Head Coach John Harbaugh
JOHN HARBAUGH: Okay, great to see everybody. Appreciate you being here. Had a good practice and all eyes on Sunday basically. What questions do you have?
Q: Is (safety) Jason Pinnock out of the concussion protocol?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yes.
Q: So, how do you look at that position next to (safety Jevon) Holland this week? Sometimes you say you're going to play both.
JOHN HARBAUGH: You'll see on Sunday, we'll let you know. He'll be a part of it though.
Q: Where was (tight end) Theo (Johnson)?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Theo was here, he was in the training room. Injury report will come out at four o'clock.
Q: Is that a long-term issue?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Injury report will come out at four o'clock.
Q: What can (tight end) Thomas Findone do for you on offense if he gets an opportunity?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Oh, he could help us. He could help us. He's had great practices, runs good routes, played well on special teams last week. Thomas is ready to play, as he showed last week when he was on special teams.
Q: What have you seen from your tackles this week? Obviously, (offensive lineman) Andrew (Thomas) and (offensive lineman) Jermaine (Eluemunor) have been limited.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Which tackles? The ones that practiced on Wednesday, Thursday? Or those guys today? I saw them practice today, yeah. They were basically full go. As the injury report will show you at four o'clock. I appreciate the question. I mean, I appreciate the question. They did well. I mean they did fine. They practiced.
Q: How did (outside linebacker) Abdul Carter look?
JOHN HARBAUGH: He looked fine. I think he's going to say full participation, but I don't do the report.
Q: (Wide receiver) Malik (Nabers) said yesterday he's still got 20-30 percent to go until he's 100 percent. How does that, when you hear that from a player, how does that make you feel?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Oh, that excites me. That gets me fired up. I can't wait to see the 20-30 percent more. That's going to be fun. I mean, I think he's doing great and he had a great week of practice, so it's good.
Q: You looking forward to a game that it may not actually rain?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yes. Although today was very reminiscent of some of our games.
Q: Get it out of the way.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, right. It came two days early. I guess it's supposed to be a beautiful day. Should be sunny, right? 57, clear skies. It'll be nice. Perfect football weather.
Q: Does it change anything for you guys? I mean, obviously, the ball security has been a thing. Playing in nicer weather probably does help you in that regard, no?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I think it's appreciated. It's appreciated. Everybody would rather play, just not have that be a factor probably. I don't think that's why we had the fumbles. It was more getting the ball punched out. And that can happen on a nice day too, so we're going to have to be very conscientious of it just as much.
Q: I'm sure it's case-by-case, but what's the line when you have to decide if you're going to basically demote a guy or stick with him through tough times? As a coach, how do you walk that line?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I don't know that there is really a rule for it. It's case-by-case. It depends on your options. It depends on what you're talking about. There's also levels of establishment in players and things like that. Some things are more up in the air at positions and some things are more established. It's just probably more case-by-case. You're going to give guys opportunities or opportunities aren't going to happen because there's somebody established in front of them. Sometimes the door opens for different reasons. Sometimes it's injury, sometimes it's performance. Those are the two main things. And when that happens, you can bet there's someone chomping at the bit ready to take advantage of that opportunity and make their mark. It's highly competitive all the time, even for the established players. It's still highly competitive. If you're an established starter, say you're an AT (Andrew Thomas) and you're an established left tackle in the league, certainly that earns you certain things. But you still got to perform. You still got to go out there and play well. And eventually, everybody's got to earn their job and you've got to keep earning it. I remember (former Baltimore Ravens linebacker) Ray Lewis used to say, because you think a guy that is a superstar and he's established, he would say, no, there's more pressure because I got to prove myself every single time because the one time I don't, that player's going to be talking about how he beat Ray Lewis. He'll be telling people for the rest of his life that story. So, I thought that was interesting. I never considered that because I've never been that kind of an athlete. There's levels to these things, I guess.
Q: What about the running back position specifically? Is there a point where accountability, with the fumbles, you are willing to make changes because guys are fumbling?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Of course. Yes. There is a point.
Q: Have you reached that point?
JOHN HARBAUGH: We'll see. We'll find out.
Q: How about the defensive side of that? You mentioned a couple times this week the punch out. That seems to be going on, to my naked eye, at a higher rate around the NFL this year than in years past. Any reason you think that's the case? Are defensive coaches teaching that more than they were five years ago? Or why do you think it's on the rise?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I do think it's being taught more. I think the players have just seen it more. Maybe it's been taught in college, too, so maybe the guys coming into the league are better at it. We had a couple punches today on the tape that we showed that are just unbelievably good punches. It's crazy how good these guys are getting at it. That's a moving target. It's fast, and they can find that thing and hit it with power. It's punch out madness in the NFL right now. So, you ask about the accountability, and it's definitely part of it, but there's also some understanding of what's going on. In the case of Skatt (running back Cam Skattebo), who we're talking about here, I have a level of understanding, but I also have a level of, and just like he does, he said it yesterday, and he said it to me this week. It's still on him to get it right. The running backs in the NFL have to adjust. The wide receivers, tight ends, they have to adjust. Heck, a DB picked one up and then got punched out last week. The defensive players, even when they carry the ball, the offensive guys are punching balls out now. That's madness. So, it's just become a new part of the game because turnovers determine the outcomes of games. It has to be the number one priority thing. So, all those things that we're talking about are in play.
Q: What is it to the point then? What do you tell the running back? How do you approach it?
JOHN HARBAUGH: We have a technique. We call it the G-claw. It has to do with the pressure points on the football. It has to do with locking the pressure points with the other arm. There's a technique to it that we emphasize, and we train and we practice. We have a period in every single practice on Wednesday and Thursday. In season, it's Wednesday and Thursday. We do it for seven minutes and work on it.
Q: Along those lines, the peanut punch. I saw a game the other day, I wish I knew exactly what the game was, where a guy went for the peanut punch, wasn't anywhere near the football, and ended up getting a 15-yard penalty.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah. Point of emphasis by the officials that they made. You can't just go punching people and call it a peanut punch. You've got to punch the ball. I guess that'll be something that's probably going to come up with the officiating, and they've got to make a judgment call on that. Or people used to peanut punch guys on the ground. I remember bringing that up a couple years ago. It's like, he's down. Why is he punching him? Well, he's punching the ball. Yeah, but the play's over. And they really were just punching the player, really. So, it just kind of opened up this whole can of worms a little bit.
