What Ravens Said After Texans Loss
Quarterback Joe Flacco talks about the offense's struggles and Terrell Suggs looks forward.
The Ravens fell to the Texans, 25-13, Sunday afternoon in Houston, taking Baltimore's control over its playoff destiny away.
Here's what the Ravens had to say after the loss:
**Head Coach John Harbaugh
**
Opening statement:
"Obviously a tough loss. Very disappointing. Hand it to their defense, they dominated the game. That's the story of the game. They dominated the game really from the beginning to the end. That doesn't mean our guys didn't fight, compete, try like crazy, but we couldn't get anything going offensively, and that's the story of the game."
On being surprised by their defense:
"Not really. I just thought they played really well up front. They did a great job up front. Every one of their guys played well. Good game plan by [Defensive Coordinator] Romeo [Crennel], timed up their pressures really well. I thought they were hitting the line of scrimmage really well with their pressures. That was tough on us. Joe was under duress all day. It wasn't just that. They won some one-on-one battles and all that as far as pass rush. We were really clearing them as far as coverage. They just did a great job."
On the injuries his team took with RB Justin Forsett and OTs Rick Wagner and Eugene Monroe:
"Nothing I want to share right now. We'll just see how things go on."
On the defense's performance:
"I thought they played hard. It doesn't really matter. Everybody played hard. We had different degrees of success, obviously, about as dramatic as you can have. But everybody played their hearts out. It was obvious that we were not good enough."
On the team's playoff destiny:
"The thing that we lost is control of our destiny. That's tough because when you have control and you can win out and make the playoffs, that's a valuable thing. I don't think we have that anymore. But we do have an opportunity to win next week. That's the opportunity we need to seize. That's what I told the guys in the locker room. I said, 'Hey, when we leave this locker room, anything that we don't need stays here. We're only taking back with us what we can use to go play, compete and beat the Cleveland Browns. Anything else we don't need, we're not taking with us.' I guess from the media standpoint we can look back and look at this game and say what went wrong and point fingers. But we're not going to do that. We don't have time for that. We have to go win this next game. We need to leave everything that's baggage here. And everything we can learn from, we'll take with us. And we'll fight like crazy next week and try to win a tough AFC North game in our stadium."
**QB Joe Flacco
**
On whether his ribs were injured:
"No, I wasn't [injured]. I don't know what you saw. There was one point where I was just trying to buckle my shoulder pad that came unbuckled. Maybe that was it."
On the loss:
"We got our [butt] kicked. It's really simple. We did a lot of things not very well."
On Texans DE J.J. Watt:
"I think as a defensive line, as a unit, they played well together. It's tough to really feel one guy. I know at the end of the game I felt him a little bit. It felt like I was getting hit in the back every time I let go of a pass, but that's the name of the game. He's a good player. For the most part they didn't get to us, but they created a lot of havoc and caused a lot of disruption."
On what gave the offense trouble in the first half:
"When we did have plays we didn't make them. The biggest thing is they brought a lot of pressure up the middle where some of our protection was weak. They were able to get me on my back foot and force us [to the hot read] and things like that. We never really got anything going and got into a groove of any kind. Couldn't move the ball, couldn't make first downs, couldn't get any completions, just couldn't get ourselves going and moving forward. Just wasn't good."
On not controlling their playoff destiny:"It's tough. We've been in this situation last year where we didn't really control our own destiny at the end of the season. We didn't play well. All we can control is going out there next week against Cleveland and winning a football game. All we can do is worry about ourselves and go win a game."
On the emotions of this loss:
"Like I said, we just got whupped, man. There's no way about it. The defense played well, special teams played well. We just didn't do a single thing on offense. We got beat up. We got whupped. It's part of being an NFL football player is being able to take this sometimes, move on and worry about you."
On the run game struggling:
"That's part of it. Part of it is getting me off the spot, part of it is them stopping the run. That's a good sign that they were playing well upfront. Obviously when we're not getting our run game going, it's going to affect us. Our run game wasn't working for a reason: they were playing physical, they were playing well up there."
**WR Torrey Smith
**
On if he's surprised by the loss:
"You all saw the stats on their defense. They're not pushovers by any means. They did a great job. Our defense played one hell of a game, special teams as well. We blew this one on offense. That's the only way to look at it."
On the turnovers:
"One of them was completely my fault. I slipped on a route. I owed Joe for that one. We weren't ourselves and we weren't executing."
On why the Texans defense stopped them:
"They did a great job on defense pressuring us. We had times throwing the ball where we just flat out didn't make the play, whether it was a throw or a catch, and it hurt us."
On his discouragement with not playing well in December:
"It's a must-win, you're definitely disappointed. We have no control over anything. Next week we can go out and play like we were playing the majority of the year. That's what we're going to have to do if we're going to have any chance at it. It's a sick feeling to know that you have no control over what's next. We're not used to it, to be honest. We've just got to go out there and win and see what happens."
On the offense being out of sync:
"That's all us. The good thing is it's correctable. Unfortunately for us, we needed this. We'll see what happens, but we have to go out and put our best foot forward and try to beat a tough Cleveland team and hope someone drops one."
RB Justin Forsett
On not playing well in front of former Texans team:
"This was a playoff-type game for us and we didn't put our best foot forward on offense. We've got to take ownership of that."
On whether he's healthy and the ground game's struggles:
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm ready to go. The defense did a great job today stopping the run. We got behind and we had to do a little more passing. Sometimes it's like that. We'll find a way to execute and win games and we didn't do that today."
On his ankle injury:
"I got my ankle rolled up under me on a tackle, but I was fine after that. Not severe at all."
OLB Terrell Suggs
On the loss:
"We didn't play well enough to get it done nowhere. You can't put the blame on nobody or on one area. We just didn't play good. We need to play better football as a team."
On not controlling their destiny:
"We just better fight like hell next week. We're in the same place we were in last year – we had two games to win, win one of them to get in. It seems like we're in a do-or-die fight against a familiar foe at home for our lives. So we better fight like hell next week or we're going to be outside looking in again."
On the Texans' offensive creativity:
"They didn't really catch us off guard. We expected a little no-huddle, we expected them to run the ball. Catching us off guard, that definitely wasn't the problem. They executed, they made some plays."
On being on the field a lot as a defense:
"When you play defense, that's your reality. Whatever hand you get dealt, that's your job as a defense to stop them. We held them to three [points] sometimes and they scored the one touchdown. Whatever the task is, we've got just the right men to do it."
On QB Case Keenum:
"He did a good job of managing the game. He didn't lose it. He played well enough to win."
OT Eugene Monroe
On the Texans' defensive front:
"They played well today. We gave them credit for that. That's all I have to say about that."
On not running well the past two weeks:
"I'll have to watch the film and see where we could be better. If we want to do something with this offense, we've got to run the rock. Clearly, when we don't do that, we don't' have the success we're looking for."
LG Kelechi Osemele
On the Texans defense:
"They didn't throw one thing at us that we had not seen on film. We had seen it all. They just did a good job with it and we couldn't get any momentum. We also hurt ourselves."
WR Steve Smith
On what hindered the offense:
"I'm not sure exactly. We haven't watched film so it's hard to say."
On how the offense bounces back:
"You don't have a choice. You've got to. We have a big week next week, last game of the season, make or break says everything. We don't really have a choice to sit around and analyze it and 'woe is me' and come up with excuses. Bottom line is offensively we just got our [butts] kicked. I hate to say it that way, but that's what happened. That's what the score looks like when you just lose. That is the consequences of losing. We respect and understand and anticipate all the negative feedback and all the fat, lazy, sorry couch quarterbacks that are going to come out. We respect that and understand that and we're not going to pay attention to it."
TE Owen Daniels
On what the Texans defense did so well:
"We turned the ball over a couple times, guys slipped and fell and we threw some picks on our side of the field. That's always tough. It took a while to get a first down. They brought some pressures we hadn't seen from them all season. We had seen it from other teams so it wasn't a huge surprise. It was just kind of weird seeing it from those guys. They had a great game plan against us, kept Joe on his heels and brought pressure all day. We didn't do the greatest job handling all that stuff."
