BALTIMORE RAVENS POST-GAME TRANSCRIPTS: WEEK 2 VS. MIAMI
Head Coach John Harbaugh
(opening statement) “Good to see everyone, I appreciate you guys being here. It’s five minutes after the
game, so I don’t have any updates on injuries at this point; I haven’t talked to anyone yet, so you know.
Obviously, very disappointing. All credit goes to the Dolphins; They got the job done in the second half and in the fourth quarter. It’s going to be one of the biggest comebacks probably in the history of the National Football League, and we’ll give them credit for it. We have to own it, every single person. I told the guys in the locker room, ‘How we respond to this, that will be the story.’ We have a 17-game season, this is the second week of the season. What we do from here on out, everyone taking a hard look at what we did; coaches, players, everyone. Calls that we made, plays that we made, plays that we didn’t make, and let’s come out of here a better football team for it and get to work and get ready for the next game against New England in New England. What questions do you have?”
(on rotating cornerbacks out of health necessity and if that contributed to defensive miscommunications on the backend) “Yes, that’s the issue. Never did you think we were going to have that many balls thrown over our head. That just can’t happen; that’s not OK. I don’t care who’s back there, [or] what they’re doing. Those plays will cost you a game when you have a lead like that. You can’t have miscommunication; you can’t have a guy running a post behind Cover-3. Those kinds of things can’t happen.”
(on if it was frustrating to not be able to run down the clock with an effective run game like the Ravens have been known to do) “Yes, we haven’t been able to do that yet. We’re not there yet; we’re not blocking like we need to. That’s a good front, just like last week was a good front, but we’re not doing it right now. So, that’s one of the things we have to take a hard look at and try to get to where we need to be in that way, because that’s how you win games. You have to be able to close it out, and that’s why I say it’s a team effort. All three phases have got to be working together to win games in this league.”
(on CB Marlon Humphrey missing most of the fourth quarter) “I’m not talking about any of that; I don’t really know right now what the reasons were.”
(on if he thinks the team is close to breaking out the running game) “I don’t have any predictions on how
close we are or how far away we are.”
(on if he got any explanation from the officials on Dolphins TE Mike Gesicki’s touchdown that looked like it might have been out of bounds) “They said they had a view of it that they could tell clearly that it was in. They don’t really tell you much, they just go, ‘Hey, we had a good view. We saw it.’”
(on QB Lamar Jackson having a great game being a plus, and if he is encouraged by the offense’s big
numbers) “I’m encouraged by a lot of things, but it’s a process here. There’s really no conclusions to be drawn at this point in time. It’s the National Football League; everyone’s really good; everyone’s tough. You have to be on point every single play. If you’re not on point every single play, people hurt you. They [the Dolphins] have a lot of talented guys over there, just like we do, and we hurt them with plays, they hurt us with plays. In the end, they made more plays. We just have to look at us, look at ourselves, concern ourselves with what we need to do to be better in every single area. So, there’s good, there’s not good, and that’s just how it stands.”
QB Lamar Jackson
(on the emotions after the game) “Yes, like you said, we were moving the ball, putting points up; we’ve just got to finish. It came down to the fourth quarter; they were putting points on the board [and] we weren’t. We put three points on the board, probably in the fourth quarter. So, we’ve got to just finish. They played their tail off, though. They didn’t let … What was it? We were up 21 or something like that. They didn’t let that define them; they kept playing. That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to finish when we’re up. This is the NFL. [We’ve got to] keep doing what we’re doing to put the points on the board. That was a good team win for them, though.”
(on the biggest factor affecting the lack of production from the running game) “It’s not the Ravens of the
past no more. This is the NFL; it’s a new era. We’ve got to play ball. We’ve got to know that if the passing is working, we’ve got to keep passing it – if we’re doing it. We had some success running the ball, because we did score on the long one – we aren’t going to say that – but we’ve just got to finish. That’s the main thing, because we were up. We’ve just got to finish, man – all phases.”
(on how the team will respond) “Watch the film. We’re going to watch film, get better, move on from it and get ready for the Patriots. We can’t dwell on that. It’s still early in the season – like I said last week when we won. We’ve got to focus. We’ve got 15 more games left of the regular season; we aren’t going to let this loss define us. Hats off to the Dolphins, though, because they played a heck of a game, especially their offense.”
(on the goal-line fumble) “Just a mishap from me and my center – that’s all; nothing major. It was major,
because we didn’t get the touchdown, but we moved on from it, and it’s not going to happen again.”
(on seeing what QB Tua Tagovailoa is doing) “Yes, he was making some throws, and those guys were doing their thing – [Jaylen] Waddle, Tyreek [Hill]; they’re heck of players. And shoutout to Tua, because he did his thing.”
(on if the Dolphins’ defense shows anything different the last few drives) “They weren’t. We’ve got to stay
on the field and keep doing what we were doing at the beginning. They didn’t make any crazy changes on the defense; we’ve just got to execute and move the ball.”
(on if the there is a sense of satisfaction in the offense performing well against the Dolphins’ defense) “Yes, we’ll watch film. And like I told you guys earlier this week, we were going to have some fun if they did the same thing – we’ve seen it. They were trying to execute, but we’ve seen them bring that zero blitz, and we executed. Our O-line did a heck of a job [in] protection.”
(on if it means anything to him that he recorded his 11th-career 100-yard rushing performance, marking the most by a QB in NFL history) “No, I want to win. That record doesn’t mean anything if we’re not winning.”
(on what he says to his teammates about handling a loss like this) “Just keep our head up, because, like I
said, we’ve got 15 more games in the regular season, and we’re not going to let this define us. We’re going to move on. We’re going to watch the film from this game [and] see what mistakes we made. We’ve got to get ready for the Patriots. It’s a long season.”
(on the Ravens’ wide receivers) “They looked good, they looked good. Everybody else had questions, but we didn’t, because we know what we’ve got. ‘Bate’ [Rashod Bateman], ‘Duv’ [Devin Duvernay], when ‘Pro’ [James Proche II] gets back, him, Demarcus [Robinson]. Those guys look wonderful.”
DE Calais Campbell
(on the defense allowing four touchdowns in the fourth quarter) “It doesn’t feel good, that’s for sure. We
know we’re capable of being much better. You have to tip your hat off to them; they made the plays, but
when you watch the tape, there’s going to be a lot of stuff to clean up. We made mistakes, and we have to own it. That’s just part of the game. It’s part of the early part of the season, but no excuses. We have to wear that one. It sucks, but they beat us.”
(on how they will stop the disappointment from affecting them next week) “We’re a veteran team; we’re
not going to let this beat us twice. We’re going to regroup. We go in there, we study the tape, we figure out what happened, and then we move on. [We will] use it to get better, but at the end of the day, this team still has all the potential in the world to be as good as we want to be. We just have to take it one play at a time.”
(on how disappointing it was to not be able to put more pressure on Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa after the impressive pass rush last week) “Yes, it sucks when there were opportunities there, but they had a great gameplan, and [Tua Tagovailoa] played a great football game. This was, I think, Tua’s best game of his career, from what I’ve seen. He was getting his feet set, getting rid of the ball, making quick decisions and got the ball to his playmakers and let them make plays. That’s what the quarterback does, so you have to give him his props. We were pressuring him and getting there sometimes, but he’s making good throws, putting it right on the money [while] we’re pressuring his face. So, you have to give him his respect.”
(on if fatigue factored in at the end of the game when the defense was on the field a lot) “I wouldn’t use it as an excuse. We prepare really hard, and I think it was more mental than it was anything else, but that’s just part of it. We have a lot of corrections to make, but you have to give them the respect. They made the plays. They kept fighting. A lot of times, you get a big lead like that, and you know teams just try to get out of the game without stopping the bleeding, but they just kept fighting. You have to give them their respect; that’s a very tough football team. They were out there playing good football. We feel like we had some plays that we left out there for sure, and [it’s] something that you get better from. All of goals are still intact. We’re going to be alright.”
(on missing multiple cornerbacks and how much he thinks injuries in the secondary impacted the game)
“That’s a part of the game; it’s going to happen. We believe in the guys we have that can step up and make plays for us. We can never use that as an excuse; we have guys that we believe in, and we had opportunities. They just made the plays, and those guys are good, too. It’s the NFL. We have to find a way to make the plays to win the game there, but at the end of the day, today just wasn’t our day.”
TE Mark Andrews
(on what can be taken away from this game) “It’s early on in the season, and there’s a lot of good football
that was played. I think for us, just keeping that foot down on the throttle and going. A lot of things went right, we did a lot of great things, but we’ve just got to keep that going throughout the game. Like Calais [Campbell] said, this is the NFL. There are a lot of good players, and we need to be able to put them down when they’re down.”
(on if the team felt any letdown on the sideline after gaining a big lead) “No, it was just kind of the flow of
the game. Give them credit, they fought hard, they played hard. So did we, and that’s just how this game
went, and a few things here and there, it’s a different game. But I’m also proud of the way our guys fought. They played hard. Like I said, there were a lot of good things that were done, and we’re going to learn from that. It’s Game 2. We’re looking to be better by Week 3.”
(on what kind of sense of urgency the team has to get the running game going, especially with a game like today) “I thought we did some really good things in the run game, obviously Lamar [Jackson] breaking that big touchdown off, and it’s just being efficient, being effective throughout the whole game, and obviously we weren’t able to get it done towards the end of the game, but that’s what we’re going to work on.”
S Chuck Clark
(on how difficult it will be for the defense to bounce back) “I don’t think it’s difficult. We’ve just got to come back and be better – talk it out, hash it out. [We’re] rolling on to the next. I don’t think it’s going to be difficult. It’s still early [in the season].”
(on if rotating guys on the back end of the defense created challenges) “We rep that in practice, so we do
that a lot – different personnel, different packages. And of course, for a game, you’ve got to amp it up just a little bit more on the communication end as compared to practice, so that’s just where we’ve got to be
better.”
(on what happened on WR Tyreek Hill’s first touchdown reception) “His first one … OK, I think that was just communication on our end, honestly, on the back end. That wasn’t on anybody else; that was just the back end. We’ve just got to be better, and like I said, that’s the little difference from practice to the game – that we’ve just got to be locked in.”
CB Marlon Humphrey
(on how to move on from a game like this) “Obviously, it’s not the result we wanted on defense, but we’re
moving on. We’ll watch the film. We obviously know it’s really bad, but we’ll watch the film, and then we’ve got to go from there – figure out what went wrong. I know we played with effort, but [there were] a lot of points we gave up. So, we’ve just got to do a lot better.”
(on if he has a sense of what went wrong) “Well, we’ve got to look at the film, and then, I know there were a lot of balls [that] I saw up in the air, and it’s never good as a ‘DB’ when you’re watching the ball go up. Usually, when we’re watching it, a lot of times it’s going to get caught.”
(on not being able to play on all the defensive snaps towards the end) “Yes, that sucked, that sucked.
Everybody is hurt nowadays, so we’ve just got to go, wrap it up, do the things we can. But it definitely sucked watching those last couple of series. I really wanted to be out there, but [I’ll] get back healthy this next week, and hopefully, I’ll be good to go.”
(on his message to the defense after a game like this) “We’ve just got to bounce back. There are wins and
losses in this league; there are bad games, there are good games, but the biggest thing is how you bounce back after a game like that.”
(on if his injury tightened up at halftime) “No, it was about the same.”
(on if the fourth quarter collapse can be attributed to miscommunication on the back end) “Yes, with that,
like I said, we’ve got to look at the film and figure out what guys did what – all that – especially with the guys [because] we were all trying to figure out what happened, and it’s like what happened, happened, and you’ve just got to move on and go to the next one. And then obviously, we’ll do a little deeper review – in-depth study – come Tuesday.”
WR DeMarcus Robinson
(on his touchdown catch) “I just ran my route towards the inside, and Lamar [Jackson] put it right in there.
Really nothing there more for me to do than catch it.”
(on processing a loss like this) “We’re a veteran team. We know what we have to do, and that’s execute when the time comes.”
TE Isaiah Likely
(on the emotions of the game and what he experienced on the sideline) “I’m really just playing football.
Things happen, and you just have to live and learn. It’s not the outcome that we wanted, but we know what we did wrong, and we know what we have to do to prepare for next week.”
(on what kind of lessons he will take from this loss) “The little things. There were definitely things I felt like I could have done better throughout the game, and then looking back on it [and] not getting the result we wanted, I just put it on myself.”
(on the offense scoring a lot of points and the rhythm they were able to find) “I thought the rhythm was
great. Like you said, we put up a lot of points, but as an offense, you want to keep putting up those points. You want to keep building, you want to keep doing it every drive to build that chemistry week in and week out, drive in and drive out. So, just harping on those little things in practice and getting better for next week.”
(on if he feels like he should have caught the ball on the third-down play late in the game) “100 percent. I
jumped awkwardly, but at the end of the day, I make those plays day in and day out in practice. If it ever
comes up again, I promise I’ll make that play. I’ll put my soul on that.”
S Kyle Hamilton
(on WR Tyreek Hill’s second touchdown) “There was a miscommunication. It’s something that we preach, and we practice every day, but we’ve just got to be about it in the game, and I think that showed towards the end.”
(on dealing with the emotions of a game like this) “It’s probably how everybody in here feels – we were up, we’ve got to keep just going like that if we want to go where we want to go. It sucks right now, but we’ll get it fixed. It’s still early in the season, but we’ll work on it, and we’ll bounce back.”
(on if there’s anything he would have done differently on the one Hill touchdown) “There’s a ton of stuff I
wish I would have done differently. First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter. Obviously as you get down to crunch time, you’ve got to hone in on what we’ve been practicing. I did make mistakes, and that’s on me, and I’ll get it fixed. I’ll work with the guys to work on communication and be better next week.”
CB Jalyn Armour-Davis
(on the challenges presented to the Ravens secondary today) “It’s definitely challenging – it’s the National
Football League. Every day, every weekend is challenging, but it’s definitely not an excuse. That’s why we’re here, why every man is on this roster. We’re here to do a job, and everybody is expected to compete at a high level. So, it’s not an excuse, but live and learn [and] get better as the days go on.”
(on if it’s tough to swallow not getting the win after QB Lamar Jackson played so well) “It’s tough to swallow regardless of how things go whenever the [game clock] is at zero, and you’re not ahead. That’s always disappointing. Yes, of course [Lamar Jackson] played awesome, the offense played great, but it’s disappointing whenever you’re on the wrong side of the win column.”
ILB Patrick Queen
(on if there was a lot of miscommunication on defense in the fourth quarter) “I think we’ve just got to
communicate better for the most part. Everybody has to be on the same page and just do their job; we’ll be fine.”
(on how hard it is to not get the win today after the performance QB Lamar Jackson had) “That performance is on us, on the defense. On third down, we have to get off the field, get the ball back to the offense and let them keep doing their thing. Obviously, Lamar [Jackson] is a great player, and it’s hard to stop him, so as much as we can get the ball back to them, that’s what we need to do. Communication, doing your job, whatever it comes down to, that’s what we’ve got to do, and we’ve got to get better at.”
WR Rashod Bateman
(on how you bounce back from a game like this) “We just have to have a clearer mindset. This game is over, it’s done. We just need to focus on the Patriots.”
(on being on the sidelines and watching Miami come back) “You know, it’s just like everybody else on the
sideline. You put your faith in the defense and hope they can make a play.”
(on a positive note about his play) “It’s cool man. But I love my teammates. But it’s all about the W’s, and
that’s what we have to focus on rather than what I do.”
