John Harbaugh Talks Takeaways From Bills Loss | Baltimore Ravens

John Harbaugh Talks Takeaways From Bills Loss | Baltimore Ravens

uh had a chance to dig deep into that game since uh we got back late last night and uh meeting with all the coaches this afternoon. Just finished up with that. I’ve had a chance to even start on the Browns. So, a lot of work has been put in between uh between the end of the game last night traveling and then uh and getting ready for next week. So, got a pretty good handle on what happened and a good handle on where we’re going going forward and uh and we’re excited about the opportunity to move on and play the Browns and and uh and go find a way to play our best football on Sunday here at Mnt in the home opener. What questions you have, John? When you’re looking at the defense kind of throughout the whole game, what what do you think the biggest issue was? Because it seemed, you know, repeatedly not being able to slow down Josh Hamilton that Yeah. Well, you know, that that was the biggest issue. I mean, we we understand Josh Allen. We played him quite a few times. We had we had a little more success here at our place. Uh last year, the last two times there, not quite as much, but you know, we we had a plan and uh and we just didn’t get it done. We weren’t able to execute. Couldn’t keep him in the pocket. That was a big part of the plan would be to keep him in the pocket. We weren’t able to do that. That’s probably the number one disappointment for me. You know, I think when you when you when you let him extend plays like that, you know, he’ll run for yards, but uh he’ll also find receivers downfield and they do a good job of getting open and it’s just hard to extend that coverage long enough with his arm strength and accuracy on the move. So, that’s the number one thing. Is it primarily on the edges to keep him in the pocket or is it more complicated than that? It’s more complicated. I wish it just was. I mean, he’s not he escaped inside. He he gets you going one way and maybe we overreact. And I do think there’s there’s a way we we have to get better at it and we can get better at it. And I I do believe watching the tape, you know, and just just really just working on one thing. You you get into a game. We haven’t played a game yet. It’s an opening game uh in against a very good football team in a very hostile environment. You know, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of emotions in that game there. and and uh and you know, you don’t know exactly where we’re yet because you haven’t played a game yet with your guys. Not a not not a regular season game. And so uh there’s a lot of things you learn. There’s a lot of really good things that we learned about our team. A lot of things that I’m really happy about and excited about. And there’s a lot of things that you learn that’s like, oh boy, we got to go to work on that. And I would say pass rush lanes, that’s something that we’ve got to go to work on. It’s not just four lanes. I mean, there’s different patterns that we use and and and we just weren’t as good as we need to be at that. Coach, it’s just one game, but uh going back a couple years, some of the fourth quarter leads that have evaporated. Is there a rhyme or reason for it? Because it’s happened an awful lot. Yeah, you know, there is. I mean, I I think that uh we there’s all those scenarios if you look back at all those games. You know, there’s there’s been a lot of every game we’ve had, there’s been a fourth quarter and there’s been a scenario. There’s been games where we’ve been in the in the Bill’s shoes. You know, there’s been a n number of games where we’ve come back from two scores down and we’ve won, you know, and how do you do that? How do you make that happen? There’s been there’s been times where we’ve been uh two scores up and we’ve and we’ve won, you know. We’ve gotten a first down. Uh we’ve we’ve we’ve done that. We’ve uh we’ve been one score down and we’ve popped a run and gone down and kicked a field goal whether it’s in overtime or at the end of the game or we’ve gotten a stop, you know, that we had to get. But and maybe part of it’s the fact that we’ve been ahead a lot. You know, we’ve won a lot of games. So, we’ve had a lot of and we’ve had a lot of two-core leads. So, we’ve we’ve kept a lot of those, but we’ve I think we’ve lost six of them if I’m not mistaken. That’s too many. I don’t care how many two-core leads you have. And I do believe that we need to be really thoughtful of, you know, how we decide that we’re going to approach those situations going forward. You know, let’s give it some thought. Let’s give some thought to our to our play calling. Let’s give some thought to our our defensive play calling. Let’s give thought some thought to our mindset like how we’re going to talk to one another. You know, we’re two scores up. You know, we’re trying to keep a lead against Josh Allen or any or or any of these great quarterbacks in this league. You know, what’s our mindset on defense? How are we going to approach this? Uh how are we going to talk to one another on the sideline? You know, try to find a way to get the win. It’s a it’s kind of a it’s becomes kind of a situation, a scenario that we need to we need to be really intentional about going forward. John, I I know you were asked about whether or not to go for it on fourth and three, but wanted to get your thoughts. What you think about the play call sequence leading up to that? And to be more specific, you know, Derrick Henry runs on the first down. Wasn’t a big game, but he comes off the field there and, you know, maybe not putting the ball in Lamar’s hands for a design run because every design run you had Well, well, there was a design run, so you know, I mean, the the play um the play to Z was a design run. That’s a read that’s a read option play. you’ve seen Lamar keep that going forward before. So, you know that that you know, in fairness, it was a it was a designed run. And that’s exactly right. I mean, that’s that’s a play. Uh we took Derek off the field because that’s that’s a that’s a Z and Justice type play that we had designed for that. Derek doesn’t really run those plays as much. So, that’s why he was off the field and probably it’s not bad to give him a blow either at some point in time. He’s going to be back out there again if you know you’re hopeful. Um or you can throw it. you know, now, do we want to run a some kind of a swap boot, uh, some kind of a naked boot or pin, some kind of a pin play and get Lamar outside the pocket? That’s definitely going through our mind. That’s on the call sheet. A drop back pass, you can run a drop back pass, you might get zero, have some kind of a zero check and try to beat him with a crossing route or something. I mean, those are all the type types of things that that are that are on the call sheet. um you make a call, you know, and and you and you want it to work, you know, and when it doesn’t work, it’s always the other thing, you know, sometimes you drop back pass and it doesn’t work and it’s like just give it to Derek or just do a quarterback design run, you know, why couldn’t you run it, you know, throw it there, be more aggressive, you know, how about a boot? I mean, these are all the questions that we’re asking ourselves this morning and uh that that you just have to go to the next week and try to do better the next week and hope you dial up the right play and execute it, you know, execute it really well and hopefully you get the right defense or you check to the right call. John, when when you are in those situations and you have a a double a two possession lead in the second half, I just want to know like what is your philosophy in those moments? What is your philosophy when you’re out 15 in the fourth? Is it protect? Is it still be aggressive? Just what is your message to the coaches? Yeah, my my philosophy always on offense is that the best way to burn the clock is to get first downs. You know, that’s the best way to to to burn time. So, you know, you do want to you want to manage the clock and you want to be smart about that. You don’t be snapping the ball with 20 seconds on the play clock. Um, and you do want to run as much time off between plays as you can whenever the clock’s running. And that’s just good clock management. But you also don’t want to do it sometimes in such a way as that it takes takes away your momentum or your ability to actually get the first down because once you start running the play clock down under five seconds then the defense can tee off on you. I mean they get a get off too because they can see the they can see the clock and they can see you have to snap it on the next hut. So that’s that that’s that’s the twofold part of it there. It’s like I I I lean towards sometimes we’ll give up a little bit of time. Let’s let’s have a play dialed up where we can have the best chance to get the first down because when you get the first downs like we did on the first the first and 10 play. When you get the first downs, that’s when you have the that’s when you can burn the most time. That’s how you win the game. You reviewed both offensive and defensively down the stretch. So you do every when when there’s a blown lead, people always want to say, “Well, things got too conservative.” When you reviewed the plays offensively and defensively, do you think you guys were aggressive enough down the stretch? uh offensively and defensively. Uh generally speaking, uh we we tried to be as aggressive as we could be, you know. Um did we call the right plays? Well, hindsight, no. I mean, they didn’t work, you know. So, and I’m not just saying that to blow it off, you know. I mean, I kind of I kind of might have maybe we could have had some sort of a naked boot, you know. I kind of would have liked maybe if we’d have done that hindsight being 2020. Uh, I’m not sure I want a drop back pass, you know, against against against against zero right there necessarily, but it’s not to say we couldn’t have popped it because our guys are our guys are good man route runners and maybe we get the ball off, you know, and and we get a catch and run, but that ball can get batted down too, you know. So, that’s that’s one that you say, would that would that have been a little more aggressive? That would have been, but the ball gets batted down there and it’s like, ah, why don’t you just give it to Derek, you know, or just put it in Lamar’s hands and let him run it, you know? So, I think that’s that’s the catch 22 of the whole conversation. Defensively, well, we tried everything, you know. We tried everything. We were playing man. We were playing zone. We were blitzing. We were we were coming off the edge, you know, uh we were we were showing and dropping out of there. So, uh we just didn’t really get him stopped in the last two drives at all. And you know, the plays that happen. So, we didn’t execute a couple times. We uh we let him sneak out of there with a a sneak uh running back sneak play that should have been covered. I mean, we we have the the means to cover that in that defensive call. Uh the sideline play and at the end of the half that that should be covered. You know, that’s there’s that’s supposed to be defended there at that at that depth right there. That’s the way the defense is built. And I think that’s part of what I was saying before. You know, early in the season, you do find some things out and especially when you’re playing a really good offense, you get exposed a little bit. And we learn where we have to get better too. That was more toward the end. That wasn’t really as early in the didn’t come up earlier when some I’d heard about. John, you mentioned sorry mentioned um you know wanting to be intentional and just like the little details opening kickoff that they returned you know Trent trying to down that ball in the one and kind of sliding in the sector points and other things. How I guess disappointed were you in those little details that kind of add up to you know bigger things? No doubt. I mean, you know, and you know, I promise you that when the Bills look at the tape, there’s a bunch of little details, too. And a matter of fact, you know, he told me that after the game, you know, so there’s a bunch of things that that turn up, but when you lose the game, that’s the one that’s when you start adding them up, you know, where where it could have made the difference. But, um, you know, we had we coach that, you know, inside the five yard line, you stay on your feet. You never leave your feet. That’s something that’s been coached for a long time around here. So, but in that moment, we didn’t we didn’t have, you know, the wherewithal to think to do it. So, we’ve all got to just learn from that. You know, you you just have to learn from those things. Otherwise, it’s a wasted opportunity. John, sorry to ask what Jeff already asked last night, but on that fourth and three call, is there a conversation between you and the guys in the booth about what the model and the numbers might show about your your winning probability of like here’s what we can do if we go for it. Here’s what we can do if we punt it. Yeah. You don’t know exactly because that was a long gain. So you don’t know exactly what yard line you So it’s got to be quick. Uh the win probability I’m I’m not it might have been I’m gonna say it might have been maybe 2% or 1% something like that going for it. Uh and you got to make the decision very quickly and you got to say hey do we have a call that we really like? Do we have a call we love here? Because you got to send the punt team out or you’re going to have a delay a game or you got to send your offense out or you’re not going to get the playoff just that fast. And uh you know Lamar was coming off the field at that point. I could see something wasn’t quite right and you so you got to get your punt team out there. And that was really kind of it’s a fast sequence of events in that moment. But then again too, I’m not I’m not shying away from putting our defense out there. I mean, if you get stopped on fourth and three, it’s did you think about punting the ball, putting your defense out there and giving them a chance to win the game? I mean, that would have been the next conversation because they’d have been in field goal range already. So, I trust our defense and I’m going to trust our defense this year in a lot of big situations because our defense is going to be really, really good. And I know there’s doubt about that right now probably, but uh I guarantee you our defense is going to play really good football this year. To follow up on that, how do you balance being aggressive in those moments? Um you take the the Chargers game last year, obviously different scenario, first half, late first half, fourth and one deep in your own end. You go for it, you get it. This is this again different v understanding different variables, different time of the game, all of that. How do you um balance when to be aggressive and and do you feel like you in hindsight do you feel like you’re aggressive enough? Well, I mean the balance is do I really think we have a really good chance to get it? You know, because if we get it, we win the game. If we don’t get it there in field goal range. So, I think as I just explained, all those things that kind of went down in that sequence, you can understand where it’s like, what are our chances of getting that right here? Lamar’s coming off the field. You know, something’s not right. It’s fourth and three. Do we have a really good call and time clock’s kicking down? Do I want to call timeout and burn that timeout or do I want to have that timeout? You know, maybe you burn the timeout right there in that in that moment. Fourth and three, put our defense out there, think we can get a stop, get a good punt, put it down. Do we love the punt? Don’t love it, you know. So, all the the things that happen after that are just things that happen and you got to do the best you can in a very short period of time. So, no, I don’t think you could sit there and say, you can say, well, I should have been more aggressive, but I don’t think you can definitively say that’s the right thing either. You can’t really say that for sure because it could have you could you could make that choice and could easily be having the conversation the other way here. That’s just the way it works. If your gut had told you we have to go for this, would you have had to call a timeout? Do you think because I would have definitely had to call a timeout to get to get to get the play up and do it? Would have definitely had to. And I’m not saying you couldn’t have done that. We could have done that, you know, but in that moment didn’t seem like the right thing. You mentioned the defense. There was there was a lot of talk this summer about the depth of the defense adding Alexander drafting starts in the first round. There’s a load of first round guys in the secondary. I think it was a collective surprise to see Josh Kamilton even said it was upsetting to see how many yards Josh Hamilton could put up against that defense. Why do you think it was so why do you think they were so successful against this defense? It was in the fourth quarter mostly, you know, it was it was most of the yards were in the fourth quarter. So, you’re talking about just what we’re talking about in the fourth quarter there, you know. Uh yeah, I don’t think we played I don’t think we played some coverages great and he had too much time and he had too much opportunity to extend plays. I mean, it’s those two things. You know, a couple times we we have a too deep coverage and we don’t play it great. They hit a whole shot on the sideline. You know, uh we’re getting we get a we get a uh a man route and, you know, it runs away from us. You know, or we’re too soft. We’re supposed to be we’re supposed to be more aggressive man coverage out there on the on the edge and we’re five, seven, eight, eight yards off the receiver and we give an easy completion on the sideline. I mean, just play the defense out the way it should have been played. I think we’ll be we’ve got to do that and that’s just fundamental, you know, and all of our guys will all take responsibility for that. So, um, that’s what happened in the fourth quarter and then he extends plays, he starts running and he makes a play downfield. That’s what happened. What went in the decision to scratch Keith? Numbers. Numbers. You just can’t you can’t get everybody up, you know, and you’ve got to make a decision about who’s going to be up and who’s going to be down. And the number of snaps you can get Katon on offense are pretty are pretty limited. You got to take Derek off the field. You’re going to take Justice off the field um to do it. And those are all going to be designer plays. You know, that’s that’s what Keaton does right now. He runs to kind of the designer plays. So the the defense is going to be like what’s he out here for on the on the four or five plays that he’s out there. It’s going to be a specific play that they are kind of got have their antenna up for. You got to you got to balance it out. And then special teams, you know, he’s he’s he does okay on special teams, but he’ll he’ll tell you he needs to get better in that area to to justify the spot. Otherwise, you’re going light, you know, in a couple other areas. Have you heard from the league regarding Lamar Jackson interaction with the fan and what’s your take on that? I have not heard from the league, Bo. Um, my take is on it and all I know is what I read afterwards is uh Lamar’s down there celebrating a touchdown with his teammates just like you’re supposed to do. I mean, we we talk about celebration and we want our guys to celebrate with one another, you know. That’s what that’s the whole idea, you know, and um I didn’t know I I guess I didn’t know you’re not allowed to go close to the to the to the stands, you know, to do that without being attacked, you know, by a fan. And you score a touchdown, probably shouldn’t have a frozen water bottle thrown at you either, you know. That’s So, these are the types of things that you that I’m sure that the NFL is going to address and deal with. And um it’s unfortunate that you should even be in that situation. I mean, I just I don’t know how any of us would respond in that moment. I think it’d be something we’d probably be thinking about protecting ourselves. I do think that, you know, I just think we have to understand that. So, we can all say, “Hey, I’d like to handle a little better, but that’s a surprise when that happens.” I think in that moment probably for anybody. Um, back to what you were saying about the secondary in terms of the guys supposed to be a little more physical and manual and weren’t or in terms of where they were lining up. Was that more of a communication or are they or are they just not doing it? No, it’s just I mean it played a lot of great plays, too. I mean, we had a lot of really well played plays, too. So, it’s just consistent execution. There’s a there’s a you know, the the ability to to continue to execute consistently and it’s who you’re going against and and all those different kind of things. So, it’s it’s a long it’s a long journey. I mean, you pass judgment on the game. That’s what we do. We go back, we grade it, we look at it, we look at each play exactly for it stands for. We’ll study it with the guys tomorrow and we’ll learn from it and we’ll understand that we’ve got to carry our lessons into the next game. That’s what it is. So, um, that’s that’s what you do. That’s what you do in football. That’s what you do probably in any kind of afteraction for anything. And, uh, and we’ll do that. So, that’s why you’re willing to say, hey, you know what? We can do that better. We have to do that better. And then the other thing is to your point is like why did it happen? So it’s not just there’s no general why it happened. Communication. Yes. There’s a there’s couple plays. It might be communication. Maybe it’s communication in the meeting room. We didn’t quite make it clear enough. Or maybe it got confused with some other defense that we’re running. You know, could it have been confusion with another call that he’s kind of tying together in his mind? you know, as a coach, you look at all those all those little aspects of to try to get to the to the to the point where there’s a shared understanding and and you guys have a real good vision of what you’re doing and uh and we have that we have a lot of really good things going. It’s just the start of the season, you know, so we’ll keep chasing that and then you become like I said last night, that’s how you become the team that you’re going to be over the course of the season. John, how do you think Mitchell Peyton handled the fullback role? I think that was his first NFL game. And you know, how is Patrick Ricard progressing? You know, yeah, Patrick’s doing doing well. Um, he should be out there practicing a little bit this week potentially. And uh we’ll see how it goes. And then I thought I thought uh I thought Zire did a really good job. I mean, I thought he was really good. You know, he was explosive and physical. He really brought it up in there and and uh unloaded on some blocks and uh did a nice job. you you guys trusted Teddy Buchanan with some significant responsibilities out there. I guess what led to you guys sending him out there as a half game? Could you repeat that, please? Uh Teddy Buchanan, you guys gave him some significant snaps on defense. What led to that decision? Teddy. Yeah, I think between those two guys there was about between 55 and 60 snaps. Um I think they were split pretty evenly. You know, Teddy might have had like four more snaps, something like that. And uh it probably was a plan going in, you know, in that range. I mean, you never say one guy’s going to play a little more. Just the way it shook out, we were splitting snaps and uh that seems appropriate right now. Just kind of see how it goes. I thought they both played solid. Said he was not happy with his process on the miss extra point. On the other hand, he does hit the two long field goals after you guys got backed up. Did you see the day as kind of a net positive for him or what was your kind of takeaway on what he did yesterday? I thought he made some great field goals and he missed an extra point. you know, he pushed it and then hurt us, you know. So, I’m I’m really happy about the I’m really happy about the other kicks, the field goal, extra points. I’m really disappointed in the extra point that he missed. I like the kicks that he was putting on the ground, the kickoffs. I really didn’t like the one that he came up short on, you know. So, I just kicked the kick really. um to put a general grade on it. I don’t know. You know, does it matter, you know, like to as a kicker, you you know, when you especially when you don’t win the game, you want to you want to be you want to be net, you want to get everything, you know, every positive you can. I know that’s how he feels about it. So, I’ll go with him on that. Let’s make them all, you know, and let’s kick them all perfectly on the kickoffs. John, do two more. Speaking of process, just a kind of a clarification from last night. Would you would you like to see Lamar take it down to two minutes at that 203 mark instead of snapping it or or what was kind of He knew we got the you’re talking about the No, that was our plan. If we got the play we wanted, we got a 5-yard gain on that one. You didn’t want to take it down to like run more clock to the I I believe you could have taken it to the two-minute warning before. Well, the idea there is because you want to get a good play, too. And sometimes you take it down there and the defense thinks you’re going to take it down there and they give you a look that you really want like that you can run it. Might be a little soft look to run it that you might not get uh otherwise. Sometimes if you’re trying to save time, it’s a free run because you know the clock’s going to stop afterwards. But in that case, um if we hadn’t gotten the look that we wanted, we would have just taken it down. But since we got the look we wanted, we we ran it. I think we picked up five yards on that, which was a good gain. That’s that was our thinking on it. I know the idea run more time off they don’t they don’t they’ll get the ball back but you know you don’t know how fast you’re going to score but at that point it’s kind of that comes back to the aggressive category. Do you want to be less aggressive and run the time off or you want to be more aggressive and try to get some yards there and try to get in the end zone. I mean we’re trying to score a touchdown there is what we’re trying to do. You know it didn’t quite work out that way. I don’t think we had some bad plays after that but that was the idea. Did you uh say anything to Kyle about that lateral attempt after I did I did No, couldn’t have been a safety, I don’t think. Am I wrong about that? Never happened. Yeah. Uh yeah. Uh I told him that uh I I just questioned whether he actually graduated from Notre Dame or not. That’s what I questioned him on. You know, it’s like I thought that was one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen. So he agreed and it should never happen again. All right. Thanks. All right. Thanks.

Head Coach John Harbaugh on the defensive performance against the Bills, balancing being aggressive and managing the clock and more.

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