DAILY INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS
Head Coach John Harbaugh
Opening statement:"OK, good to see the heavy crowd here today. We're happy with our first game-week practice. I thought it has gone very well. Obviously, we'll finish up tomorrow. Guys are in good spirits, they're excited to play and can't wait for Monday night."
On whether he notices the amount of Ravens fans that travel to away games:"Yeah, the Ravens… To compliment our fans – we have great fans. We've got really loyal fans – that's the thing – and our fans show up wherever we're at. They were in San Diego last year; they've been all over the country with us. It makes a big difference. You hear the 'O' on the National Anthem, and you hear them cheering. And sometimes at the end of games, when things are going the way we want them to go, they're the only ones left, and we appreciate that."
On whether T Oniel Cousins playing on Monday will be a game-time decision:"I don't believe Oniel's touch-and-go. I would expect him to play. I don't know that – I shouldn't speak for the doctors – but, it looks to me like he's ready to play."
On whether the team is fired up for the game:"Yes. I get that sense."
On whether he wants to elaborate:"Not really – it's just an obvious question. It's like, what am I going to say? 'No, we're not very fired up.' We're excited to play. We can't wait."
On whether he would prefer less talking leading up to the game:"I don't care. We can't control what someone else says. It doesn't matter to us. We understand how that all works. We know what we're hearing; we've heard it all before. We're excited to go play."
On whether there are any similarities between him and Jets head coach Rex Ryan other than both of their dads were coaches: "Both of our dads were coaches. I've really got a lot of respect for Rex – I've said it many times – so I would like to think so. I would like to think that we're both good coaches, we both care about our players, we both want to win, we both compete right to the end. I'd like to think that. So, yeah, there's a lot of things."
On what he learned from Ryan when he was defensive coordinator for the Ravens:"I learned a lot of scheme, learned their system. I think that was a big benefit. I learned just a lot of good football. But I've been around Rex a long time. We went back to the University of Cincinnati. I think Rex obviously demonstrated last year to everybody what most of us already knew."
On whether he was happy with the amount of penalties in the preseason:"Yeah, that's something that obviously we made a… We like to say it's always been important, and it really always has been important. But after last year, there was something that we needed to do. I think I'm very pleased and impressed with the way we played technique throughout the preseason. We've had very few defensive pass interference or illegal contact penalties; we've had very few holding penalties, if any. We've had very few personal foul penalties of any kind. I just think we've played… Special teams has been the same way. I'm just really proud of the way we're playing technique, and I fully expect that to continue throughout the regular season."
On how far WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh has come along and if he will get a full workload Monday: "Yeah, he'll play. What does a full workload mean? It's going to be a lot. He's going to play a lot. He's ready to go."
On challenges of playing in a stadium you never have been in before: "Yeah, well, we're going to show the guys a picture of the place. I mean, I've seen a picture of the place; it's unbelievable. You see that and it's like, 'Wow, a spaceship landed there in the parking lot.' It's going to be something different. It's going to be very loud, but we've been in loud before. I don't know if it can be any louder than it was out here today [with the simulate speaker crowd noise]. So, we'll be excited to play in that environment. It'll be a lot of fun. I'm sure the locker rooms will be very nice. We're expecting a first-class facility for what it cost."
On whether they were playing loud music or simulated crowd noise at practice today:"Crowd noise. We had crowd noise going."
On whether the guys have been reminded that the same officiating crew will be there Monday night as they had last year on Monday night against Green Bay, when a lot of penalties were called:"That crew calls a lot of penalties, there's no doubt about it. That's kind of one of their things. But they call it the way they see it. They call it very tight, and I think that's going to be a big advantage for us. We've played the preseason very tight, and I'm looking for that to be an advantage for us."
On whether CB Lardarius Webb will be a game-time decision:"Yeah, I think he will be. I would say this: He's practiced 100-percent the whole week. He's done everything. So, we didn't rule it out and we haven't said he was going to go. So, that's kind of one we're leaving up in the air for you."
