Ravens Press PassWelcome to the Raves Press Pass podcast. The Ravens fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, losing eighteen to sixteen to drop them to seven and four on the season. On Monday, we had a chance to hear from head coach John Harbaugh during his standard weekly press.
No updates right now. We're just monitoring it as we go here and he'll be working to get ready for the game.
After looking at.
The film from the three point version out there, seemed like the Steelers were saying afterwards that they the players.
Going in the direction, Well, it didn't work. You know, I think anytime you got to play it didn't work, you kind of look at it very critically. I mean, we're we're disappointing that play. You want to have a better play up there, better play call, the better executed play, everything along those lines. So I think you know, in every game whether you win or lose, but especially when you lose, and especially when it's an opportunity to tie the game at the end after a hard fought game like that, you got to look at those plays really hard. And that's when we'd like to have back just across board.
Maybe not per se along those lines. Not having Derek on the field for that play.
To do things, I guess, yeah, I don't know, really, I'm not sure about the question. I just think there's play. There are plays where guys are on the field. The guys are on the field for specific types of plays, you know, and depends on the type of play, whether Mark's out there or Isaiah's out there, Orse's out there, or baits out there or whoever. Dereck Henry is a great football player and you want him out there situationally, but he's not out there for every play. So, like I said after the game, that's the play that was called. You know, that's the personnel group that it was set up in through a lot of a lot of game planning. I mean, coaches are they're in early, they're home late, and they try to put the best We all try to put the best play we can together and come up with the best plays, and when it doesn't work out, you know, it hurts, it's bad and you really feel you feel disappointed about it because it's it's it's your job, it's what you want to get done well. So all the little nuances within that are all things that disappoint you, but every player is not on the field for every play. I'd like to have had a better play there, you know, and I like to have had a successful play. So you look back on it and that's how you feel about it. You feel bad.
About its successful in it.
Was there any thoughts of maybe seeing a key and that he wasn't very involved offensively?
Yes, he was.
There a thought just to see what a different look with him and there I know he's run such a different dynamic.
Well, the way the way you're asking it is it just to be like experimental. No, there's no thought to experiment in that game right there. Keaton's a guy we want to get involved, for sure. He's only been back for two weeks, you know, coming back from a knee injury. Uh, the way the game went, we only got Derek twelve carries as it was, thirteen carries as it was, so you want to get him more. You know. We only had like fifty two or fifty three offensive plays. We didn't have as many throws or runs or anything else that we wanted. So now to try to get a specific player in the game, you could say the same thing about any other player. You want to get a more rep more reps, more opportunities, you probably need more plays, and to get more plays, you need more successful plays, more first downs, more yards. We were off the field a couple of times real quick two I think two of our series were off the field in two or three plays. So it just cuts down the opportunities for everybody.
John made a.
Change in safety with Ardarius Washington in places. Mor what do you mean have you seen Kamar Darius up until this point for him to earn this opportunity, and then how do you think he played or he played every snap because the only guy.
Who did that.
Yeah, that was a plan going in. Those two guys we tried, we had you know, we were trying to attack some issues that we had in the back end, as everybody knows. And I thought I thought they played well back there. Those guys did a good job. Where Darius had earned that opportunity, earned that chance by by by the way he practiced, and then also by the way he played when he was in there during the during the course of the season. We put Kyle back there as well. I thought he played very well back there. He did a great job communicating. But they both did and they played well so that would definitely be a formula going forward. And then you know, still the guys that are here with us are still going to be working to do whatever they can to help us win.
It seems almost an inconceivable question over the last decade.
But he's already thought to.
Bring a competition for Justin Tucker as a tryout candidates.
Or anything at this point. No, no, there's no thought to that. I mean, you have to find that competition first. Just if you're going to be blunt about it, you know, where is that competition? That would be one thing. And the best option right now is to get Justin you know, back on point where where he's because he's fully capable of doing it. Certainly haven't lost any confidence in Justin Tucker. You know, you saw that on the fifty four yarder and we sent him out for and he drilled it. So that's the Justin Tuk that he wants to see, that we all want to see on every kick. And uh, he's definitely our best option and he's going to make a lot of kicks. I really believe that going forward. But it's up to him, you know, it's up to him and the guys he works with every day to make those balls go straight. So that's not competition right now at this time. Now, that's not something we want to for Justin. We just got to compete to get better and make those kicks, those field goals.
Are you seeing it as is it on the kicking side?
That is there?
Is there anything going on in part of the other mechanics that go into it, whether it's the hold or anything.
Else, not specifically, it's just a it's just a matter of that. It's their team, they work together. I think when things go well, Justin credits those guys really well, and I think they all take responsibility, you know, for every good thing or for and for everything it doesn't go well.
Is there any way to look at the number of kind of hees the offensive mine, especially in this last game, which is throughout the year, you know, holds the goal field. Obviously, one of the strengths of this office is the marketability to improvise the hole of them all with give us these time, but with some of those plays kicking the ball off faster, we help addressing of those.
Kind of ties.
Well. The holding penalties run runs, and those are penalties that hurt us. I mean it's just to start with what type of penalties we're talking about. First of all, too many penalties, way too many penalties. The penalties on offense are the one thing that is holding us back. That's the biggest issue. It shows up in different ways. So holding penalties on run plays, Yeah, color separation, it's happening, and we're grabbing those guys and it's getting called. It's putting us to you know, it's putting us to first and twenty, it's putting us to second and nineteen. And we're probably the best get back on track offense in the league right now overcoming those things. But we shouldn't have to overcome them. When you play defense like we played, or you're play in a game like we were playing in sometimes it becomes too high amount in the scale. And that's why we didn't score as many points. That's really the number one reason, because we were behind the sticks too much because of the penalties. So holding penalties run game, no holding penalties in the past game. We've been pretty good in pass protection. We haven't had too many holding penalties in pass protection. I give our line a lot of credit for that, especially the way Lamar moves around I think they do a great job of blocking for Lamar that way. The linemen downfield penalties in this game, there was one that happened on a run play that got taken out kind of like we took it outside to the right. I think we could have held our water on the lne of scrimm is there a little better. The other the other ones were screens, you know, where the screens get held up and the timing gets messed up. So that's tough. But we still got to try to find a way to be intentional about that and not get downfield. But I will say, on the screens, when they cover the screen and it gets delayed, that's a tougher deal. Other types of penalties help me out, that's yeah, I'm trying to be like really specific about us. You get, oh, the special yeah, yeah, I mean the special teams penalties aren't acceptable. I mean they back you up and put you put you behind, and those those are both unnecessary penalties, and they're both technique penalties, you know. Uh one of them was a leverage penalty and the kickoff return and in terms of not setting up the right way and the right spot, get beat across your face grab the guy, okay. Not okay, We work hard on that. The other one was the punt return downfield. You don't you don't put your hands on you don't try to you don't try to block somebody on the tip of the shoulder pad because it inevitably it becomes the back, you know, on the punt return. Coach that all the time. Not okay, there's techniques involved with that. Special teams is all about fundamentals and techniques, you know, and understanding the spacing and the geometry of those plays, and that's we've got to be better at that.
Penalties and see that as like discipline and like of discipline gets put on the shoulders of coaching. What can be done to eliminate these issues moving forward down the stretch.
Here, Yeah, it's across the board. It's everything. I mean, the buck stops here, Harry Truman right stops with me. So it's my job to make sure that we're doing the things that we got to do. And we've from a coaching standpoint, from drill standpoint, from emphasis standpoint, technique standpoint, and making sure you guys understand that you know, it's not okay, it's not acceptable. We've all got to be intentional about getting it stopped, and my job to make sure that everybody's focused.
On Justin for a second.
Is there any way to change up the problem solving the process for him having to talk to somebody else, different voice in there, or do you just sort of have to trust the process that has worked so well for so many.
Years, try to attack everything to the utmost that we can across the board. And you know, Justin is one of the aspects that we're looking at. I mean, he's going to get it figured out. We have coaches, we have technique, we look at the tape he's practicing, well, he's got to kick it straight.
Don't be more than Eddie Jackson staying home.
And also another question that safety is Sneeze Kinge's updated. Really no injury updates right now. There's MRIs today and things like that, So we'll see where we're at after all information comes in. I really don't have anything to say about any of those personnel decisions that get made or why they get made. Some of those things are are just in house conversations that we have and and it stops there, and other things are just weak to weak decisions that you make I mean, you make decisions week to week. It's a week to week lead. And that's pretty clear, you know. I say that a lot up here, and I think we all know that. You know. It's it's you can't get too high, you can't get too low. You're not as good as you it's not as good as you think when things are going well, and you're not as you're not as bad as you think when things are going well. It's a long season and we've got a big game next week, So what what worked last week or what the plan was last week, whether it's play calls or who's on the field or who plays. It evolves to the next week, and you've got to look at your circumstances and meet them where they're at, you know, just decide what's our best avenue strategy. What can we do to try to win this next game against an opponent that's doing the same thing against you, trying to find a way to exploit anything they can to win the game. That's just the nature of this competitive business, you know. So it's it's always going to be like that, man. It's conflict, it's clashing, it's too high level, you know, operations going against each other in battle, you know, football battle. That's the beauty of it, that's the challenge of it. You can't get all down on yourself and start saying, oh, you know, we didn't do this right, we didn't do that right. We're gonna beat ourselves up. You feel bad about it, but then you put yourself off the mat and you go to work because we've got a big game coming up. If we win this game, we're gonna in great shape. If we don't win this game, it's not gonna be the end of the world. You know, that's just the fact, and we'll go to the next game. So we got a bunch of fighters, we got a bunch of competitors, and we're gonna make the best decisions we can that are best for our team to play the best football that they can the very next week coming up.
You started outings in grenavious way in the dime Hadge obviously you guys used four corners, but it seems like he played more and more, even you know, when you were.
In nickel with in the fourth quarter, how did he look?
And you know, do you feel like he's going to be in the mix more and warming the poor beating off that.
Yeah, I thought Trey had a real good game. It's worked really hard to pick up the defense, and still a few things he learned, like we you know, all of our guys are still learning things. We all are. But I thought he played well and I think he's a He's a nice piece for us back there, great addition. I'm looking forward to his continuing role and his expanding role.
Jo.
When you when you went back and looked at it, what did the Steelers do well defensively to make it life difficult for you?
They played really good Childs. I mean they're aggressive, they're physical, they made tackles. We didn't exploit some of the things. And there are guys running open sometimes we didn't have time to get to or whatever. We just didn't capitalize when we could. We had the penalties that set us behind schedule. So you know, it's a combination of all those things. Can't really narrow it down to one.
Thing, John, Obviously, a game like that is a little small as details matter. Was how frustrating was it just thinking back to the interception of justice He'll get the ball ticket from just to see them making the plays that you feel like, you know the winning plays in that game and your side not being able to make as many as you like.
Yeah, it's disappointing. Those the things that you want to do. You want to find ways to win the game. John One thing.
Lamars said, the approachate the skates like you thought maybe at one point they were becoming any game the teams.
To heights And you don't want to.
Say that that applies to everyone and it's our opinion, but is there anything to they take from maybe that stay from one of your leaders. Did you see maybe a mental approach that was sort of butterflies or anything like that can win that game?
No, I didn't see that.
Personal question. But David Ajava was a healthy scratch at the third time this season yet at easta Isaac playing this game, and you can gotway him a couple of times differently. What does he need to do to see the field or what do you need to see from him in practice?
Yeah, well, I have those conversations with the guys personally every single day, and so you make those decisions based on who gives and what and who and when and how gives you the best chance. You think that in that game that week, and there's a lot of things that go in each of those decisions.
A lot of defensive players said communication is still the reason for a.
Lot of their mistakes.
That guy can repeat that, Can you repeat that?
Yeah? A lot of defensive players said communication is still reason for a lot of their mistates, but that it took a really big step forward this game.
How do you have communication issues?
And why do you think did start to clip for that?
I thought we came out and played good in this game, but you know we can play better. You know there's things that we can do better on defense. For sure. We'll look at all those things just like we did last week.
Uh.
Next just cause you played a little better this week doesn't mean you're gonna pay better next week. We were trying to chase perfection, uh, in every aspect of what we do. But it's a it's a challenging deal because you got an opponent over there that's coming after you an attack and you it's it's back and forth, you know, uh, And hopefully you can make those stops and make those plays. I'm proud of the guys. I thought the effort, the intensity, the lock the guys were locked in and focused communication. I thought was good on defense, really good, and we'll just keep trying to improve and get better and try to win the next game.
John isn't a recent injury.
But are we've met about Michael Peers.
Is he getting closer to being an optioners?
That's still well, he was an IR so when he comes off I R you know, then you'll know. But he's working hard every day. He's working hard every data to get healthy and get back out there and he will be back this season.
Similar not a recent injury from this game. Arthur Malatt at the calf last week that something it could be longer term potential injury reserve.
Yeah, I'll anticipate that one being an injury injured reserve at this point, so just have to see how it heals.
You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast, make sure you subscribe. Also subscribe to the Lounge podcast feed as well. Thank you for listening. We'll be back to you again on Wednesdays. The Ravens gear up for next week's Monday night football game against the LA Chargers
