HEAD COACH JOHN HARBAUGH
Opening Statement: "I appreciate everybody being here. We're looking forward to the next challenge in front of us. [We] had a good practice today, and we're getting ready for the Raiders. What questions do you have?"
We didn't see QB Lamar Jackson out there in practice. Why was that? (Jamison Hensley) "We had a number of guys that weren't out there – some personal [and] some physical. [The] injury report comes out Wednesday afternoon, so you'll be better advised on that day regarding all those guys."
The Ravens had two sacks and seven quarterback hits against the Chiefs. What did you think of the pass rush? (Todd Karpovich) "I thought the pass rush was good. You're rushing [Chiefs QB] Patrick Mahomes. I'm a little disappointed [with] the couple of times he got out, but I really haven't seen a game where he hasn't gotten out, to some degree, to extend plays. I felt we pressured him a number of times. [We] kept him in the pocket pretty darn well, all in all, [and] pressured him. I felt good about it. Can it be better – absolutely it can be better. And in some cases with Patrick, just like it's going to be with [Raiders QB] Gardner Minshew, because they're mobile guys who move around – [there is] no one better than Patrick Mahomes – it's just a matter of being patient enough to go ahead and wrap them up. Those are the things we can do better, and we talked about that today."
When were you notified about the point of emphasis about the offensive formations, and are you satisfied that the point made is not going to be an issue going forward, or how do you approach it? (Bo Smolka) "We had the officials here in the preseason, and we talked to them about it. Ronnie [Stanley] lined up probably closer than he did in the preseason practices and all of those times, and then they called it. We do have data on that – tracking data, they have chips in their shoulder pads. So, we know exactly where Ronnie was lined up relative to where their guys were lined up. I'm not worried about it going forward. I thought Ronnie was in reasonable position there, most all the time. I do think that the adjustment that needs to be made, is that during the course of the drive, they basically ... If it's something that you didn't expect, and it's totally different what they're calling in the game, you have to make the drastic adjustment right away, and then we'll talk about it later. Ronnie actually thought he was doing that. When you watch the tape, I believe what he said bears out."
After the game, some of the players were talking about communication on defense. Can you be more specific about what was going on there? (Mike Preston) "Communication on defense; our issues on defense were [that] we had a missed assignment that hurt us. That's something that was really not so much a communication issue, just a volume issue probably as much as anything. We're looking at that really hard [with it being] the first game of the season in that kind of environment. The other issues were more just the way we played the plays. Maybe communication was used [by our players] in kind of a general term. The substitution issues were legit. If you want to call those communication [issues], certainly. [We] probably had too many substitution groups up, to be honest. We were trying to play a lot of different guys and get them in there, situationally, against a no-huddle team. We didn't do a great job ... They were subbing guys in at like 18 seconds on the game clock and calling their play really quick. That creates an issue where we put our group in there [and] then you have to call a play before the 15-second clock goes off; that might have been it – what [our players] were talking about. That was a communication issue, but really more, it's kind of a substitution issue. We fixed it in the third quarter when we kept our groups on the field, and we didn't have an issue after that. That's probably what they were talking about."
Your brother Jim Harbaugh said yesterday in their locker room that from Week 1 to Week 2 that's when you make the most progress. Do you agree with that? (Mike Preston) "I've been saying that for 17 years here." (laughter) "And I would say that. That's what I appreciated about what our guys were saying after the game – taking that positive approach. Not in any way to ... I mean, the Chiefs, they're a great football team. They won the game, because they played the winningest football. They made the fewest mistakes, and that's why they won the game. You have your floor and your ceiling. How high is the ceiling [and] how high is the floor? How low is the ceiling and how low is the floor? You want to always raise the floor. That's what winning football does – it raises the floor as high as it can be; we've been that kind of team over the years; that's why we've won so many games. The Chiefs' floor was higher in that game than our [floor] was, and ultimately, that was probably the difference in the game. Those are the things that we can do this week – we can raise that floor up quite high. I'm not too worried about our ceiling. I know we have tremendous players, and we'll make plays, but I want to see that floor come up a little bit and play a little more that way between Week 1 and Week 2."
To follow up on that, in terms of some of the things you just highlighted, was that attributable to their success in the middle of the field. It seemed like they were particularly successful there, if you will? (Brian Wacker) "They had some crossing routes – if you want to know the details of it, we had quarters coverage on the backside. They were running speed from bunch splits back to the quarter side, and they were leveraging the underneath defense a couple of times, especially early in the game. We cleaned it up – we changed which side we were rolling the coverage to – and it cleaned up, so you do make those adjustments during the course of the game. You're playing a team that game-plans really well, and they had the whole offseason to game-plan us, so they came up with a couple of – probably three – good ideas that were good. The nice thing about it is, you play that team in the first week, [and] you see the stuff that other people might see, too. Probably not, because they're probably the best in the business at that, so I feel kind of good about that. I thought we adjusted during the game on those things pretty well, the things we hadn't seen before."
People talked about the formation stuff about consistency, and I read some stuff over the weekend that the concern will be if the officiating crews may call it different. I don't know what your plans were Sunday, but do you watch the other games looking for that in particular, where guys are lined up at for different teams? Is that something you paid attention to? (Jeff Zrebiec) "I didn't watch the games looking for that, but we have tracking data, so our analytics people will have the tracking data. We have the tracking data from that game. We know exactly where the Chiefs' tackles were lined up and exactly where our tackles were lined up, so we know. If someone wants to do that, maybe our guys will do that. That's probably a good idea. I'll have them send it to you, from the league," (laughter) "and you'll have it ... that's public information, as far as I know. If it's not, I'm sure we'll get a memo from the league on that, so that's one of those ones that's black and white. You can look at that and know exactly where they're lined up, so you can know exactly whether it's being called consistently or not."
What was your reaction to OLB Kyle Van Noy's diagnosis? What is the gameplan moving forwar*d potentially without* a veteran like that on the outside? (Valerie Preactor) "My reaction is that the injury report will come out Wednesday after practice, and we'll know more then."
We know the run game is a big part of what you guys want to do, especially with RB Derrick Henry here now. There was not a lot of success Thursday night. What did you see when you watched the tape? (*Cordell Woodland)* "I think that's a great point. I think it's going to be kind of every game is going to be interesting and different. I like the way the run game looked, for the most part, with just the running back run game. There were some plays that I'd like to see be blocked a little better, but other plays that were blocked really well, and then we rushed for 185 yards overall, and a lot of that is Lamar [Jackson], but that's the formula. The formula is all the guys together. It's not just the one guy. We didn't bring Derrick [Henry] in here to be the guy that gets the ball 30 times a game. He's done that before. That's really not the plan. The plan is Derrick, Lamar, Mark [Andrews], Isaiah [Likely], Zay [Flowers], 'Bate' [Rashod Bateman and] 'Nelly' [Nelson Agholor]. That's kind of the plan in this offense going forward, so I think that evaluation will be best made over the course of the season. And I'm very confident, there are going to be games where Derrick is going to go for 100-plus [yards] or more, and you're going to be asking me, 'Why does Zay only have 2 catches?' That's probably going to happen during the course of the season, and that's going to be good for us. That's what we want to be. We want to be unpredictable that way. Where does the game take us as we get into the game?"
Along those lines, one of the things we were hearing from pundits on Friday was, "Are the Ravens searching for an offensive identity?" You were sort of just touching on that. Do you feel like you're maybe going to have a different offensive identity week to week to some degree? (Childs Walker) "You're going to use your different weapons week to week. I feel like an offensive identity is definitely something that you develop over the course of time. We've had a lot of iterations of offensive identities over the years, especially since Lamar [Jackson] has been here, but they do start with your quarterback. If you look at the Chiefs, it definitely starts with Patrick [Mahomes]. They're probably more established with that right now with their guys that they have, but [Isiah] Pacheco gets the ball. Where was [Travis] Kelce? He didn't get the ball as many times this game, so it's just going to be game by game like that in any good offense."
RB Justice Hill deserves a lot of kudos for the way he blocked DT Chris Jones one on one on the last two plays. First of all, was that what was supposed to happen, execution-wise? And second of all, what did you see there? (Jonas Shaffer) "I showed the guys those two plays. I thought Justice [Hill] was amazing. I give him all the credit in the world. That was one of those ones – with the crowd noise – [where] we wanted to go to a base six-man protection and fan our tackles, but we didn't get to it, with the crowd noise; maybe that's a communication thing on offense that we would have liked to have had. In that protection, Justice made the adjustment. He was expecting the tackle to fan, probably, but then the tackle didn't fan, and there he was with No. 95 [Chris Jones] right in front of him, and I thought he did a pretty darn good job, given the circumstances. So, that's part of the communication. When you're up there, and you're looking for blitz or no blitz and those kinds of things, and you check your protections to that kind of stuff, you have to work through those things."
You have T Roger Rosengarten in for a couple offensive series in the first half. Are you guys pretty committed to getting him more game action and finding opportunities for him to play right tackle? (Kyle Goon) "Yes, I think just [that] it would be smart. [Roger Rosengarten] is a talented player. It would be smart to develop him as we go. You've got the veteran guy; Pat Mekari, I think, is about as solid of a player as you're ever going to see – knows what he's doing, trustworthy, been there before. That environment ... Pat was [who] we thought was the best there, and I think going forward, but also, Roger is an up-and-coming player, and we want to make sure that we keep giving him opportunities to grow."
Along those lines, earlier, you were talking about progress from Week 1 to Week 2. How much of that progress do you want to see on that offensive line? (Shawn Stepner) "How much? I'd like to see it be 10 million times better; that's what I want. But do you think it will be 10 million times better? Is it going to be twice as good?" (Reporter: "It depends on the baseline.") "You're going to get ... The baseline is pretty darn good. The baseline is pretty darn good. In that environment, against that defense ... I'm not as like verklempt ... Is that the right word – verklempt?" (laughter) (Reporter: "It is a word.") "It doesn't bother as much as it bothers you, obviously, or some others. I'm not too worried about the offensive line, because I know how hard they work, and I know how talented they are. I watch all the other offensive lines in the National Football League, and I think if you applied some of the same standards to the other offensive lines out there, you'd be like, 'Oh, boy, that's a tough position to play against these guys.' So, our offensive line is going to be really good this year. I believe that, and we're working hard towards that. So, I'm not going to sit here and doubt those guys; I'm going to coach those guys, and those guys are going to get out there and play. I think by the end of the season, you're going to feel really good about our offensive line."
How much can chemistry and time spent working together on the field help the offensive line? (Shawn Stepner) "Massively. Massively. No doubt. I mean, when that offensive line goes out there – again – in that stadium, with that crowd noise, against that defense and [in] that kind of a game, that's it, man. It's not going to get any tougher than that, so I appreciate that. Now, we've got another challenge coming in here this week, because we've got another great defensive line that we'll be lining up against. So, let's get locked in on that challenge, keep it simple, and we'll be in good shape."
When QB Lamar Jackson runs for 122 yards – at this point, seven years into this whole thing – does that still impress you, or are you kind of like, "Oh, that's Lamar?" (Jamison Hensley) "Yes, well, it still impresses me. I mean, I think it should ... Doesn't it impress you? Lamar [Jackson] always impresses me. I feel like ... He doesn't really surprise me, because I guess we've seen it so much, and it's just been a gift to Baltimore and to the Ravens and to all of our fans and all of us. But being in there with him every day, I recognize how much it means to him, how competitive he is, what kind of a fighter he is. I mean, this guy wants to win, he wants to make plays, he wants to lead his team; that's what I saw on Thursday night. And all the football stuff, we just keep coaching, and he's the leader in that. But I'm proud of him. I have nothing but admiration for Lamar Jackson."
