Welcome you to the Ravens Press Past Podcast. It is Monday, August twenty sixth. After practice today, we had a chance to hear from head coach John Harbaugh.
Everybody, good to see everybody here. Appreciate you being out here. Really the last day of training camp in terms of getting into game week next week for the Chiefs. When we come back on Friday, we'll be in official game week. We'll be in six days up until the night game against the Chiefs on Thursday nights. So this practice was appointing us toward that, and that's our preparation right now. I just want to say a little more looking back
on Joe Dee. Just want to express again our heartfelt condolences and our very best wishes and prayers to Joe's family, his three amazing daughters who have been with him every step of the way, all of his great grandkids. We saw a tape today with our players his grandkids on the sideline before a game, running around here in the fieldhouse.
All those kind of things.
That means so much when we look back on Joe's life and what an impact he had on so many people.
You see some of the.
Tributes that you that you all did. It's so appreciated. I mean, you guys really captured Joe. I thought just perfectly well with your tributes, both in the you know, written and in the in the in the in the TV stuff. So thank you for that. This is a good man, a good coach, just a just a great person, a great a man of faith. So he was kind of an inspiration for all of us here for sure. So we want to honor him for sure with this season, and we want to honor Jacobe Jones with this season.
Those are two people that we're we're gonna dedicate our season to this year and do everything we can to make them proud of us when they're watching from where they're watching. So we appreciate those two great men very much. What questions you have, It's perfect.
Do you have a special doment for story that kind of stands out when you're kind of him?
Yeah, I mean, you know so many really cool things, but just you know, when he was telling me stories about growing up in al Equipma, Pennsylvania, which is a football hotbed, a small town and all they do is play football, he said he grew up basically had a small town. You had, you had the Italian neighborhood. You had all the different on en clays and they were small towns, so they were right close together. It's a block here, block there. And they'd get together and they'd
play against each other and with each other. And he said, all grown up, you know, from dawn until dusk, and it was really football.
It was a football town.
Then they'd get to the high school and they were all on the same team and they were a powerhouse. And those are some of his best friends of this day. I think that's pretty cool. He was working in the in the steel mill when he was seventeen and eighteen years old, and that's that's the Moulten you know, the steel mill. You know, the molten moulten steel coming out of the big vats that we don't have anymore, that America needs to bring back. You know, we're for that, right.
Are we.
Yeah, Until not getting political here, but let's bring back to steel mills. Because guys like Joe Delas Sandras were in the steel mills as a teenager.
And he did mention.
That what he was taught by the older guys working in the steel mill that before you took your shift, you had a shot of whiskey. One shot of whiskey to get you ready for your for your for your tour duty there, So h that was pretty cool. And then all the great coaching stories over the years. And then all the players that just you know that that that said stuff, you know, and I think even guys like RG three as a quarterback talking about him.
So those are pretty cool things. Palace impacting.
You know, I'm sure all of you guys are filling in, but it's specifically the office in line of the guys that were working with him on a daily base.
Did you get a sense of how those guys are dealing with this?
Yeah, you know, Ronnie Stanley I said some really good things. Talk to Tyler. Pat McCary spoke to the team today about it. Uh, those guys that have been with him for a long time, even the young guys who were impacted by him, the rookies even, uh, I think they were. They were a little quieter today, you know, and locked in, as was the whole team, especially in.
The team meeting.
I think he's it's his Uh, his memory is gonna be on our minds, you know. Uh, and it should be and it should motivate us coach, how difficult next twenty four hours setting a master talking to guys, that making.
A team, etc.
Yeah, that's a great question, Todd. I mean that's an ongoing process, so I think we continue on. It's not like all of a sudden we have to make cuts and we haven't been thinking about it. We've been thinking about it really every day. So we have a very
good idea where we're at. There are moving parts. There's different rules and eligibilities and different things like that, different needs, injuries, things like that that you take into account in order to set the roster and take advantage of trying to keep as many of the good players as you can, and because we have a lot of good players. So that's what we're trying to work out now and we'll have that done by tomorrow.
There was a report that that third quarterback rule has changed and now if you want to have an emerging quarterback available, it has to be on the fifty three. Will that change how you approach that?
It sure could. I mean it just depends. We were kind of counting on the rules. I didn't know it changed until ch had told me walking off the field.
Just now. So I think the PA vetoed it. That's what happened.
So they vetoed it for whatever good reason that they had, and we'll have to change our thinking on that, Johnna.
Do you make a decision on the on the three open spots in the offensive line.
Conticular to start there we have?
Yeah, I'm not gonna make any announcements on any starting positions going into the Chief game.
You know what would be the point. We'll just go play the game.
Don you anticipate you with any game as in last year you rotated tackles.
Well, that kind of see entertainment.
Do you anticipate that you have back this year for the regular season?
Sure, that definitely could be a possibility. I think it's something that we did last year effectively. So it's a kind of a new strategy, you know. I mean people have done that before. You know, we'll have to take credit for with Joe D. You know one of Joe D's innovations.
John how it looked like Kyler literbaumb was back out there today? How do you feel like he coming back today?
I tell you look good out there. It's good to see Tyler Linna when I'm out there of practice. So it's good that was I. I'm pleased with that.
Yeah, and anything you could share about maybe what you might have heard on the mix. Same act injury.
Yeah, it was an ankle spring, not not a major ankle spring at all. He was out there today as well practice. It was full speed, so it's okay.
Yeah, I've done I mean injuries.
Also saw Kyle and Handler can read uh, you know, I practice and then it doesn't out there too, and then.
Tells an agib. Yeah, I'll just say this about all those things. It's definite.
Don't mean to interrupt you, but it's uh, there's no serious injuries. None of those guys have anything that's gonna keep them out unless something crops up that I don't know about, so I can you know, I I'll say that, then you know something will happen maybe and you guys will be like, oh, you didn't tell us the truth, so you know it is what it is. But there's nothing now that's gonna keep anybody out of practice, out of practice on Friday or that that you don't know about,
Like allis still up in there. I can't tell you that. But other than that, it's just we're not really gonna get into two too much talk about the injuries because why, you know, it's a it's a competitive disadvantage to to get too deep into what your guys' injuries are. That puts them not in the best position competitively, and us the same thing. We'd like to keep our opponent's guessing a little bit. You know, that's that's the benefit to us. So that's kind of where we're at during the season.
If it doesn't have anything to do with like if I if I, if I think the opponent already knows and it's obvious, I'll just say it. But if because they know he's on the concussion protocol with Alis, until he gets off the concussion protocol, they know he's out, so I can talk about that anybody else like that, It wouldn't wouldn't be favorable to us or to the player to to, you know, give out information to the Chiefs or the Raiders or anybody else.
It just doesn't help us. You know, we're trying to have every possible edge we can.
Does it feel that there are more kind of questionable injury types when you're trying to sort this fifty three than other years. You mentioned Ali and other players that you have to kind of figure out how plus what the change this year where you can put you to I our short term before you cut. Does that all feel different this year or not?
Really?
Well, that's a little different. Yeah, that you don't have to you have to, you know, cut guys and then bring them back and all those kind of rules. They clean that rule up so you can just do it. You know, guys need to be on short term my R and I think those rules have been good. Used to be able to put a guy in I R for the rest of the season or you had to carry him. That wasn't good for anybody. So I think the NFL has done a fantastic job of just bringing
common sense into the equation with that stuff. Because guys don't want to bounce around teams. They want to they want to get dug in, they want to keep developing, usually with the team that they're at, So why should injuries cause people to start moving around. So that's been really good. As far as the difference in the injuries, we haven't had a lot of serious injuries. That's probably
the biggest difference. You know, we've had We've had little things here and there, you know, but that's that's if you're not. If you don't have little things here and there, you're not even practicing. We've had we've had little things off the field, you know, Josh ross Is this year was a car accident. So I think we've had a great camp that way. But you know that's that's day by day. So we just kind of keep going day by day with that and see where we go.
John, I mean, it will be about twenty four hours until everything gets out for you. I mean, what is the next twenty five hours. I mean, are you constantly tulking air, are you talking to coaching? How does that process that maybe over the next twenty hours goes for you.
We've had most of those conversations already and I think for now it'll be just if anything changes, if anything becomes available, we'll have a conversation other than just talking. But we have a plan in place, and then everything is written in firmly and uh chalk. You know, it can be a race in any moment and change, so well, not everything. I mean, you know tomorrow will be here, Mark Andrews.
Will be here.
You can you can you know that's engraved that's in stone, that's engraved in stone.
Tablets, Mountain at least for now.
We know how important special teams is to those The consideration of those final three spots, I mean, did you kind of get a sense for with the new rules by the end of preseason, just what the kind of traits you're looking for from those guys to fill those kind of spots.
Right, We do have a plan for that.
I think it's still gonna remained to be seeing because it's still in experimental stages right now, but we we kind of got some clues as far as what type of body types you want different spots and bigger, smaller, faster, all those kind of things, hopefully, and we'll just see how it plays out.
Obviously, the injuries by large went went quite well. On this being the end of camp.
Overall assessment then of kind of where you think, all, right, did you get done really all that you wanted to get done during this time?
I think we did, Pete, you know, I mean, you always want to get the most done as you possibly can, so and what is that what are we measuring that against? That's kind of hard to say what that number, what that what the amount of getting stuff done was. But I'm really I feel good with the process in the sense that everybody was locked in, everybody was fully committed,
everybody did the best they could in every circumstance. Uh, you know, we chased perfection as best we could, and uh, we're going to try to do the same throughout the course of the season. I got told the guys we're gonna play Thursday night against the Chiefs. We've been pointed towards that the whole you know, off season, of course, since the schedule came out. But after that game, we get in that locker room, we come back Friday from that game, there's gonna be another game in front of us.
It's gonna be the Raiders, you know.
After that, I think it's the Cowboys, Is that right? So we're gonna have a whole season. So that will be a beginning for us, not an end. It's an end right now because that's the next challenge. After that, it'll be it'll be a beginning and a launch point, and we're gonna try to improve every day throughout the course of the season.
Oh, when writes.
Injury, are you will have to talk about the number three running back roll? Or do you feel pretty good.
About the options in house? Or is that something you feel like you may have to look outside.
Yeah, I mean I would just say Jeff that that's all speculative, you know, I mean, it just depends. I like the guys in the house, if there's something outside that looks really great, I'm sure we'll look at it. It just depends who the names are, you know, what the options are. It's like it's like going forward on fourth down, you know what I mean, what are your chances of getting it? Is it gonna help us win the game or not? So it just kind of comes
down to that. We'll be open to anything. I mean, if the right player becomes available, I'm quite sure Eric, we'll be looking at him. But you know, people aren't in the habit of getting rid of really great players right before the season starts.
We do two more.
Should we bring back a shout at whiskey.
Before work we go all way before the press conference? Well, you know we could do that. You're gonna be the first buy you're gonna buy for everybody.
That was Raven's head coach John Harbaugh. The team has to get down to fifty three players on the roster by Tuesday at four pm, and the focus from here on out is gonna be on the Kansas City Chiefs and that matchup coming up in Arrowhead on Thursday, September fifth to open the NFL season. Thank you so much for listening. We will be back with you later this week.