And I'm just I admire everybody and those seats that sit right there in our team meeting, I admire every single person sitting in those seats.
All right, John, how much easier is it when you're preaching these guys and a foot I'm not obviously everyone's gonna be focus in the playoffs, but just throughout the season, when your quarterback is constantly talking about staying off.
Then and staying in the home, and.
When Lamar's constantly preaching that message, how much does that help the coaching staff?
Tremendous. I mean, it's a player's game and the team belongs to the players. When when you coming up, you play sports in high school or college, right, what are the I always say, you know, it's the seniors run the team. It's a senior leadership is the key. You have great senior leadership. And that's true in the NFL too. You've got have great senior leadership. And we have that our seniors, you know, and I don't mean like old age type seniors, you know, I mean our veteran players
and our best players are also our hardest workers. There are our most responsible guys, and that's what drives the whole thing, through the whole deal. So, you know, you talk about vision, the vision basically the definition of vision
is a shared understanding. You know, we have a shared understanding of what's required and what we need to do and how we're going to go about doing it, And I just feel like those guys drive that every single day, locker room, meeting room, practice field, hanging out, going to dinner, whatever it might be, that gets reinforced all the time. And once it gets reinforced all the time, it kind of centers back on itself and gains momentum and next thing you know, it's roll.
That was head coach John Harbaugh and we also have a full breakdown of what to expect in the division around. You can check that out in the Lounge podcast. Make sure you leave a rating and a review here as well as on the Lounge feed, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button as well. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you later this week.