Head Coach John Harbaugh
Opening statement: "A couple things here: Let's see if I can keep some things straight. First of all, we had Sherry Huggler and her friend Kerry [O'Donnell] here. Sherry had sent us a letter about a month ago, and it was just an inspirational letter about what she's been through health-wise since 1986 and how she's been inspired by the Ravens – Ray Rice is her favorite player – and the change she's made in her life and now the change she's making in everybody else's life. If you get a chance to talk to her, I think you'd have an incredible story. She's going to ride a bike through the Allegheny Mountains next year. She's a big biker now. And with what she's been through, it's just an incredible story. The chance to touch people's lives and be a part of people's lives is really, No. 1, what it's all about. I know it's what you guys are about, too, because you have contact with the public every single day with what you write and what you put on TV. So, thank you for that. It's kind of a neat reminder of that.
"As far as the injury situation goes, the thing that was reported yesterday about Ray Rice, by, I think it was NFL.com, was completely misleading. Nobody in the Ravens organization ever told Albert [Breer] anything along those lines, which he told me is true. We stand by the fact that we're hoping [Rice will] get there. He's got a better chance than he had last week. He has practiced, to an extent, throughout the course of the week, and we'll know on Sunday. We've got our fingers crossed, but to characterize it the way it was characterized on that crawl is not what Albert reported and is just not the case, just so you guys know that. I don't want you to think that the national media are getting something that you're not getting, so that's just so you know that. And then, all the other guys are there, too. You've got all the guys who have been injured – some just last week and some before – who practiced will be game-time decisions. They all have a chance to get there, and we're really hopeful in each one of their cases that they can play, but something could come up. It could not feel right on Sunday, [and] then they might not be able to play. So, I doubt it will be 100 percent, but we'd love for it to be 100 percent."* *
**Do you think [Ray Rice] will be listed as questionable? *(Aaron Wilson) *"I don't know right now. It will either be questionable or doubtful – one of those two. We'll just have to talk to our trainers and see where he's at after practice."
How much of a priority was it in your downtime to study the read option to see what you could do to defend it? (Matt Vensel) *"The read option was a major priority. It's something that we practiced regularly throughout the OTAs, mini-camp and training camp. We had Tyrod [Taylor] running it, and it was something we just felt we had to get a handle on. Actually, we felt like we defended it pretty well last year. I thought coach [defensive coordinator Dean] Pees and the defensive coaches had a good handle on it, but we studied it also in the offseason, we visited colleges, and we're looking forward to the opportunity to testing out some of our theories this Sunday." *
Statement on Ravens senior director of player development O.J. Brigance's birthday: "Once again, we celebrate another birthday with O.J. [Brigance] on Sunday. The players are doing that in the cafeteria right now. So, it's just a hugely special day for all of us here. Five years, five years. Well, it's the sixth year that I've celebrated."
