Welcome to the Ravens Press Pass Podcast. The Ravens approved to three and one with a dominant twenty eight to three victory over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. The Ravens really controlled this game from the outset. The defense played great, didn't allow the Browns to do much of anything, and the offense was highly efficient. Quarterback Lamar Jackson encounted for four touchdowns, two on the ground and two through the air.
He played another great game, and his good friend Mark Andrews scored a pair of those touchdowns as the Ravens got a key division win. It was a big day for the Ravens. As you look around the AFC North, both the Steelers and the Bengals, and then of course the Browns as well. All three teams in the division lost to the Ravens are sitting atop the AFC North at three and one on the season. After the game, head coach John Harbaugh talked with the media.
Okay, good to see everybody, really appreciate you being here. Just really really proud of our guys. I mean coming here, the environment, the team we were playing, how well they were playing. I believe me, they're a very good football team, very well coached, very good football team with a lot of good football in front of them, as we well know in our division, so that that win speaks a lot. I'm really proud of our guys for the way they played.
I thought they handled themselves well, played about as well as you can play, and those in the circumstances against that kind of an opponent. I thought we were real patient throughout the course of the game, especially in the first half, three and out, three and out, three and out against this defense, this great defense, and just to kind of just to kind of not get out of whack and and keep our heads about us and keep
trying to keep trying to pound. And then we were able to get a couple of big drives, get to turn over here there, and get a couple of scores, which is what you got to do against a great defense like that. So I mean, Rokwan leading us on defense. Our defense, our defense got the spike because they pretty
much closed the game out the whole game. You know, that's what they did every single series, led by Row and all the rest of the guys that are owners really stepped up safety has played good or run defense. That's a really good running offense, you know, and they were getting some yards on us here and there, and our guys, really, our tackles really started squaring up on their own line. I thought we set the edge well.
And then first interceptions, you know, Brandon Stevens getting his first ever interception that that was really big, and then Kyle Hamilton getting his first ever interceptions at the end was awesome. So just really proud of all the guys. I thought Mark Andrews just played credible game. And then finally Lamar, I mean Lamar that the top right against this this defense. You know, it was really a challenge, and Lamar kept his poise. He was he was running
the show out there. He was the point guard, he was the general. He was making the calls, making the changes, handling the shot clock. I just thought he played a fantastic football game.
What question do you have, John il Big wasn't about me him?
Now that you have two agency more of the road games that you come out with both of the victories, you know, how's that set you up?
Can they go?
Well, it's a good start. I mean it's a good start.
You know, we've had these We've got all these AFC North Road games on our schedule right away, and and that's an opportunity and our guys have taken advantage of that so far. Now we're gonna go to Pittsburgh next week, so in twenty four hours, and then we got to get locked in on Pittsburgh because we're gonna have to be a better football team than we were this week to go to Pittsburgh and win next week. And that'll be our goal on our mission.
John, you once again had a long drive halted by a fumble.
What was the difference that's time in your team's ability to bounce back.
Yeah, it's a good question. I think the progress you know, you make from one week to the next is really what it's all about. The ability to improve, to learn from your mistakes. The victory that is hidden inside of the defeat, you know, is something that it's hard to recognize sometimes. But our guys did that and they got to work and they improved in those areas and they and they cleaned that up from last week.
So we just gotta keep getting better every week. Along those lines, he was getting one.
Game going in the second quarter of the two long rides that when you can touched it, Oh.
It's everything. It was everything.
I mean, I thought our backs ran super well, hard downhill. Some of the gap schemes, those are a tougher offensive line. I mean, those guys are penetrating upfield. They're they're very good players inside and on the edge, and the backers are downhill hitting gaps. So you've got to stop the penetration, and you got to get off those blocks and get those linebackers and they getting your backfield to make a play. Offensive line tight ends just a tremendous job of at this game.
I guess the story broke about two and a half hours before the game that Watson wasn't gonna play. Did that change I mean, I'm guessing you felt like Watson would play. Did that change things.
Up for you guys?
Any? No, we had the same plan.
I mean, I think they run the same offense. Uh, you know, of course, you know, Deshaun Watson is who he is and and Dorian is who he is, so uh but we we really, you know, prepared to play against their offense and that's what we did.
Did very well.
And you have any sorry James having a you gussage, do.
You have any update on Morgan Moses or I don't. I think we'll know more tomorrow.
Those are things that will need to take a look at with N MRI.
N Just how impressive, how important were those two back to backtown drives had, you know, coming the way that they.
Did, They were massively important.
I mean they were really they were really the game. You know.
It gave us an opportunity to get in position to win the game. And we were backed up on both those, were we not? Weren't we back inside ten on both those?
You know?
And for La Mahart to just like I was just saying a second ago, and really it's the whole. It's everybody in offense, but against that defense which tries to basically stop you before you get started, that's their that's their mo to not allow that to happen. It's like an all out blitzkrieg, you know, to start to play and they're still get in the back end. It's not like you can just throw it behind them and for Lamar to handle it backed up the dog pound behind him.
The motions, the shifts, the checks, it the line changing the plays. We had to change the place signal to the receivers. When you had to signal the receivers, ball handling under pressure like that. I just think that's what makes that's what makes him the quarterback he is, and that's what won us the game. Just in those two drives right there, gave us a chance to go all the way down the field. Those were those were really, I mean, praiseworthy drives.
How much did you.
Helped set the tone for the defense to stem?
I think he helped set the tone for the defense. You know, it kind of sounds like a rhetorical question right there.
You know, uh, he.
Sets the tone. He did set the tone this week. And you know, the thing I love about about Roe is he's he's he's he's row. You know, he's hisself, he's his best version of himself. He's honest, he's straightforward, he's a man of character, and he's a leader, you know, and he backs it up and he backs it up. And that's what he did, and all the guys had his back, and you know, as a coach, you're going to be proud of that.
Talked about you know, running that's throwing over this season in particularly before more when we saw him make a number of his his say how he sort of finding that it's important to sort of come back to that as needed.
Well, I mean it's not go back or go to it or anything else. I mean Lamar Jackson is who he is as a player because of because of who he is and what is what is what his abilities and talents and his hard work and his intelligence and all those things. So you know he's gonna bring his full skill set to every game. That's what he's going to do. I mean, he's just what he does. That's why he is who he is.
That was Rape Tech coach John Harbaugh. We also heard from quarterback Lamar Jackson.
A twenty points against the NFL's top ranked defense.
Do you think do you feel like this offense you've made a statement today.
Uh No, not really. It's still still room to grow for us. You know, we're still building. We had mishops on the field. You know, we had fun with a gate the ball back to the defense after our defense made a great start. I feel like we left points on the board every week we've been playing. I feel like we've been leaving points on the board by the miscommunication in the mishouse.
But we just need to keep focusing and keep getting better.
But I feel like we got to dub So we played pretty good.
Mar Are you talking about the end of the first half. It's a second and twenty six long situation, thirty six sects left. You extended the play. What was your thought process of not running not running ball out of the back because you extended until they had enough time to get open and you hit him on a forty three yard game.
They're trying to make something happen.
We didn't really wanna be second and twenty six had a sack I think on that drive, a sack that kicked us out of field goal range. So I was ticked off because last week that happened as well. You know, we got kicked out of k uh. We had great field positions, we got kicked out of range. So say, made a great play. You know, the line gave me per a lot of time, uh to make a read and give him a a a great ball and he made a great catch.
Was praising your ability to to maybe some of the higher level quarterback stuff about the presence that you was talking about balling him with like the s the smaller details of it. How do you feel like you were maturing as a quarterback in those areas of the game.
Uh F.
Just last week I was just immature, you know.
So just gotta be weekend, week out consistent with with with that, with those situations, you know, me being a quarterback and me having a ball in my position to every drive. Just gotta keep going, keep getting better at that, and just keep staying focused.
Lama, you remember your first NFL star. Whatever can you give to a young corpor like DT?
Y'all had a rough night for about days are I mean it's the NFL. Things like that gonna happen. You know, we don't want to happen, you know, and we he he faced a great defense for his first start. Just keep being locked there and keep watching film and Scott's living from cause he's a pretty good quarterback.
You know.
It's first game, first red NFL game besides preseason, so it's different.
The atmosphere is very different.
Why did you.
Feel like it's the mood in the stadium changed?
That you hit Mark and that uh a touchdown right before the half time before?
To be honest, I wasn't really orrid about the crowd, uh the stadium. You know, I was focusing on ouh, focusing on us going a touchdown, you know, just driving the ball down the field, just finishing in the end zone.
That's what I was trying to do. We had the two minute drive going, just tryna focus on winning, and we got the drive done, we scored.
Well.
I think it's how good does it feel that in the drive like that with a you know, perfect throat.
Like that to market?
Uh it's pretty good, you know. But as I said in the locker room halftime, I stay locked in. You know, it's anything can happen, you know. Uh, a couple of years ago we were losing to the Coats in fourth quarter and we can made a comeback. So anything can happen. You can't just get overwhelmed with scoring rap before halftime, cause it's two more quarters left.
Why it's quite a bit of traffic when you get the injuries. Flush touch Now, was that just a case of I mean, I've seen it a perfect throw, but it's also a case of just trusting uh your receiver on that one.
Oh? Absolutely?
Uh.
We I had to pay attention to the the corner. You know, he was in the flat. But I I believe if I had tried to shoot it, shoot it the mark, he coulda PA made a play on that probably intercepted it, so I just gave him market shot and he did the rest.
Well, that's a part game of your career.
You've had multiple touchdown runs and multiple touchdowns passes to the same game. Is that a function of this offense your development as a quarterback?
What do you credit that too?
Just taking away the defense gives me and touchdowns is what we all about on offense. We're trying to do that and just trying to win at the end of the day.
Where h how do you think your guys used to motion, especially in that first half, maybe open up things for either the run.
Game or the pass game.
Uh.
I believe we had great communication getting in and out of the huddle and having guys you know, shift and do motions and stuff like that, because before you know, we was rushing and not communicating. Well, this game, I felt like we pray pretty we we did pretty well.
I think you touchdown for.
Trust passing so far.
It's what kind of mindset do you have to have when you're getting around that into actually get into the end zone.
Just what you said, get into the zone of we're trying to score. You know, years ago, I always gotta go back to the A few years ago, we was getting to the red zone and not scoring, and I believe a lot of that came with focus. And as we're gett into the radzone the black zone, coach call it, we gotta focus at a little much harder just because we got our way down here, we got to finish in the job instead of having talk come on to k field goals like usual.
That was quarterback Lamar Jackson. Now, someone who played a great game as well was linebacker Roquan Smith. And Roquan set the tone this week in terms of his expectations for this game and how he approaches every game that he plays in, and that carried into the matchup on Sunday. He talked about that in his time with the media.
We'll see your chance for you in the locker room is to be here correctly.
Uh, what what was in the locker room was in the locker room, So we'll leave that in the locker room.
By I'm obviously you know the coming into this, you guys really kind of wanna make it stay mill every week. But having done it now, how do you feel about the way you guys played collectively? Defensively?
I felt like we played a really good game. Uh defensively, Uh besides letting I rush out at the end of the game. You know, I'm like yeah, so like little things like that get to me. But uh, we stealed it with a interception, so it was it was a great team win.
Uh.
I enjoy going out there with the guys man laying it all on the line every single play. So so what I pride myself phone and there was a great team win.
So it's just something about Cleveland that brings out to worse than you, because feel that if you really like gripping off home.
And setting the hockey people out to the age, see Cleveland, or just the way you play.
Honestly, if you watch me play weekend and week out, you'll see I play the same style to the whistle and from on your team you love it. If I'm not you, I just respect the game. I have so much respect for the game in my style, I say, hey, i'm'a give it everything I got because I don't know which play will be my last, and so that's how I play the game. And I always play the game until I hang up the cleats.
Well, I don't I.
Don't encourage all you that you guys bet guys in and out of the line up all year, but have been able to play it a high level. Uh if you guys can ever get pieces back to get it out of herdly, you thought what you might be able to do the best.
Honestly, man, whoever lines up out there, they're warriors, and how I think of it, we all go to war for each other. We all have each other's back, and if they they out there, the coaches and myself have the utmost uh respecting those guys and that they can get the job done regardless of who's out there with us. But you know, you love when your guys are your guys are out there, and you know there's some falling
soldiers and when they get back, they get back. But until then, you know, we just have to keep going to course, and we can't get sidetracked by uh little adversity.
In the road.
You know, obviously you guys aren't doing it against their.
Defense, but because of the hype around their defense come into the skame. Did any of you guys or did you see this in anyway as a kind.
Of mesa Honestly, like I said, uh, early in the week in the pressure. I don't concern myself with their defense. I focus on going against the offense and our defense. So that's my main thing. Those guys can be I know I did. I heard that they were like the number one defense in the league three week four, and like I said, that's three week four. It's a long season along the way, so what you do week one, week two, it's not about the sprint, it's about the marathon.
But you know, hats off of those guys for, you know, playing good defense. I respect them, they play defense. I respect people to play defense, But at the end of the day, I'm more concerned about our defense and the offenses that we go up against the weekend and week out.
The teams around the NFL teams are so terrified to give bulletin board material. Now, you were talking in general about the mindset it takes to go win the game on the road. Were you surprised about the reaction that's come Scott, and are you happy how to as John said, the team rallied behind your back and the h rally behind you today.
Honestly, I don't really care like how people take things out of the context. I know what I meant and the people that's close to me knew exactly what I meant by those con those comments, and it was just the the way the way I felt about going to or war with my brothers. In honestly, if you need bulletin board material in this game, really to like, go play the game a different way.
You playing the game for the wrong reasons.
I don't need anybody to say anything for me, because guess what, when that whistle blows, I'm going one hundred miles an hour all game long, and regardless of what's I want to say, Rod's gonna play the same way.
Somebody else had a big day was safety Cal Hamilton. He was all over the field and he also closed out the game with his first career interception. Here's what Kyle had to say.
So much talking was about the Rounds defense and how good this plus he was so walk out of here like three picks and to dominate the way defense did.
What does that mean?
Yeah?
I feel like we we hear all that stuff, but we don't really listen to it. You know, it's noise. People gotta feel their time with something talking about somebody and the Browns have been a great team so far. Credit to them. Their defense has been lights out. At the same time, I pick us over anybody any day, offense, defense, special teams, no matter what it is, and I think we cannot improve that today. But like I've been saying, it's more important for us to go out there next week.
I prove it again and then again and again again all the way up to the Super Bowl. So that's my set we have and we're not gonna be satisfied until week win it all.
You guys have been losing guys in the secondary like every week, see Blake, don't seem like when they drop off and play. Why is that?
Yeah?
I mean I've been asked the quecial to get them mount throughout camp and this whole year. You know, we've had guys go down. We had a couple guys go that to day. But it's kind of funny how you know, you put new pieces in in the same result, and I think it goes to our preparation and guys taking their job serious. No matter how lower high you are on the depth chart, your name to be caught up. You know, we play violent supporting guys go down all
the time. So shout out to Kevon Seymour or Arthur Mallett today, I'm missing a bunch of other guys, but I mean those are guys who don't get a ton of reps during the week and come in there and know what they're supposed to do.
It.
Also the professional.
Sou and you guys have played as well.
What is it bow?
Do you think what this defense can be? I mean you feel like as well as you're playing, hey, we still have a level we could get to.
Yeah, I think.
Yeah.
We kind of used this metaphor yesterday and the meeting. But when you're taking magnifying glass and uh, focus the sunlight, you can kind of heat something up, start a fire. And we're trying to build that. Uh you know, sunlight spraying everywhere. It doesn't really do a ton, but you magnify everybody focusing on one thing, one goal, you can create a fire, start a fire. So we're trying to start a fire.
Tight end Mark Andrews, they mentioned, scored a pair of touchdowns. Big game for him. It was his best game of the season so far to date, and he talked about that after the win.
How much as an offense do you take it as a challenge to go against I mean, everyone's talking all week about the Browns being the number one defense.
How much did the offense gave that as a challenge.
You know, we come out here every week, ready to go, ready to play. I thought the guys did a really good job. You know, we look, we don't look too far into anything else, and I thought we were pretty good. They're saying we need to get better at and.
Yeah, Mark, both those touchdowns were like Lamar, weren't like exactly you know, the way we're drawn up, extending plays and do what you guys do. Well, how does it feel or how is it to play with a quarterback like that where you guys all see me on the same page all the time.
He's special, man, He's just so special everything that he does. I think I thought he played an incredible game of you know, just continuing to fight and extend plays and to and to make the big time throws. It was time and time again that you know, number eight bailed us out and and and made this offense ticks. So I think we did a good job. I think the offense looked pretty good. I think we can get better.
I know, uh, you know, Coach Monkin this week mentioned you specifically as far as looking good, like you're feeling like yourself. I know, you know, you all. I thought I've talked about yourself and injuries, but how to do it? Does it feel to be out there, you know, being able to do the things that you know you can do.
It feels good to be back, you know, and be back you know, and feeling better and healthy. And I'm just trying to help this team win games and make plays. And you know, I think that, you know, I personally I made a step in the right direction, but you know, as an offense, we need to be better. I think coach Monk caught up a really good game, and you know, as guys aren't get guys back healthy, We're gonna be better. We're gonna be better.
Guys.
Yeah, I think that, you know, just kind.
Of ran the corner out Lamar. I think he kind of rolled out just a little bit through an incredible ball back right corner of you know, by the pylon up high, and I'm just going up making a play And yeah, that was a fun one.
Was praising a lot of intangibles today in the league, managing the game backed up against the present, things like that, what is it that you appreciate about the more that you don't think it's enough shining.
I guess he's the full quarterback. But he's not only just a full quarterback. You know, he's able to to do so many other things that other quarterbacks can't do. And uh, you know that's a beautiful thing. So Lamar Jackson's second to note.
Man, what's the full quarterback?
He's a full quarterback.
Man.
I don't think Cleveland, I don't think they think they're a lot of money. The one touchdown offensive way the first three games, I guess, what does it say about this offense?
Do you guys have an exaccurate back?
Well, I think that you look at the top of the game that we played today, you got to give credit where credit is due. And and you know, special teams defense, they played really good games. You know, they had our backs, we had their backs. And I think the offensively, we did a good job of moving the ball.
We had some really good drives. We just did some really good things, and uh, we got to be able to stack continue to do that drive after drive after drive being a really good offense like we know we can be, because there there were times today that it looked really really good.
You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. Make sure you head over to the Lounge podcast feed as well for a full breakdown of this game. We do a deep dive into everything that we saw in the matchups, so check out the Lounge podcast feed. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Also leave a rating and a review. Thanks for listening. We'll be back to you again tomorrow.