JOHN HARBAUGH: All right, good seeing you guys here, been a long time. Really missed everybody very much. But back at it today, it was great to have the players back in the building. Great to have meetings. Great to have practice. Great to start getting ready for our next opponent. Rival in the division, longtime rival. Was a part of this way back as an assistant coach in Philadelphia and now to be on the other side of it, playing the vaunted Giants against the vaunted Eagles, it's really exciting and we're looking forward to it. A lot of respect for that team, that organization, everything about them. We understand, defending champs in the division, recent world champs, all those kinds of things. We're looking forward to our opportunity. What questions do you have?
Q: What's your concern level at this point with (running back Cam) Skattebo and (outside linebacker) Abdul (Carter), Abdul wasn't out there and we saw Cam on the side?
JOHN HARBAUGH: My concern level. What's the scale? Like how does it work? Is it like color coded? Or is it number coded?
Q: I like to leave it nice and vague. So, whatever your scale is.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Oh, I got to make up my own scale now.
Q: You can make up your own scale.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Well, I don't have a scale. See, that's the deal. But yeah, it's going to be probably day to day up to the game for those guys. We're going to just have to see where we're at. I'll probably have more information toward the end of the week. We'll see on both those guys where we're at.
Q: With Abdul, was it the calf?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Abdul?
Q: Yeah.
JOHN HARBAUGH: No, he was sick today. Who was the other guy you're talking about then? I thought you were talking about the running back. Did you say Skat?
Q: Skattebo and Abdul. Skattebo wasn't out there.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Oh, I was thinking about (running back Tyrone) Tracy. Yeah, Tracy's a little tougher one than Skatt, just for the record.
Q: He's on IR though. So, he has to sit out.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, he is. Did we put him on IR?
Q: Yeah.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Oh, well there you go. So, he won't be playing (laughter). Thanks for clearing that up for me. You can tell I was trying to kind of be coy there, but it didn't work out so well (laughter).
Q: We finally broke you.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, you got me. You got me. You cornered me.
Q: What's your approach with the short week after? How do you approach the two weeks span?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Right. Yeah, it's a challenge, especially when you're playing just two big games like that. Important games, but they're all important, but division games. We have a schedule for that that we kind of, over the years, kind of developed. We come back in on Monday afternoon and we have what we call an ACT practice. That's what we practice and then we get right to it. Then we have more of an up tempo practice on Tuesday, more of a mental practice on Wednesday, walkthrough then Wednesday again and maybe Thursday morning, and then we play. So, you really try to condense the week into really what ends up being three and a half days, three days of prep. So, it's all hands-on deck to try to prepare for the game.
Q: In the bye week, how busy were you as far as receiving and making trade deadline calls?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Not too busy. It's not my main thing. I'm sure you guys are going to ask me the next question in a minute, but not too busy. That's (Senior Vice President and General Manager) Joe (Schoen) and those guys are very busy and not just in the bye week. I mean, they've been doing it all along and they'll continue to, I'm sure.
Q: So, let's get to the next thing, which is, did you call the Titans owner and why?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah.
Q: Why was that?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I did, I did. I left a message because you're turning over every stone, going to try everything. I mean, I'll put it out there, man. We're open for any call. Anybody who wants to call us or call anybody, call. Is there a song, there's a song like that. Call me, is it like that? Who sings that?
Q: Blondie, Call Me.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Blondie, that's one. That's from our generation. I'm thinking of a newer one though.
Q: Call Me Maybe?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah. That's what I'm thinking of. That's what I'm thinking of (laughter). That's what I'm here for. Let's put that out there, put that out there. It was kind of like fun to see the outpouring of interest in that. I enjoyed it. We're not part of any secret society oath that says you can only talk to somebody. We're not in that. We didn't get memoed on that. We're not in that agreement. So, like I said, anybody can call us. We won't be adhering to that particular agreement.
Q: Did you speak with her?
JOHN HARBAUGH: No, no.
Q: I'm curious, your relationships in Baltimore, because you have front office connections and you know the players. Does that make them an easier trade partner if something happened or does that make it more challenging?
JOHN HARBAUGH: That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that because I think in some ways it makes it easier because it's an easy call to friends and I think that's part of it around the league. I mean, it's a small world, so people call people. So, to say that only these two people can talk to each other, it's not how it works. It's false, it's incorrect. People on every level make calls to people on every level because they know them. And how we do it here, and how we did it in Baltimore, and I love the way it's done here, and the way they've done it here in the past too, is it's transparent in our building. We're all talking to each other, we all know what each other's doing, we all know. I know who Joe's calling, Joe knows if I'm calling somebody, Joe knows who I'm calling. We're turning over every stone, we're making every call. We're getting all the information we can possibly get at all times, and we are not apologizing for that at any point in time ever. We're going to do the most we can possibly do to try to get some things done. It's hard to get deals done. It's hard, you can see how hard it is, but we're going to do our best and what's for our team. And the best thing we can do, the main thing we're going to do is focus on our guys and get ready to play the game. But all that other stuff is definitely going on behind the scenes at all times.
Q: John, why did you take that step? Was that a relationship that you had going back to when the coaching search was happening? Why call the owner rather than somebody else?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, well, it kind of happens, it's like, yes. And also, been in the league for a long time, I'm a little older. I've been to a lot of owners' meetings, the NFL meetings. I know the owners, I know all the owners. I mean, some better than others. They're not texting me every day or anything like that but I have good relationships with a lot of people in the NFL. And on that level, a lot of relationships, probably more than the GM's. I don't know the GM's that well, I don't know that many of them. Joe knows those guys better, so he's probably calling them more. I can call certain people, I can call (Baltimore Ravens Owner) Steve Bisciotti. He's a great friend, obviously. So, it's different levels like that with different people around the league. I think you call who you know.
Q: Obviously, that call was for a player who went for a big haul. What does that say about how aggressive you guys are willing to be here?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I don't know if it says anything about that. I don't think you can draw the parallel. It definitely just says that we're aggressive. I don't think it says anything about whatever price we might have been willing to pay. I certainly wouldn't want to divulge that, but it'd be hard to speculate on that.
Q: Would you like to add significant players to the roster here in the next week or so?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Always, always. I mean, that's always the goal. Easier said than done. And it's hard to find players that can make you better, because we have good players. Very good players. So, it's got to be something that is a need, that fits your financial profile, that fits your price tag. I mean, it's not like we have a bunch of draft picks either. We're not loaded with 12 or 13 draft picks where we've got draft capital to burn. We don't. So, we have to be smart shoppers that way.
Q: Does that put next year's draft capital more likely to use that? If you had a preference? You only have so many picks left this year to use the following in '28.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, it's easier to put it on the credit card (laughter). It's always an easier spend.
Q: What is that balance like, though? You have something in front of you right now, and then the future is?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, immediate gratification, right? It would have to be, though, honestly, it wouldn't have to just be a short-term thing, for me, it wouldn't want to be a one-on-one kind of thing. You want to have a short-term and a long-term win if you're going to do it with draft capital.
Q: John, you have a good locker room. When you're thinking about making a deal, do you take into consideration how this deal might affect the locker room?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yes, absolutely, very important. We got a great camaraderie, a great brotherhood, synergy. All those things is really, really good right now, and you want to take that into account, even to the point where you probably talk to some of your guys before you did something like that. Make sure that everybody understands, and they're kind of on board with it.
Q: John, when you come to a new place, you inherit stuff, right? People, some people you get rid of, some people you keep. You inherit the losing, if there's losing. So, do you look at it, you inherit a 13-game losing streak in Philadelphia like the Giants have since 2013? Or it's like, hey, I wasn't here for any of those, it's not me.
JOHN HARBAUGH: I'm trying to think of the analogy because inherit is an interesting word. You're sitting there, you're sitting at one of those, I've only seen them on movies where they all go into the lawyer's office and they read the will, right? What would that be akin to, a 13-game losing streak that you inherit? What would you inherit that would be an analogy there?
Q: A huge debt or something (laughter).
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, you can say like, no thanks (laughter), that's what I would probably say is like. Okay, come and say, listen, you got what? I mean, you got all the pictures and the record collection, and you got the million-dollar debt that your uncle incurred. I'd say like, I'm not up for that, so I'm going to say no thanks to that.
Q: Yeah, I mean, you were part of it, right? Years ago, the Giants and Eagles, but this iteration of the Giants does not win in Philadelphia since 2013.
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, I didn't know that, and I probably didn't need to know that (laughter). Yeah, we don't care, we don't care about that.
Q: How closely are you watching, I mean, you had a bye week this week, what the Ravens are doing, and then you see (Baltimore Ravens quarterback) Lamar (Jackson) go down like that. What's your reaction when you see that, and you see the kind of season that he's having, and they're having there?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, I mean, those are good people, good friends, people that I cheer for, of course, but when you're watching games, yesterday I'm watching games, but I'm watching the Dallas game real closely. And then you do flip, you got those stations now, and you can see four of them, and then you can see which one you want to go to, and that's to commercial, so I'm going back to this one. I was moving all around, man, I was spinning the dial on the games, which was really a lot of fun. It was a fun day, I could see why people love watching the NFL. So yeah, I saw that game too, but it's crazy, man, the NFL is crazy town, like my wife said. It's a lot going on, and next week is a new week for all of us. Next week is the next opportunity, just like the next play is the next opportunity, and that's what you really got to focus on.
