HEAD COACH JOHN HARBAUGH
Opening statement: "OK, good to see everybody. I appreciate you being here. What questions do you have?"
The Giants have six forced fumbles and a plus-one turnover ratio. They are very aggressive getting balls out. Have you seen that on film? _(Todd Karpovich) _"Yes, that's exactly right. They're always punching balls out; shots on goal is what it's called. They do a great job with that; [they're] very aggressive with it, and they've done a good job. Their offense has also done a good job of not turning the ball over, so that's the plus-one."
RB J.K. Dobbins is coming off his best game, RB Justice Hill is back, RB Gus Edwards is practicing and you have T Ronnie Stanley back. Do you feel good about where the running game is? _(Luke Jones) _"I think it's coming together; that's probably a good way to say it. It's still a work in progress. We're going against a very determined and tough run defense; two great tackles, edge setters everywhere, linebackers downhill [and] very aggressive, secondary support and tackles. So, that's kind of our focus right now on this game."
RB Justice Hill came back since we last talked to you. Was that quicker than expected, and how is he doing? _(Childs Walker) _"He's doing well. He's doing great, and [we're] just going to see how he's feeling. He felt pretty good a couple of days right after it, so that was always a good sign. The day or two after was encouraging, so it's just been progressing since then."
How can the secondary get involved in the run defense to help stop RB Saquon Barkley? _(Kyle Barber) _"They'll have to, no question about it. A lot of it is how you play it, and how involved you make the secondary in the run defense. Some of that is how you structure the back end in terms of whether you have an extra guy down there or not [and] where you put them. Do you put them on the edge [or] do you put them in the box? Are we playing base, or are we playing sub packages? Then, if you bring run pressures or not. So, that's all part of it, and against a run offense like this, you have to kind of be creative with your run defense."
How is G Ben Cleveland and are you hopeful he will be back soon? _(Jonas Shaffer) _"Yes, I'm hopeful for next week. He had his ankle; he kind of turned his ankle. So, hopefully he'll be back next week."
How is RB Gus Edwards progressing since he started practicing again? _(Jeff Zrebiec) _"He's doing well. He looks good, it's just a matter of when is he really ready to play at a high level. I do believe he's getting close."
How impressed are you with TE Josh Oliver's run blocking while TE Nick Boyle has been recovering? _(David Andrade) _"Very impressed. Josh [Oliver] has learned a lot from Nick [Boyle]; Nick works with him every single day, and Josh has done well with that. He's one of the guys ... Not a surprising guy, because we held out the idea that he was going to do really well, but I don't think coming in here when he was traded here, the thought was that he was going to be a really good blocker. He can get down the field now and run seam routes and all that, and I'm hoping he has some big plays going forward, but he's really turned it on as a blocker."
When you decide to bring guys off of PUP [Physically Unable to Perform] and start the 21-day window to add them to the 53-man roster, is that calculation simple or more complicated than that? _(Childs Walker) _"It's within 21 days, and then you kind of have to bring them back when they're healthy. I'm sure teams have tried to play that game; we don't really try to do that. [It's a] combination of those two things. Obviously, if they're healthy enough to come back, then they should get a chance and see where they're at."
Are you taking the train to New York again? (Jonas Shaffer) _"We are. Yes, we are. Any questions about the train? _(laughter)It's a good train. The trains do run on time; I remind our players of that. At least in the Baltimore Ravens organization, the trains run on time. You could probably historically take that and go somewhere with it, but what are we talking about here? I don't even know."
