Head Coach John Harbaugh
JOHN HARBAUGH: Okay, good seeing everybody. Appreciate you guys being here. Getting ready for a very important game in our stadium right over there. Had a good week of practice. What questions do you have?
Q: (Center) John Michael-Schmitz was not out there. Is he okay?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Personal. Has a personal family thing going on.
Q: Do you expect to be ready for the game?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah.
Q: John, are you giving any of the other quarterbacks, backup quarterbacks, first team reps along with (quarterback) Jameis (Winston), or is he taking all of them?
JOHN HARBAUGH: We're working it the way we're going to work it for the game. Jameis has taken the reps, I would say. I'm not going to parse it out in terms of who's getting what reps, though. Wouldn't be any value in that for us. Appreciate the question, though. Wouldn't call it a great question, but a fair question. It's a fair question. And well said, too. You made me think for a minute there.
Q: Coach, what is your first memory of the Giants in the 80's? These Giants of '86, we're doing all this for the game on Sunday. Tribute to them. What is your first memory?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, yeah. The Giants from' 86. (Former Giants Head Coach) Bill Parcells, (former Giants punter) Sean Landetta, of course, a good friend. Everybody. I just remember a big physical, tough, hard-nosed football team. And then probably, for me, I remember (former Giants quarterback) Phil Simms. Got to know Phil Simms shortly thereafter at the Phil Simms football camp. And then that defense, man. That defense. But physical offensive line, run the ball, defense. Yeah, you learn a lot from those guys. And Coach Parcells. I read the books. When you're younger, you read the books. I read all the books about Coach Parcells and his philosophies. And I feel like I've tried to apply a lot of those over the years.
Q: How do you decide, obviously, it's a tough spot, what you're going to do at running back each week? One week was (running back Najee) Harris inactive, one week you had all four active, one week was (running back) Devin (Singletary) who has bviously played well. Is that matchup-based? Is that off practice for the week? How do you decide what to do with those four guys?
JOHN HARBAUGH: It's probably based on what you feel like gives you the best chance. Some of it's probably the game plan, sure, the matchup. The other part of it's probably the development of Najee as he's been here more now and is in better game shape. That's probably part of it too. Of course, Motor (Singletary) is Motor. He's consistent. And then Trace (running back Tyrone Tracy) has done a good job. He's been practicing really well. And when he's gotten out there, he's done a good job. All those guys we're happy with. We like them when they're on the field.
Q: What was (quarterback) J.J. (McCarthy) able to do this week and what did you see from him in that regard?
JOHN HARBAUGH: He practiced the things we asked him to do. We had different things for him here and there. A lot of it's just learning the offense. I thought he did a good job with that. 24-7 almost really trying to be immersed in the offense. He wants to learn. He wants to know it all. And that's what we've been working on. So, it's just kind of what you'd expect, I'd say.
Q: Will he be the third stringer?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, we're not announcing any of that right now. And I would say probably, honestly, we're probably still figuring it out. What exactly, how do we use him? How do we use (quarterback) Jake (Haener) in those kind of backup roles? Who's ready for what? Jake's only been here for like a month, too. But he's obviously more immersed in the offense. So, we have to decide those things.
Q: How challenging is it to kind of get a quarterback up to speed so quickly? Because obviously, J.J., he's coming in. He's had to learn it so quickly.
We talked to Jameis about that. From your experience, how tricky is it to get him ready just in case or just to get him ready in general?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, I mean, it's like ready for what exactly? It's like if you're starting, it'd be really, really hard. I don't know how you do that. But for some role, to me, you can do that. And that's just a matter of what that role ends up being.
Q: (Offensive Lineman) Andrew Thomas was back out here. Things trending in the right direction with him?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
Q: Coach, what's the key to stopping (Cardinals running back) Jeremiyah Love? You just got done watching him on tape. What's key?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I mean, that's a great question in terms of the challenge of it all. Because it's not just him, it's their offense. He's obviously capable of house calling it or making big runs at any time. He's running very aggressively and trying to make those plays. He's a bounce threat. He's a cutback threat. He can spin. He's strong. But not just him. I think their offensive line is very physical. Their blockers block. Their wide receivers insert, kind of like the Rams offense. They can put three tight ends out there at any time. It's going to be a challenge. And not just him. I mean, (Cardinals running back Tyler) Allgeier is – we played him a couple times. This dude, he brings it. He's 230 pounds, twisted blue steel coming through there. Remember (former running back) Don Nottingham? Tyler's not exactly like that, but he is downhill and he is hard to tackle. So, a lot of respect for their run game.
Q: What did you see from (safety Jason) Pinnock? I think he got his first defensive snaps the other day.
JOHN HARBAUGH: What did I see in the game? How he played? Oh, yeah. I thought he played really well. I thought he did. I thought J-Pinn (safety Jason Pinnock) played really well. It's good to see; he'd been practicing really well, kind of got an opportunity with the injury there to (safety) Tyler (Nubin) and made the most of it. So, you earn yourself even more snaps when you do something like that.
Q: When you see an offense that's struggling to get (Cardinals wide receiver) Marvin Harrison (Jr.) the ball, do you anticipate them trying to force or create for him exclusively this Sunday? It just seemed like he hasn't had a lot of looks yet.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, it's hard to speculate on that. I don't know. We've just got to play our defense, cover their guys, carry out our game plan well. You can guess all you want about what a team's going to do, and you try to because you try to script your plays in practice so you see what you think they might do. But it's pretty futile.
Q: John, with all the questions this week about getting J.J. up to speed and Jake to an extent, you're still really a week and a half into getting Jameis up to speed as the starting quarterback. What do you feel about your offense going into Sunday? You've talked about the circumstances from the first two weeks.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, it's definitely challenging. I mean, you're trying to figure out our identity the first game, two, three, even with Jaxson, and then a couple of plays into the second game, it's a pivot right away. So, that's definitely a challenge. You can't deny that, can't lessen the impact of that, but it's a challenge that we've been faced with. So, we've just got to figure it out. And that's what we're doing. We're now into the – basically the second game plan game with Jameis. I feel like we have a better handle on it all probably, but we'll find out Sunday.
Q: Where do you stand philosophically on first-team reps at practice for quarterbacks? Some coaches just – their starters take every single rep. Some coaches give their starters a handful here or there. Where do you stand on that generally?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I would say that if your starter's healthy and going, we've always given the starter all the reps with the starters. And then the backup, and then the third quarterback, takes some number of reps with pretty much the look team for the most part. But they also get throws. You get throws in the one-on-one periods and the routes on air and things like that. So, they get all the throws, but normally you don't just – you don't – now the walkthrough reps, you might give the backup a few walkthrough reps here and there, but mostly you've got to get your starter ready, and that's what we've always pretty much done. As long as they've been healthy.
