Inside the head of John Harbaugh
There are times when John Harbaugh talks with the media that he really opens up and discusses strategy.
I like these moments, because Harbaugh will take you inside his mind. He'll break down the thought process behind certain play calls and discuss the strategy that you can't see from the press box, the stands, or your couch.
Harbs' Monday press conference is when he usually lets out most of this information. He's had time to review the tape of the previous day's game, and he has some thoughts fresh in his mind about what went right, what went wrong, and how the team will move forward.
Yesterday wasn't an exception. Here are a couple of interesting snippets from the head coach's talk with the media about various situations in Sunday's loss to the Giants:
On if he felt that the Ravens were back in the game in the third quarter after the Giants went three-and-out with the score 20-10:
"We felt like if we could get through the third quarter [we'd be back in it]. Our idea was - that's why we took the ball at the beginning of the game because of the wind situation - we felt like even at halftime with the score being what it was, if we could win the third quarter, if we could get into the fourth quarter 20-10 with the wind at our back and a little bit of momentum, we [would] have a chance to win that game. We felt like we would go win the game. So at that point we felt like, 'Hey, we were right on track.' Obviously, the interception took us off track and made it [tougher] than what we wanted. But that was the plan."
On Samari Rolle's near interception, where he caught the ball but it bounced out of his hands after he rolled over on the ground:
"The way the rule reads - and they called it right - you have to finish the catch. So when you hit the ground, you've got to basically finish the catch on the ground. He was down by contact with the ball, but when he rolled over, the ball kind of popped out. You could all see it. So they ruled it correctly, we thought."
On if he thought about challenging a play at the start of the second quarter where Brendon Ayanbadejo downed a punt that looked like it may have been touched by the Giants:
"What did you think? Could you tell? You saw it on TV. You couldn't tell. It's the same thing. We saw it on the field. What we did was, we go through our process because we had time there. There was a TV timeout. Of course, the Giants were ungracious enough not to show it up on the big screen. The funny thing was TV didn't show it. All we saw was the live copy. They didn't show it and that was all through commercials. I don't know if they ever came back and showed it again.
"Our players coming off the field were pretty adamant that it didn't hit anybody. [Tom] Zbikowski, who did a great job of knocking their guy into the ball, couldn't tell. The rest of the guys around there, Nick Greisen and the rest of the guys, said, 'No, it didn't hit anybody.' So I just didn't feel like, being behind at that time, it wasn't worth giving up a timeout when our players [thought the call was correct]. Now, if our players - if anybody - had thought it had hit the guy, I would've thrown the flag because it would've been a shot to get it back. But then we went back and saw it this morning, and you couldn't tell, so we obviously wouldn't have gotten the ball."
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