John Harbaugh on Injury Updates | Baltimore Ravens

John Harbaugh on Injury Updates | Baltimore Ravens

the uh Texans game on Sunday, be at home, and uh we’re going to look at all the things we need to do to be the best we can be in that game. And there’s a lot of factors, a lot of things we’re dealing with for sure. Uh like a lot of teams are, I’m sure. Uh but that’ll be our opportunity to get to get going and get our momentum going a little bit. And that’s a really good team. I just been watching them on tape. The Texans defense is playing at a high high level. very aggressive, very fast, very well coached, a lot of good players, a lot of good pass rushers, good coverage guys, uh playing good football. Then offensively, obviously, young quarterback, uh working to find their way in a little bit, running the ball, good backs, uh trying to play complimentary football with her defense. So, that’s what we’re looking at right now. What questions you have, John? Uh specifically with with Lamar’s injury, do you have any update with that? And do you do you expect him to practice Wednesday? Do you expect him to play on Sunday? Yeah. Uh we got a pretty good feel on on all the injuries, you know, with the different guys right now where we’re at. Really not commenting on those things today. Uh we’ll comment on on them later in the week a little bit more. I can’t give you information on uh Broadick and uh and Nomi. Uh Nambdi is going to be out for the year. That’s going to be a year-long IR. Broad will not be. I’ll be be the four-week IR. John, with Metam, obviously it’s a neck, but there’s a lot of concern with that. What’s his long-term prognosis before? Are you guys confident he’ll be able to return next year? Is his career in jeopardy? What can you share? Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, it’s like and just if I’m trying to I guess I’m trying to explain it in the best way I can in terms of what I’m allowed to tell you. Like a lot of that is something things that he needs to address with you guys, you know, in his time. So, I really don’t I really can’t speak for him. Wouldn’t want to. uh those are questions that would be best answered by him going forward and he may be still getting some information on that as well but uh leave that for him to answer. John, um you know obviously you have so many injuries I’m sure it’s hard to sort of directly evaluate you know especially your defense where you lost I don’t know three or four starters yesterday in the course of the game. That being said, this is the second year where that side of the ball start out pretty slow. Obviously, there’s competition in there injuries. How much confidence do you have in Zack or to be the one to turn the defense around? Yeah, I mean, I have confidence in all of our guys, including Zack, uh, our players, our coaches. I watch our guys every day. I watch how they work. I watch uh I watch uh how well they coach. I’m in meetings. I I watch the meetings. I know the schemes that we’re running. Uh, I know the soundness of what we’re doing. uh I understand who’s you know what what we’re what we’re up against you know from week to week and and play to play even in this game you know this is a challenging game against you know good offense they were healthy they got their guys back and complimentary football-wise you know the defense was put in some tough spots you know field position wise for sure and I think that had something to do with it we got we got some stops early in the red zone with some short fields and then um and then we didn’t play as well in the red zone they made a couple plays in there that that they end up getting touchdowns And so, um, yeah, I, you know, that’s what you do. You believe in your people and we have really good people and good players. I thought a lot of the young guys stepped up, you know, that got their opportunities that had never played before, you know, and went out there in that environment and and played well. You look at the individual performances, there’s a lot of really good things there. And the things that, you know, when I watch the tape, you know, I was I felt better watching the tape. I can tell you that. a lot better watching the tape than I did standing on the sideline watching the game. I felt like there was a lot of a lot of really good play going on and I think the things that were that were issues were very definable and also sometimes a result of some, you know, some real tight plays being made by them, you know, in some situations. So, those are plays that we just got to start making, you know, start making, you know, get some turnovers, get knock some balls loose, uh get some TFLs, you know, create some things. We were a step from getting a couple sacks times at times. You know, I thought Pat did a good job of getting the ball out a few times, things like that. So, you know, uh we’re not we’re not too far away on defense. I’m I’m I really feel confident that we’re going to play good really good defense this year. I really am. And I know the fans hear that and I hope they have a little bit of confidence in us that we we’ve been down this road before a little bit. We do need to get healthy for sure. Uh that’s that’s an important part of it as well. but uh also play with the guys that we’ve gotten. Let’s go play some good defense. Coach, with Lamar, um there was speculation, I guess, yesterday because you had talked about maybe he might go back into the game if it were closer. Uh there was no way he was going to go back into the game. Was that the case? Or if the game was closer, would he have gone back? No, that was the case. There was no way he was going to go back in the game. That that would the injury precluded it, you know, uh as you know, during the game, you know, you really just you’re you’re playing the next series as a coach. But uh there was no way he could go back in the game. I I know Lamar know the way I know Lamar. If he could have gone in the game, he would have been in the game. That’s how Lamar that’s how he is. So um but I can assure you that he would not have been able to go back in the game under any circumstance. John, what happened on the situation where you ended up getting two delayed games in a span of 40 plays? What broke down there? Yeah, we uh we were trying to check plays. one time a run uh a run play to another run play and and the next time it was a uh trying to get a signal to get a to get a a pass route changed and we just didn’t handle the clock management well. We usually do a really good job of that. That’s something, you know, I’ve hadve had so many of those times over the years, especially, you know, really the last seven years where I’m watching the play clock, watching the play clock, and you get you get nervous about it, but we’ve gotten the playoff numerous times. Even in that game we did where it runs down close, we always have a pretty good handle on that. But those two times we didn’t, you know, those were those were aberrations for us, you know, and uh uh I thought we would get him off in both of those occasions, you know, with the communication we had and we just didn’t get them off. That was that was a really tough uh a tough series for us. I mean, the fact that we got knocked back on both those two plays, that that really hurt us. John, it seems like this you guys’ style of play hasn’t been up to your usual standard to this point. Do you feel like your team has matched the physicality that you like to play with? And do you feel like they’re being out physical, especially in some of these losses to start with? Yeah. Uh, I’m not really too much into the generalities, you know, just general terms like that. I think there’s a lot more to it than that. Uh, we’ve, uh, our guys are playing hard. We’re playing with we’re playing fa fast. We’re playing with physicality. We’re not executing particularly well in in circumstances. I mean, you just go back and break the game down. you know, offensively in the first half. You know, those two uh those two the the second, third, and fourth series were the series that kind of dictated the game for us. It put our defense in a couple tough spots and those are situations where, you know, we we we operate better. We score points and it’s a completely different game. I mean, you know, the fact that the the what we h what happened with the interception, I thought the I thought the linebacker made a nice play, but it wasn’t a it wasn’t a good play for us. It wasn’t a It wasn’t a good play call. It wasn’t a play where we put our guys in the right position in that situation. I’m not happy with it at all. None of us are. Uh it was a they ran a you know double backer kind of blitz inside where they were right in Lamar’s face and we had downfield routes with no checkdowns, you know, and think we were chipping our way out trying to take care of the edges and they run an inside blitz and and it’s not picked up. It’s not going to be picked up and and that that and Lamar throws it and it’s a tough throw and the guy makes a nice play. I mean the guy made a great play. play. I give him credit. Chanel Leo made a nice play, but um that end that kills your drive when you’re moving the ball right down the field. So, no, I don’t like that play call at all or that the result of that. And then then we have the series where we have the the two delay games. I mean, that’s what knocked us back. And then you’re then you’re back there really second and 10 and you make another another type of a situation where you invite a blitz and now you’re now you got the now you got the the penalty and and Lamar backing up. I mean, that was that was bad series for us. I mean, we just got to look at it honestly as a coaching staff and just say that was not good. And we put ourselves in that situation. Then the the next one the next one was a tip ball, a screen, they defended, then a tip ball, next thing you know, you’re third and 10 and you’re off the field there. That was a more normal one. But those three series I think dictated the course of the game really against a good offense because we were going to play aggressively. We’re going to go for it. Then later um you’re going to be aggressive, you’re going to go for it, you go for it, and you and you don’t have a good plan. you you just don’t you you don’t have a good plan. And uh and we didn’t we didn’t do a good job at all. We all we all know it. We all agree with it. We came up short. We didn’t put our players in the position we need to put them in to execute and and convert on third and short and fourth and short that in first half and throughout the course of the game. And that that’s just those are just like turnovers. There’s no different than turnovers because you give put your defense on a short field. So we just got to own all that, understand it. That was bad ball and it’s it’s uh it’s uh it can be fixed and we got to fix it going forward. That’s how I see it from a football standpoint. John, you just you just answered a lot of this, but I mean when when you look when you looked back at your work against their blitzes in general, I mean you you knew that was coming from from them. Um did you feel it was a a matter of the preparation was off? Did you feel it was a matter of the adjustments were off as it was happening? I mean what Yeah, I don’t think our approach was good. I think we I think we didn’t we didn’t stick to the plan that we had. We had we had an idea how we wanted to approach their defense and we and we didn’t stick to it, you know, and I’m not happy about it. Neither’s neither’s anybody. None of our coaches are happy about it, especially I’m talking about the coaches right now, you know. That’s that was us, you know. So, it was it was a it was not a good job. You mentioned the short yardage plays where it didn’t it didn’t work. How much are you missing patch guard in these situations? Uh, I I don’t haven’t thought about that. you know, I can’t measure that. You know, I I think uh I think uh Zire did a good job, though. You know, I I can answer that question for you. I mean, I watched him he blocked he blocked well in those plays. You know, he did a solid solid good job. I’d say a real good job. You know, it’s only in there for nine plays, but I thought he blocked well. So, I don’t think that’s really the issue of it. I think it’s weren’t much it’s much deeper than that. It’s it’s it’s you know I mean if if you’re saying that we didn’t run the ball because we didn’t have Pat Ricard the answer is that’s not why you know yeah we should have been running the ball number of those uh or have some more creative passes up than just drop back passes in those situations. John just going back on the on the blitz when you said you know you guys had a plan and stick to it. Was that something the Chiefs had done to you that caused you not to stick to it or was a combination of things? What? No, I put it on us. It’s on us. You know we just we got to learn from it. We got to learn from it. We got to be better. John, um just back to Nomi for a second. I mean, losing a player of that magnitude obviously elevated Brent brought in Josh last week. Um but is this a case where you guys have to look and talk to Eric about other personnel solutions or other options that might address that? Well, yeah. I mean, it’s uh it’s always something that would be on the table for sure. John, we I know uh the other day we had asked about the pre- snap adjustments. How good how has that been? Do you feel like that has taken a step back in terms of the adjustments at the line offensively? I know it was a topic of discussion last week with Rosen Garden saying something along those lines and it seems like there’s a disconnect in terms of what you guys are seeing pri with the pressure coming and not getting in the right place. Do you feel like the pre- snap adjustments have been where you’d like them to be? Well, I don’t think any of us where I’d like it to be. You know, we’re not we don’t have a rhythm on offense right now. I think we’ve got to, you know, it’s going to, you know, it’s just going forward. The challenge is is to get a feel for, you know, what we want to do and how we want to do it. We got to we got to regain a rhythm, you know, and yeah, it’s execution at times. It’s it’s choosing what we’re going to do in certain situations. I don’t know if it’s so much about pre- snap adjustments, so to speak. That’s kind of a broad way to state it, but you know, there’s going to be times you want to be at the line of scrimmage and you want to be able to get into the right kind of play for sure. That’s part of an offense and everybody does it. We do it well. We had some really good plays doing that during the course of the game and the course of the last few weeks. So, uh, that’s going to be part of our plan for sure. I mean, that’s important to be able to do that. that point with um with Derek only had four carries in the first half yesterday. I think he gave for the game. You talked about this last night just you know some of that’s dictated two minute etc. Um is that an area that you know you guys need to have more of an emphasis on and execution on? Yeah, I mean we need more plays on offense. I mean we’ve been we’ve been in the 50 play range, you know, and so that that’s the biggest thing. And you need more plays. need more consistent more consistency and uh and definitely I mean running the ball is a big part of our plan in that game and we didn’t do it you know we just didn’t do it. So part of it the three, you know, three three series we, you know, we got into some dropback stuff there and got knocked off got knocked off the field and we made the we had the two penalties that that Bose’s talking about and and uh and then next thing you know you’re not then we throw a couple screens. We hit hit some screens, but we didn’t execute on those screens and next thing you know there’s a three and out, more of a legitimate three and out and then you don’t have an opportunity to run the ball like you want to. But but yeah, running the ball with Derek, running the ball with Justice, that that was good, too, you know, and breaking some tendencies there with that. We like that, too. So, those are all things that uh that have got to come together in a way that just is cohesive and you start building a little rhythm on offense. I mean, we’ve scored some points, but this game, I think, exposed us in terms of not not doing a good job with some of those things. You just mentioned the tendencies with Justice coming on the field. We know what he does with pickup, protection, all that, and we know what Dererick does as a rusher. Has that been a concern when you’re just kind of looking at this four games in that to not be too predictable or to, you know, just not necessarily being in a place where you’re putting enough stress on the defense? Well, we do that. I mean, I feel like, you know, that’s something that we take into account because, you know, you’re going to do what players do well. That’s that’s that’s important, but you’re also going to change it up so it’s not just predictable. I mean, Derek was in there for numer numerous passes and he had two screens thrown to him and then uh Justice was in there for the one big run, you know, and I’d like to see him in there. He I like him with the ball in his hands around the ball. So, you know, you never want to be 100%. We always on defense, we kind of consider 80 80% to be a true tendency on something. If it’s if it gets under that too much, then it’s really can’t count on it because it can be something different more often. And we want to make sure that we uh keep people guessing, keep keep it moving on people. So that’s one of the things that we do take into account. When you take Derek When you take Derek off the field, I mean, does that sort of telegraph that you’re not going to be running the football? Well, that’s what just what I’m saying. No, it shouldn’t. I mean, you’re going to run the ball with Derek off the field, too. And I think you got to run some of the same runs that you would run with Derek. You know, you run some of the power runs, run the, you know, the wide zone play we ran, that was the touchdown run. You you don’t you don’t want to telegraph that. It’s going to be Yeah. And it’s also situationally because a lot of time it’s third down, it’s passing downs that those are situations where uh people know Justice comes in there. So you’re already passing the ball. So that mitigates the tendency just a little bit. Then he runs screens and he runs draws and things like that too. So some of it’s down a distance. John, it was a tough spot yesterday for Cooper Rush to get thrown in when he did. But if you What did you like about him yesterday? And if he is forced to play this week, what was it that you liked about him that brought had you bring him in this year? Yeah, I mean, you know, Cooper Cooper’s Cooper, you’ve seen him play, so everybody kind of kind of knows what his game is and he can uh he can he can play that game and that game is part of what we do. Uh so if he’s out there, it’ll be it’ll be geared toward toward him, you know, and then uh the guys around him. I mean, we got a we got a a good group around him, you know, we got a lot of playmakers around him if he’s playing and uh you know, same thing for for Tyler Huntley if he’s playing. You know, uh we got guys around him, too. And uh you go you go as a team and you go compete and battle and get after it and find ways to win games. We can win we have a really good team. I we can win games with our guys the guys that we have that have to step up. Everybody gets injuries in the course of the season and you have it’s who deals with them the best. So any of our players are not into the next guy steps up and we plan to go win the football game. I mean that’s it. I only have to tell the guys that it’s not something I got to talk to them about. That’s that’s what we do. and and and guys relish their opportunity when that time comes just like the guys did in this last game and they build off of that and and it’s our job to put them in the best position to be successful as coaches. That’s our job. That’s what we’re supposed to do and that’s what uh that’s what we’re required to do and that’s what we owe it to the to the team and to the fans and everybody to do. John, when you have sort of a pile up of some soft tissue injuries like, you know, Mark hamstring, bro’s hamstring, Marlin’s calf, is is there a look at, you know, strengthen training and conditioning side of of something that may or preventative or I mean is there sort of evaluation? Yeah, I mean there is we do look at it and and those you know those are kind of ongoing right now. You know, I know that our our guys injuries just happened. these particular ones. We haven’t had many soft tissue injuries. So, it’s a little surprising. So, they’ll look at that and they’ll they’ll see what they can come up with along those lines. I mean, it happens around the league a lot lot of, you know, it’s I’m tell you, man, it’s a violent fast game out there, you know, and Rocoin was accelerating to go cover that the pass to to Kel and you know, what a throw and catch and he’s he got got him down and that’s when it happened, you know, and uh he was he was at 95% of his speed, his his full speed when it happened and I’m sure he extended to make the tackles. But I assume that’s when it happened. So, um, that’s part of it, too. You know, just the violent nature of the game and and the, uh, the exertion that these guys put in, you know, from play to play over the course of a game is pretty pretty incredible. Was it the last play that he was injured or did he tell you it was maybe? I think it was more of a I I I don’t know. I I I think I do know kind of, but I don’t know for sure because you can’t know for sure. It’s probably a little more kind of added up a little bit maybe in there. maybe is what I was told, but I can’t say. I I don’t know enough to be able to say in any kind of accurate way. I mean, you’ve dealt with every aspect of what you’re going through right now before in some form, whether it’s a disappointing start or a decisive loss or, you know, raft of injuries, what whatever it is. Do you feel a need to deliver any kind of overall message to the team this week, like kind of a sky isn’t falling message or? Yeah, I mean I you know I I think yeah we have been down these roads you know and we understand I mean you guys have been down these roads too like you guys have covered us you know so a lot of these guys we’ve been through a lot of this kind of sort of together the fans have been down these roads too so everybody kind of in their role these are you come to understand that this is this is how it works you know and in professional sports especially in football it’s a tough league you know and and there’s going to be these challenges and that’s why that’s why it’s so meaningful when when when you when you when you can overcome them and start, you know, come through the other side and have success or or take it all the way to the end and and and go deep in the playoffs or win the Super Bowl. I mean, that’s why it’s just such an amazing thing and I think why it’s such a compelling environment to be a part of. So, you’re in the thick of it right now. So, yeah, I mean, there’ll be messages. I’ll be talking to the guys. The guys will be talking. There’ll be things that we’ve got to kind of share an understanding about and uh and you know it’s it’s going to be pretty straightforward and let’s go win the football game. Let’s do what we got to do to win a football game and within that what is it going to take? You know that’s that’s what the message will be surrounded. It’ll be very practical type message. Okay. All right. Thanks.

Head Coach John Harbaugh discusses injuries to key players, the offense’s play against the Chiefs and rebounding against the Houston Texans.

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