FRIDAY MEDIA AVAILABILITY: WEEK 5 at browns
Head Coach John Harbaugh
Opening statement:"OK, good to see everybody – appreciate you guys being here. Good practice, and all eyes are on Sunday. We've been preparing and trying to stack good preparation and try to go play our best on Sunday, so that's where we're at."
When you're in your second leg of your three-legged road trip, does that affect your practice? Do you do anything differently in practice just because you know you're going to be traveling for three-straight weeks? _(Jamison Hensley) _"No, not really. The nice thing about this part of the year is it's routine. The great thing about football, maybe opposed to some of the other sports, is we have a good week-to-week routine when you play Sunday to Sunday, so we maintain that routine. We have a way of doing it that we try to stick to that, we think, is well thought-out, and we'll just stick with that."
How did CB Jimmy Smith do this week, and do you feel good about him getting back out there? _(Luke Jones) _"He did well. He looked good. He obviously did a really good job of staying in shape, worked hard over the period of time that he was away. That was good to see. He's getting in football shape; I think he mentioned that. That's part of it. You have to play the game to play the game. But, I feel good about where he's at and anticipate him playing on Sunday and playing well."
I know we keep asking you about the productivity of the passing offense. When you look at the numbers around the league now, do you feel like you almost have to have that to be a good team, the way the league is now? (Childs Walker) _"You have to be able to throw the ball if you want to score points. That's a given, because you have to gain yards to score points. You gain yards through the air in the National Football League nowadays. It's not 10 years ago, let alone 35 or 40 years ago. And, if you make the equivalent of points to yards, you could rush for 200 yards, but if you don't throw for 200 yards, you're not getting enough yards when you do that. So, if you rush for 100, you need to throw for 300, really. That's kind of what the goal is nowadays, so you have to find a way to get those yards one way or another." _(Reporter: "It's just amazing, as well as Joe [Flacco] has played, when you look at his numbers against all the other quarterbacks in the league, he's in the middle of the pack with a lot of them. It's just crazy now, the efficiency of the passing offenses.")"Yes." (laughter)
Is the speaker in the helmets defensively a weekly decision or could that change? _(Jeff Zrebiec) _"We'll see. It's not as big a deal as I think people are making it out to be. To me, it's like, we'll just do it the way we think is best. I don't know if we decided which way we're going to go this week or not, but we probably have. So, it's not a big deal."
How did DT Willie Henry look out there this week in his return to practice? _(Ryan Mink) _"He looked good. Willie hasn't done quite as much because of the nature of his injury. We'll just have to see about that. I'll see how he responds to practice today and things like that. Really, the other part of that is going to be the roster and where we're at with the 46- [man active gameday roster], 53-[man roster] numbers and the injuries and things like that. That will all kind of play into that decision. He probably could go. Whether he will or not, [we'll] probably know within 24 hours."
RB Alex Collins missed practice yesterday and was back today. Any concern with him going forward? (Jamison Hensley) "No, not really. He was full-go today, so he looked good."
OLB Tim Williams was out this week. What about his absence? (Aaron Kasinitz)"The injury report is going to come out. It'll be in about an hour [when] it comes out. You'll see where all that stuff stands. I would tell you, but I don't do the injury report – the trainer does it."(Reporter: "You would love to do the injury report.") "No, oh no. (laughter) 'Oh, he's 15 percent, he's 25 percent, he's 75 percent.' You know?"
Some of the guys were saying how strange it's going to be to see DT Carl Davis in a Browns uniform. Will it be strange to see him on the other side? (Ed Lee) "It probably will. Carl is a Raven – we love Carl, everything he stands for. He's a great friend. He was a Raven – once a Raven, always a Raven. But I know he won't be a Raven on Sunday. He's a guy that we have a lot of respect for as a player, and we expect to get his best game there on Sunday."
