Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. The Ravens took down in the San Francisco forty nine Ers thirty three to nineteen on Christmas Night. This was a game to remember for the Ravens, a two score victory to continue their
spot as the first place team in the AFC. This was an all hands on deck when everybody got involved in the action of Lamar Jackson showed everybody across the country in this prime time game that he should be the leading candidate in the MVP conversation after the game, we had a chance to hear from Lamar, so let's kick things off with him.
Well, Mar, why do you think he placed the walkans the NFCA you win up one to watch against a team you always.
I don't even I don't even look at it based off divisions or anything like that, you know, I don't know. I really don't know.
You know.
We just study, study a lot, a lot of film, just playing stuff back, you know, and then as I'm watching field, I picture myself out there, you know, in the field versus the defense, and I don't know, you know, God on our side, our defense, playing lightside, officer of the line block and they tail off running backs doing what they do. But see what's doing what they do, tight ends doing what they do. You know, all phases. You know, special teams as well. You know t uh
Thyland had a great run. I don't know, I don't know. While we play good, uh the victor, our record good against NFC. Yeah, just prayer keep keep being that way.
Oh big was a two for you guys to just win and mean so much was talking about the Niners teating vavors this game.
You guys, not type things, other problems stuff that you know, how kids win. I mean, I really don't care about the favorites. You know, that's a great team though you don't take anything away from them, you know, defense, offense, and special team as well.
Uh.
But I I pretty much like it that way, you know, just being the underdogs. I don't want people s looking at us like, oh we need them to go in and do this and that.
You know.
My like playing that's the underdog and I feel like we have more success been than we from our Uh.
John said, this was an MVP like performance for you. Right now, you said you didn't really care about those things.
You you just wanna win.
Be curious how are you how you.
Felt about it and that you thought of your Uh yeah, what kind.
Of performance it was for you? S we got the dub. You know, I really don't care about the performance. I just wanted to win. And that's what happened to night, you know, on Christmas. That was my gift, you know. Uh uh they aksed me at a interview, uh a couple of weeks ago, like want what I want for Christmas? And my wish got granted.
You know.
Uh, you just need to keep going, keep staying locked in, and keep staying focused because you know, we we know what it was twenty nineteen, you know, and we was playing against guys like this winning games. We win, winning regular season games, and when the time came, we didn't finish the season. So we just gonna keep taking the day at a time, you know, practice at a time, in the game at a time. That's all I'm focused on right now.
There are a number of times where you extended plays or made plays, you know, at the end of the first half there with the long run, the one that the drive where.
You had had your lord for the touchdown.
What what's going through your mind as you're you know, extending and in getting away from defenders and and trying to make them play there.
Uh made something happen. You know, just keep the ball in our favor, protect the ball. And that's pretty much what we did. Uh. Netie did a great did a great move. You know, it's man coverage. Uh, and he made a wonderful play, caught the ball, scored line, gave me pretty mu uh pretty much a great time. That's all it was. Well, what what does it say about this team?
Normally?
Are you beating the best teams out there? But when you're beating a bike.
Double digits or you know even more than that, what does it say by the the margin of victory of you're being's good?
Keep to us? I believe we we we play better under pressure.
Uh.
We keep our poores.
Ah.
We stay locked in no matter how the game may seem, no matter what what the crowd noise is, Uh, no matter how hard the defense hitting us, cause they you know, they're the defense was flying around. You know, gotta get credit when credits due. Uh, But we just stay locked in. You know, I don't think nobody s play like us. We just need to keep keep playing that way, you know, keep playing the raven Way and Mark As of offense, how big was.
It to get those those four turn the rigi or deem the first half, to get those short peoples.
Uh, it was very huge for us our defense, like you said, you know, got those turner overs. It was up to us to uh put points on the board. You know, we can't have those turner turnovers and get a ball rap back to 'em with no answer, you know, to we need points as much as we could with that with that high temple offense on fast offense. Uh, hats off to our defense, lamar.
Uh we saw the clip if you walkind of the field just talking about uh, Mike for as like.
For yeah, c cause we're in the NFL. We play ball, you know, not to take away from that team, but you can't just discredit us. We grown man. We gotta feed our family. And he can have his opinion, but just don't be just just talking like that. You know, that's disrespectful. That's very disrespectful. But no, not to take away from the forty nine ers at all, cause like they are great all across the board, but we gonna
come to play as well. You know, our record not no fluke, you know, we play ball when we showed that, you know, but he just need to just keep doing this job. But just don't just come come off like that towards us. You know, that's disrespectful. Like I said, cause he put him pads on. You know, if he'd put in them pass on, I feel like woulda been different for him. He wouldn't say that he'll be respectful, you know, cause w cause because uh I say that
to say this. You know, we respectful to our opponents. Our opponents was respectful to us. But the guy who ant who not even playing against us, just come out just you know, just being disrespectful. I guess he wanted more views on this on this little channel. We gonna leave it at that. Well, what happened on the on the stage, like ah ah, the real fail. He failed, you know, but he came back in the policize. He like my bad. You know, it is all good, it's
all good. But those two points, those two points helped him out a lot.
You know.
I I I knew I was gonna get away. I know Chase now I was gonna get away too. But you know that's pass off to Chase. You know, he did what he was supposed to do. Has that ever happened to you?
Like?
See, have you ever seen anything like that happened? I think a real feeld before in front of me before you know, but I got away. So when this happened, Uh, oh man, what it is? What it is? You know, we live to fight another day. And we did. You know, I just did turn it over, give him touchdown or rather those two points in our defense just hold on like they did for us. And you know we just just you know, we just get it back, get the ball back and just put points on the board.
That was quarterback Lamar Jackson. We also heard it from head coach John Harp.
Okay, good to see everybody here. We appreciate it late, uh and uh and worth it. Merry Christmas. The Lord is with us a Manuel, And I'll tell you that our guys played a worthy type of a game. For a game like that against an opponent like that, that's a very good football team. It's a football team that's
going far this year. Very physical, very tough team. I think if you look at the game we played, it was pretty much a complete game by all three phases, playing complimentary football together and playing off of each other.
Special teams had their best game of the year.
Numerous plays a shortened field position and put us in position, and we covered well against a very good return team, especially kickoff return team. Offense obviously moved the ball, scored points, numerous plays close us out at the end. And then defense, I thought just had a spectacular game against one of the best, one of the best offenses. There is five turnovers, five interceptions, uh uh, pressure on the quarterback pretty much all day, and then plastering the scram because I thought
our guys really worked hard and coverage all day. So a lot of things beyond that, but that's the that's the highlights. You're very proud of our guys. What question do you have, John, you kind of beluved to.
A little bit. I mean, how much do you think?
I mean, do you know did you guys feel disrespected by you know, not being a consider a favorite, having so many people pick against you guys coming.
In this game.
You know, I think guys, guys, uh, you know, our guys work hard. You know, our guys work hard, and they compete hard, and and uh, you know, everybody wants to be respected. So but there's one way to to to be respected, and that's to go out there and earn earn that, you know, as an athlete, as a as a football player especially, it needs to be done on the field in the game, you know, and proud of our guys for the way they did that tonight.
Five turnovers, John, I mean, that's a special defensive night in any situation in this game. I mean, can you can you put a reason behind that level of productive which.
Is well, I think it was. It was all defensively, is all three levels. I mean, we had pressure.
You know, we got the one game under control that helped us a lot, but we got pressure. I think our coverage was just fantastic. I mean, and we covered long, so we made him hold the ball, force him in some bad throws, and we got our hands on balls. We tipped balls, got balls in the air, and guys caught him. You know that helps too. So it's just a complete team effort on defense to get those interceptions.
Performance tonight.
I thought Lamar had an MVP. I thought Lamar had an MVP performance tonight. You know, it takes a team to create a performance like that, but it takes a player to play at that level, to play at an MVP level takes a player to play that way. Lamar was all over the field doing everything. He operated a pretty complicated game plan. I thought Todd and the coaches deserved a lot of credit for the game plan Lamar operated. He made decisions on the field and then just keeping
plays alive, trusting his offensive line. The offensive line was outstanding with the protection. Lamar trusted those guys. He kept plays alive, He moved in the pocket, he created space for the for the coverage guys. Our guys did a great job of scramble drill of getting open. I think we had a new new number of plays that were extended that were big plays for so just a complete game by Lamart. Uh, it doesn't look bad for anybody.
We will see tomorrow to ensure that. But uh, we're fairly optimistic about everybody.
John, your point about Lamar the long run at the end of the first half and then uh a touchdown to Aglore. There were two plays on that fairly short job. But where he extended plays, how much have you seen?
I guess the.
Development of these guys on offense to be able to make those plays happen to it together be safe.
I agree.
I mean that's those aren't just uh, those are just happened. Those happen because a lot of hard work gets put into it on top of a lot of amazing talent, and.
It's a group effort.
You've got the offensive line doing their thing and then tight ends receivers and backs both in protection and also in routes. Uh, you know it's they they're forced to cover guys downfield and Lamar is able to run. You know, they don't cover guys downfield. Lamar finds him. He's got great vision, and our guys are finding soft spots in the coverage there and getting.
Open and he hits them.
And he's nobody throws better than Lamar on the move, you know, from awkward platforms. He's very accurate that way. So all those things I would say came into play.
You talk about this team's ability to read just to focus on the goals and al board, and that's going to be after the game like this, what's coming up next week? You got to you know, really accomplish some regular season goals.
You can do it well, it is, I mean, you know we haven't we haven't finished. You know, we're not finished, you know, So we have and that's just the regular season. We're not finished with yet. We've got a massive game coming up in six days on a short week against against a great football team, you know, and uh it's gonna be a big challenge and they're already getting ready for us. So, uh we've got to get back and we've got to get to work.
Alright, what do you what do you mean that this team's ability to to really play their best game against some of the division years that you guys have gone against.
I mean, yeah, I met to tell you how many people were picking the Niners.
But to handle Jaguars the way you guys did the lines just.
On and on, it seems to happen.
It's a massive it's a major statement about who they are and about uh how they compete and and uh what they're all about.
Absolutely, that was head coach John Harball. We also talked with linebacker Patrick Queen, Patrick K was there.
Something that element could use for lying or for this team gonna come into this game?
Yeah?
Oh, everybody writing us off before we even got a chance to play. We know what we were capable of. Everybody counted us out and then expect us to even hold up to nails. Everybody was saying we're gonna getlown out by double digits or whatever. So I mean, we just had to come out and player I start the ball. U uh. We all understood that a sigmon. We all understood what coach wanted from us, and we just went out there and Capitol Looss.
Patrick Omatma's lines. It looked like you'd be able to pregame talk and the huddle there U feel for the game?
Where did what was the message?
What did you say that you guys say that we worked too hard for people to be writing us off already, and we eleven three just like there was eleven and three, and you kind of feel a certain way about stuff like that when somebody write you off before you even get a chance to even play the game. So it was just my message, just go out there and just take what we want.
You talk about your interception.
Also, if you guys had the feeling that the more pressure that you were putting on him, it was kind of getting him and.
Forcing him to do things he didn't want to do.
Yeah, you know, the Russian covers worked together and we all understood that, and we just understood that we had to start the run, we'll be able to make plays.
Man.
H you know, we capitalized on the place that were uh that we were capable of making them.
Uh.
We just took off from there then. U. We saw a few times where the rest wasn't working with the coverage. They got a Q plays here and there. Uh whatever it was, we we didn't tackle Ror. We just missed that Simon on Uh the cover. So when you see things working together like that, like on my interception on Cow, interceptions on all everybody plays that they made. Uh, it was just both of our uh front line and back lines just working together.
Patrick.
I mean, you you're playing some of the best teams, you know, the Seahawk, Flying s Jags. Now when I you're not just beating DC, know, I mean you're it's not close. Uh w w w Why do you think that is?
Why?
Why do why did this this team go plays by you know, it's beast.
Against the best.
We play a brand of football that people don't wanna play. Everybody wanna be out here Q playing basketball on grass and stuff. I mean, we ain't with all that, so you could do all that stuff. We just gonna get in the mouth every play honestly, you know we could care less. Boy, all the pretous stuff we do get mixed stuff. You just got line of You still have to line play football. You still have to get touched.
So that's how mindset, that's how we wanna come out and just you know, hit people in the mouth.
Did you say that at the point?
How is playing.
Basketball and grass?
They definitely do, but they do have a aggressive mindset to it them. Uh, that's honestly. I honestly say Darrek probably the most aggressive team that we don't play so far.
Patrico White, did you guys just so affective against Rock Party?
Uh?
Like I said, we just ussian coverage. Working together, we understood that there'd be opportunities to make plays on the ball. We had a good understanding of what they do on offense, and we just knew we could stop the rank and we did get our hands on the ball, so you know, stopped that. I'd like to say, stopped the runk have fun. So that's definitely what we did.
In the locker room. We also talked with wide receivers A Flowers who scored a big touchdown on this game and also had a nice celebration to go along.
With it.
All right, you know, comment to you, they just paid the talk, so we come out here and do our job. Just how do you go out there to do their job?
To talk being underdogs coming into this month, a lot of you guys said you were disrespectful of How.
Do you feel about where you are now?
I don't even know if you just wanted to get to win, you know, going to the next game, get ready for the Dophins.
Do you guys have a chance to take that top seat?
And this needs to be her got to be How do you.
Get all playing our football? Physical, execute and get it done how we did tonight? What is it like, say, make your job easy, especially if you like just run around and get open, cause you know he gonna run around, he gonna create, he gonna create second place, probably third places. He gonna break a couple of tackles.
Like you know, he's just easy.
You make your job easy?
Is seen?
Your VP?
Is that question for real?
Why you watch the game?
A little boy?
He can do everything.
He g you know you've seen it tonight.
He ran it, he threw it.
He led the team Like that's the MVP.
Like you lead your team?
You got the best record in the NFL, and he just come out and continue and do what he do game in and game now, even though people talk about he can't do this, he can't do that, and he come out and prove them wrong every time.
What did she commun defense? Y'all reconferredage?
He gets four exception? Or do you think that like white piction the game.
That you see now?
I see the best defense in the NFL. That's all I've seen. I've been knew it from the jump, but I guess a lot of people ain't knowing.
Now.
We just had to go short.
What does it mean to have to leave your family's our first high?
You know?
I always dream about playing on like Christmas and playing on the biggest days, and I was able to do it tonight and came out with a win.
I know my family over there celebrating, so blessed.
Do you have a better Christmas for your d.
I used to have good Christmas when I was young. We used to get bikes, me and my brother's ride around the whole neighborhood. So I'll put this out there.
It's just like top two.
That was why she was a Flowers. We also heard from linebacker rokwand Smith.
Forty nine ers quarterback from Rockberty, an MVP candidate.
But you guys limit him. How were you able to?
I think that just got back to what we're doing Russian coverage, and I think it was just guys stepping up at the end of the day. And we have the utmost respect and the utmost trust since a person on this defense and uh, the way he might call the game man second to none in this league.
So I just love playing in this defense.
And it's it's very hard to uh do what you need to do for four quarters on this defense.
And your quarterback, I'll let you talk about Tom.
Oh, yeah, our quarterback.
I think if anybody watched the game, if anybody watched football this season and watch the Baltimore Ravens, they know for a fact Lamar.
Jackson is the uh MVP hands down.
Oh why uh If anyone that watches football and no football and see the type of impact he has on the game, not even like stat wise, but just individually, like the players that he make quarter in and quarter out, play in and play out, compare his film to anyone else in the league, and then I would love to uh hear what anyone else has to say after that, you guys have a chance.
To take the number one seed next week against the Dolphins.
How do you carry this comendument about there.
And Jordan's winning tonight, long playing ride uh back to Baltimore, Uh and then flush it and tomorrow we're gonna move on to uh Miami, cause hey, it's a really good team, a lot of weapons on that team and they're uh coming to town.
But hey, we wouldn't like it any other way.
We could play the rough, rough, rigid road.
You know, we got type of.
Those type of guys.
That was linebacker Rokwan Smith. Next up is cornerback Marlon Humphy.
Molly, you talk about obviously getting the five turnovers to night. Uh what this says about this defense and how you guys played tonight?
Yeah, I think, uh it was just a total team effort, you know, Russian coverage, working together, you know, guys getting back there to the quarterback and the game plan we had coming in. So it was it was a big, big turnover night. So uh, just testament to just everybody working together.
There was a lot of talk coming in, you know, Mike four who a lot of people saying, you know, you guys are gonna get blown out. Did you guys hear that noise? And how did you guys come in here kind of feeling a certain kind of way.
Yeah, the uh, the the interviewer guy who whatever he does. Uh, that was at our team meeting, so it was impossible to not hear that one for us. But uh, I just felt, you know, it seems like, you know, it's the NFL. Anybody can beat anybody, So for there to be so much, you know, favoritism towards important knowledge that it was a little surprising. Just you know, I'm, like I said earlier, I'm okay being then underdog, but five and a five point five is kind of a lot.
You know, I would have been okay with two and a half three, but uh, you know, we we did take that a little personal. Uh, so we tried to even the score.
Did you want something about thirty though? That? I mean, you guys did something to him like he's a kid that's not doesn't happen to him often? Do you see something about him?
Yeah?
We we we tried.
Man, he he does he makes all the right reads. So it was really it was really kind of hard to to kind of plush, and we we felt if we could get the lead then maybe that that would be our best chance.
And so we were able to get the lead.
And and kind of, you know, attempt to flush him. But man, it's it's hard to stop that guy. He just kind of makes all the right reads. It doesn't really make even though he made misakes and not he hugs, it doesn't make so many mistakes.
Why do you think you're able to half?
Why do you think we got to see you remember the six fourth being the right spots?
I think really just lying to the ball. I mean, I want of Kyle's he went to go rush the quarterback and then got a pick. So stuff like that. Just run into the ball, you know, be Steve tips it up. A lot of things kind of kind of bounce our wedd tonight. But you know, I think it's just a full team effort. Is running too the ball, hustling and trying to take you know, fire to fire.
That team is I think everybody's a little sore that that's you know, there's a lot of teams that you know want to be physical.
That team is a real deal physical team, a really good team.
So for us to come out and kind of put on a show this It was really good for us.
The guys are real close to, you know, accomplishing of all your regular season goals. Have been really good about taking it one week at the time. Once this team's mindset. You know, you got a huge game obviously sunny again against the Dolphins.
Yeah, like calvan Joy said, you know, enjoy this one.
But when we land, it's kind of you know, we got a short week, but we really want to beat the Dolphins to get that number one seed. So we'll enjoy this one on the plane and then uh, when we touch down it will kind of you go, time to get rid of for the Dolphins.
When you feel with the other division leaders something a lion you you he's a couple of digits. Why do you do this? Man?
I don't know, I think, uh, honestly, I don't know. I think, you know, the biggest thing is we try to we try to get ahead and and kind of go from there. It seems like the balls kind of bounce our way, and we just got to keep playing fundamental football. That's the biggest thing, and we can be fundamentally sound. I think we got a pretty good chance against anybody and what do you think.
A mean, this is supposed to be the top two. Is the field favorites in thirty versus more? What do you what do you think? Do you think that's deciding?
And you know, I think, uh, you know, I know when there's two MVB candidates, you know, possibly three McCafferty.
I think McCaffrey did have a good game. We have a good game. He's a really good player.
But I think you know the score and you know, our guy, it might be Lamar, that might be them. So that's that's that's our pitch for for that.
It's really if.
You're a very quiet team, is or is like the number of wins you have that people just don't getting attention to you guys. Maybe a lot of talking from about the Niner and the Eagles, But you guys have played, you know, extremely low and you guys.
Are you guys are pull up with three now, you know, I think that just comes from Lamar's got a lot of haters, so it doesn't want to help us so much.
They always wait for the marta fail.
We know, we're not mad at it, but uh, I think that's the biggest thing, you know, He's I feel like one of the best quarterbacks in the league, but also one of these most doubted. So I think a lot of a lot of stuff comes from the doubts and the hate the un receives, and it kind of we don't mind it.
So it's it's all good.
And close things out. Let's hear from safety of Marcus Williams, who came away with the final interception on the game where always had five picks on the night and Marcus Williams got the final one to steal the victory for this team. So let's kick things over to Marcus.
I turned Hope's agence the forty nine. That's what we practice every day. We come out, we preach again, three takeaways and practice and you know, trans this is into the game.
Did you guys feel somewhat disrespected coming in here? Like you know a lot of piously in forty nine ers, blow your guys out, bla blazin.
We really don't care what people got to say. We just come in and we do our job. The you know, the beauty of it all is you know, we're a Ravens, and Ravens do a Ravens do? We come out here? We put it all on the line and we play ball each and every play.
Obviously, you guys have another big game next weekend. But you guys, who's done a great job taking one week at a time. Tell me about the mindset now coming off this one happened, another one.
On sunder Man. It's twenty four hour world. You know, we go home, we reset, and then we come back get ready for next week. You know, it's a big game. Every game is a big game, and we're just gonna come out, We're gonna practice hard, and Sunday we're gonna see where I'll go.
There was a lot of talk coming in about, you know, MVP Race, what do you think about what Lamar did the night as far as you know, solidifying.
Maybe that man. Lamar's a special player. You know, there's no other quarterback like him that could do what he does week in and week out. And he's very special. And I wouldn't rather have been on any other team than with Lamar Jackson.
That was Marcus Williams. You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. Also head over to the Lounge podcast feed for a full breakdown on this game and what the win means for this team. Thanks for listening, hit that subscribe button. Also leave a rating and a review. We'll be back with you later this week.