John Harbaugh: Monday Press Conference (12/11)

Welcome to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Monday, December eleventh, and the Ravens are coming off a thirty seven to thirty one win over the La Rams at Nancy Bak Stadium on Sunday. The win improved the Ravens at ten and three on the season. They are sitting at first place in the AFC and the AFC North and there's four games left in the regular season. After the game, head coach John Harble met with the media or his regular Monday afternoon press conference today.

All right, great seeing everybody just.

After action, reporting and looking at the game and taking everything we can from it in terms of opportunities to you know, continue to improve going forward. Real happy with the performance. Love the way the guys played, Love the way they fought. The plays that were made down the stretch and throughout the game, really that made the difference in the game. Those are all those are all the things they are exciting to watch and difference makers. December

So what question do you have, John?

Any more updates, especially in Kyle Hamilton as.

Far as his dream.

Yeah, Kyle looks like could be day to day. Uh So we'll see as we go through the week. I'll have a chance to play in this game. Devin might be a little more extended. We'll just we'll learn more as a week goes on. But it could be could be more than a week, So we'll just have to see Kyle.

There's reports out there that it was an MCL spring.

Yeah, I mean it's like not really getting into the diagnosis of exactly what it was.

But he's day to day.

John.

We saw you rotate both offensive one went into that. Was that something you've discussed with them? Is that something you into doing more moving board?

Yeah, that was the plan going forward. I don't know, I don't know.

They both played pretty well, you know, I mean, you know, of course Pat I play like he always does, and then Daniel to get those reps in there, I think he had one probably that he went back. Other than that, I thought he played the rest of the really solid reps in there and did a good job just with the two situations with the guys physically, you know, Ronnie and Morgan. That helped us that they were all on

You would you would express optimism that the two weeks might be really good for Ronnie, and it looked like that was the case yesterday.

Was that Was that your impression? Yeah, that was my impression. Child.

He thought he had a good game, and you know, I think he's gonna build off that. Yeah, it looked really good.

I'm in a tough We had a tough job with those guys.

We had did a pretty good job of neutralizing number ninety nine and uh, and he had he had his plays, you know, he made some plays, but we also we got him blocked the number of times too. So I was kind of kind of proud of that for the guys and uh. But but when you do that, when you send so much attention to the one player, then you've got other other guys in one on one battles and they've got to win, so uh, and they did a pretty good job of that throughout the course of the game too.

Overall, definitely a winning.

Job, coach, twenty six rushes, four three pass steps we came with that balance?

Or was that just basically looks like Kellen was giving you they were given yesterday as far as well.

I mean, I think we had twenty five plays in two minutes, you know, so that's probably counts for a lot of that. When you're in two minute that often you're gonna have those are gonna be almost all passes, so uh, you know, it's probably that generally skewed more toward pass if you just look at it just just those numbers. But twenty five two minute plays probably had

And also what did you see after looking at the from shot game and.

That play that was missed there where it appeared.

That he maybe slowed down or didn't understand the route.

Yeah, I think just general, that's all part of it. When you look at the national.

Football the guy I can tell you that a lot of things aren't perfect out there.

A lot of things.

Our adjustments are made, whether it's somebody hears something a certain way or runs around a little differently, or takes off or scramble drills or whatever they do. I think that that kind of variance, you know, that kind of adjustment kind of thing, is all part of it. And sometimes you do hear the thing the wrong way, you don't do it quite right, or you know, the deep routes should be run full speed all the way through

Every single day at all the little things in the passing game.

John, what do you.

Think about Zay three touchdowns in the last two games for him, just the way that his game has matured to this point in his rookie season.

Well, yeah, you just work really hard for the opportunity that when it does come up, you know, you're prepared to make the play, and you make the play. I mean, third and seventeen after that crazy, you know, operation you know, what is it going to be?

Was he down? Was he ups? What's the down distance? How many times? How many times are going to be? Nobody really knew.

All of a sudden, the time goes off the clock and we're in third and seventeen becomes a hugely critical play in the game because it's probably gonna be our only chance to win the game. And then Lamar and Zay come up with that play, you know, And I think that's just the outcome of a bunch of hard work, you know, throughout the course of the season on that particular route, but also scramble Lamar's move and he finds him. Jay makes the play on the run, makes the catch.

With the hope and the intention that.

When a person a player gets in a situation, he's gonna be able to make a right choice and make a good play and all of a sudden, you know, that kind of that advent moment happens, you know, So I think that's part of it.

Was a and it's part of it with all the.

Guys speaking of that of that touchdowns to day, Lamar talked last night about how Nelly said he was going to clear the safety out on that route to open up the back for his eight flowers. For for Nelly to kind of take on that selfless role, open it up for a teammate. What's it to say about about him and the kind of teammate he's been this season?

Well, I tell you about Nelly, just like I don't know about he's I'm gonna decide to open it up. I mean, that's the route, you know, and he could have easily gotten the ball if the coverage has played a certain way. So but it played it played that way, and I think it's designed that way. If it goes that way, then you got you got two routes coming in behind an out route. But Nelly has played that way all season. He played that way the whole game.

Year after watching the game, when he pump return touchdown.

You know, since we last talk to you, anything kind of takes your eye about that play that you know, maybe you didn't see yesterday we talked teams.

Yeah, the thing about the pump return is kind of the example that of all the little things that go into it and all the individual battles that are taking place and choices that have to be made. I thought the gunner, we blocked the gunners really well the whole game, single and vice. Jalen Armor Davis's block on the first guy down the field was phenomenally good technique. You know, he had we call sea patch block. He did it exceptionally well. The vice was really good. We also had

That's hard to do. Did a great job with that.

And then downfield Josh Ross had a great climb block where he saw the returner coming, he saw the angle on his guy. He let one guy go climb to the next guy and cut him off. And then the last thing was Justice. Justice was the last peal guy to have no wherewithal not to run back up into the pile, but put a foot in the ground and get the.

Next guy up field. I thought was tremendous.

Those are all coaching points that we work on all the time, but to see it happen in real life, and then of course everybody saw Thailand's run, that's what made it happen.

I mean, it was just a great run.

But then your name was you know, taking guy punts and proven not long returns. It looked like it looks similar in a lot of ways to what tailand basso, just in terms of like the kind of alley that you guys for the return. I mean, is that how it is unfolds or is that like an actual play call for return and just the excution makes it looks as we supposed did.

Right, that's a great question.

I mean, it's an actual play call, but it's always a little bit different every time. But we're always trying to create an alley somewhere, so you can't always predict it. If the alley be all the way outside the coverage or it's one of those gaps we might call her lanes inside right down to the middle of the field, so you never know. That's when the guys always make adjustments based on how they we say, block them, how you find him. So you ended the block the way

There's some talk after the game that, you know, I think some of the Twitter officials felt like it was a block on the back by Colaire.

You you think that was an absolutely legal block on that play. I know it was absolutely because I watched it on tape. It was absolutely lego. His hands are in front.

For it to be a block in the back, you actually have to block the guy in the back, which he did not do.

It doesn't matter how he falls, it's.

Whether it's where you contact him when where you're you were kind of nervous about about it or did it just go so fascinating?

Really?

No, it was more of a big picture thing. Ball here yesterday, rainy days, and yeah, that that was good.

That was good our guys that I took it, took it the heart. You know, a couple of plays in there we'd like to have back for different reasons. But I thought the guys did a great job with that because they were punching the ball out and tackling the ball, and we had a lot of exchanges that Lamar did a great job and the backs did a great job with What were.

You telling them?

What were you telling the players about how you wanted them to manage the clock on that last drive of regulation? Were you were you wanting them to get out of bounce earlier in the drive to preserve as much time as possible, and then wanting them to let it run a little bit more later. What were you telling.

Them, Yeah, we were trying. We wanted to drain the time we wanted. It just spends how it plays out. So we got down there with a little bit of time, and we wanted to try to drain as much time as we could at that point still get as many points as we could. But you also, you know, you don't know then you're basically deciding you want to get a touchdown, So you got to see how it goes. You know, if it's if it's early enough and you have to kick the field goal, tell about the end

You do, then you want to have the time back.

That's why the crazy play on the Lamar being down or not was such a and you never you didn't know at that point in time, who is going to benefit from time being left on the clock.

There's just no way to know how to play it.

So on the final drive, it was just kind of a matter of let's see how it plays out.

You know.

Once we got down there and the clock was down a little bit, I was playing for the last drive. To me, it was going to be we're down there, We've got Lamar Jackson and our playmakers. We're gonna try to score a touchdown here almost no matter.

What, you know.

Then as we were talking during the game, it was like, well, how far back fourth and what you know?

Would you kick it?

And I'm like, fourth in a whole lot, you know, we're probably gonna go for most anything right here. And then it ended up being seventeen, which was surprising, but we scored so and then then I was happy that the time had run down, you know, it gave them less time, and then they had to burn a time out and ended up having to throw into the end zone at.

Third and six.

So it all, it all worked out, really, it worked out well for us the way it turned out.

John to Mary Williams's window, I think Kens tomorrow is the plan to bring him on the roster or.

Is the decision not been made yet? The plans to bring him on the roster.

Yeah, I haven't talked to Eric yet about the details of it, but that would be my anticipation.

Dubernas to miss more time. Are you okay name Titler ballas as your starter for returns.

I think he's earned it.

I think he's heard it, you know, and don't dis kind of hard those catches were, right, Those are some tough catches out there, Lamar.

Shots of the course of the game, your negfound and three touchdowns the top.

Seat and kind of player was getting the ball down the field? Was that a point of emphasis.

Coming into this game?

Is I just kind of being played out? Well?

I think getting the ball down the field is a point of emphasis really every week, Garrett. But there's different ways to do it. The double moves were a point of emphasis against. You know, the defense are kind of aggressive in certain situations. We had a couple of play action shots also, and then the way it worked out, you know, you don't necessarily expect a rail route to

And we'll keep working on that. That's a that's a big part of it.

Better we can get throwing the ball down the field, you know, we're gonna be a lot tough to deal with.

John looked like Marlon was struggling a little on that.

Last drive that Ross says he's still kind of getting.

Fully healthy after the cap injured, And how would you sort of explain. Yeah, you know, if you watch the whole game, which I did, I think he had he had numerous really good plays where he was in great coverage and was just pretty dominant, and then you know there were some tougher plays out there. But he hasn't he hasn't played in a few weeks. He's been kind of on and off with this kind of nagging kind of injury things. So to me, I kind of attributed

John, What is it about that type of scheme that the Rams run and teams like the Dolphins of the Notiners they do that same type of schematic concepts with their passing game? What is it about what they do in the passing and it makes it kind of difficult to defend?

Well, I think the best thing that they he did was they made plays. I mean Stafford. He hangs in there and makes throws.

That's kind of it's built around it.

There are all those offenses that you know, you talk about them being structurally in the same family, which they kind of are, but they're all built around the way the quarterback plays, and every offense is I mean, every offense is going to reflect the quarterback. He watched the game last night. Their offenses are reflect the way the quarterback plays. So the way Stafford plays is you know, he he he likes to operate the line of scrimmage. He likes to run the clock down. He likes to

Cup and the Kua.

They're kind of built for that, and they made they showed up under some balls that you know, you like, where's he throwing sometimes and all of a sudden they're making a diving catch to make the play so then you got to hand it to him. I mean, that's that's NFL football, you know, and they do it. They do it at a high level, and they made their plays and we made our plays.

John, you do.

Have a stretch down him up with you know, Jacksonville and San Francisco minding division leaders for the next few weeks.

How much do you think that will help prepare.

This team for you know, going into that that next season. Well, yeah, it will prepare us.

You know, we've talked about that last night, you know, and that's really what it's all about. But really what we're going to be focusing on is doing the best we can to win that game and what we're going to consider a playoff type of environment and a playoff type of a game, you know that that kind of kind of stakes, you know, So that's how our guys.

I look at him just kind of like.

The title for a second, when you go back to camp, and I don't know if he was you considered him a bubble guy or not, But but what about him? You know, made this made this team for you? Obviously you've been here and made some plays over the past few years, but what about him, you know, put him on the team.

I guess, well, I mean, you know, I don't know that he was. I know he felt that way because I saw I saw he said. You know, I don't think he was really as much jeopard as he thinks he was, because he's always been so talented. I mean, he's not a guy we've ever doubted his ability and his talent. I think he's had some nagging injuries and had some slow starts to certain seasons. If you look back, he had some training camp issues, like two years.

In a row.

But for him to overcome that what I look at, you know, and to keep kind of kind of keep bouncing back, and then you know, we bring in the receiving group. Him and Devin had to deal with all the receivers that we're in here now. So they weren't going to get as much of a chance. Just it was a fact, it was reality. But they both handled

John with Lamara, he maybe have he side think porn here, but we thought he really dynamic as a scrammar which obviously we know he could do. The office thought and especially in that he went con version and be just very very smart about his high movement five times started flying to day, I guess what kind of suck if you know, having moved in the pocket and also a breaking structure and.

Field on it.

It's to me, it's a very good observation because, like we say, you kind of your offense reflects the quarterback and you build it around that. So Lamar and there's gonna be times we've seen in the past where he'll try to do that and it might get him. You know, sometimes they do, and you know it was like, oh that's a bad play. It happens, but it's the NFL.

Talked about so many plays to lead for explanation. You plan on doing that with any of them from Sunday's game, maybe the defensive passenger here as a model at humph or the play where Jordan Stout was contacted during the pun.

Right, we will that's what you do. Try to learn, you know, what the thoughts were on it. So we'll do that.

Sure, that was head coach On Harball holding his standard Monday afternoon press conference. Next up, the Ravens have a matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars on prime time. The game is coming up on Sunday Night Football at eight twenty pm on NBC. Now, the Ravens will be back to work later this week. We're gonna have full press conferences coming for you on Wednesday, so stay tuned for that and thanks for listening to the Ravens at Press Pass podcast