Head Coach John Harbaugh
Q: How's (quarterback) J.J. (McCarthy) doing this morning and is he looking like he's going to play Thursday?
JOHN HARBAUGH: He's doing well. We'll find out more through the course of the day, in a couple days, but it does look like he's going to play. I feel fairly good about that. I don't want to get out over my skis with it, but it seems good so far.
Q: I know you were asked a lot about (inside linebacker) Arvell (Reese) yesterday, but the entire defense, what have you made of sort of (Defensive Coordinator) Dennard Wilson's adjustments this season, blitzing more, and just kind of how he's done as coordinator?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I think he's done a great job with that. I mean, to me that's one of the important things in coaching, a mark of a great coach, is the ability to adapt to your personnel, your circumstances, the opponent, all those things, and have a system built that's able to do that. And Dennard and the whole coaching staff have done a great job of that. We've had your ups and downs, people find ways to move the ball on you, it's hard to be perfect, but I think they've done a great job of adapting, and the players have done a great job of adapting and applying, whether it's like you say, maybe we're covering, maybe we're blitzing, maybe we're simulating blitzes, we're in two deep, we're in three deep, we're in man, we're in zone, we're disguising, we're not disguising. Those things have been very intentional, and I really think they've done a great job.
Q: I have a question about two young players, if I could, one on each side of the ball. I want to start off with (running back) Greg (Desrosiers Jr.) and what you thought of his performance yesterday?
JOHN HARBAUGH: I thought he played well. It's his first time in an NFL game. It was his debut performance, and same thing with (running back) Phil Mafah, who did it on special teams, but Greg got those carries, and really, you never know until a player gets out there, and we knew he was a fast, athletic guy, but it's hard to see in practice, but I thought he made some guys miss. He got some extra yards. He protected the football. He ran hard. A really big sweep run toward the end there that got us a first down, I believe, if I remember right. Just I thought he played really good football for us, and that was a plus, big plus, and helps us. We're a better team for having brought him in here a couple weeks ago.
Q: And then the other guy I wanted to ask you about who's kind of come on, (defensive lineman) Bobby Jameson-Travis. It looks like he's getting a bigger role on that defense. What did you see from him?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Great, totally. He's really been picking it up. He's kind of been growing every single game. The run defense has been improving, partly because he's done so well in there. He's playing kind of how we envisioned him to be playing. So, he's got a long way to go, but I think he's come a long way too. So, I agree with exactly what you're saying.
Q: I wanted to ask you about (defensive lineman) DJ Reader. And in this respect, a guy 32 years old isn't supposed to be playing the best ball of his career and he feels like he is. What about him has kind of defied some of the odds that go against guys in his position in this league nowadays?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Such a great question. Fountain of youth, maybe. He's a guy that always, just in his whole career, we played against him so many times and he was just such a pain in the rear to play against because you don't want him to be as good as he is. And you put the tape on him and, man, this guy can really play. And I see the same thing. It's like there's no drop off and maybe he is playing the best of his career. It's really interesting that he says that because he's playing at such a high level. He got a game ball last night. He's been dominant. Also, run and pass, he's been doing both. And people want to categorize him maybe sometimes as a run stopper at this stage and yet, he's getting pressure too, to your point. I just feel like that's spot on. I mean, he's been an anchor for us. He's been a really important signing for us. A lot of football left, but he seems like he's getting stronger every single game.
Q: I'm just curious, from your past experience, maybe you had to deal with a trade deadline on a short week. How have you managed that? And do you use that to kind of inform how, obviously preparing for Washington, but also negotiate these next 24 hours or so?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, boy, I don't know how much this has really come up. Even on the bye, we'd have to go back and look, but it's kind of tricky. I would say, just honestly, we're probably not looking at anything for this game. It would be hard to say. I don't know. Maybe we could bring a guy in. He could just practice Wednesday and play, but it would be kind of hard to imagine a guy coming in and just playing with one day here, I think. So, I'd probably assume that wouldn't be possible. So, you'd be thinking more about the next week, which would give us plenty of time to get the player ready. And probably there is some thought as far as trading away players, too, for that very reason. You'd have to say, okay, are we going to be okay in this next game? And I don't think you'd trade a player away if you didn't feel like you could be all right.
Q: But I kind of meant more like for your preparation for Washington. How much do you spend, obviously, trying to prepare for Washington, but also put time into final discussions and whatnot? Have you had to do that before?
JOHN HARBAUGH: No, never had to do that before, but for me it's trust. Trust in the people that are laying it all out. So, for my involvement, and there's (Senior Vice President and General Manager) Joe (Schoen). We've got all different people involved who do a great job. So, for me, it's just, okay, these are the options that are really real. I don't need to know about everything that's not real, although I do ask a lot. I hear some things, but it's all football. And then just a short amount of time on what's possible or not possible. Until something becomes imminent, it's not too much involvement at all. Unless I have to make a call, leave a message.
Q: You were talking last night, kind of kidding around about can we put it all together in one game? Can we have a game like that? I guess you think you have not done that yet. All your games, except for the Rams game, have come down to the wire. They've all been one score games. I kind of count the Cardinal game as a one score game with the Deontae pick six at the end. The fine margins, I know that's the league, but are you prepared to have to do that every week if need be?
JOHN HARBAUGH: You have to. We're prepared to do it every week if we have to. We'd rather be in that than be on the other end of a two-score game. We don't want to be in that that Rams type situation again. So, whatever it takes, you just have to be ready for. I would say yes.
Q: The mark of a great team is to have a margin in some of these games. That's what you want. So is that like, "OK, you know, whatever it is, it is. But if this is the team we are and we have to fight to the very end every game, maybe we're not a great team, but we're a good team that can win?"
JOHN HARBAUGH: As far as how you'll be evaluated, I'm pretty sure it's an adjective that you want to put in front of the team. That will be determined based on how these games go. But the bottom line is finding a way to win. It's all or nothing basically from that perspective. You can win by a bunch. You can win by 40 and it's still just one, 1-0. But you'd rather win by 40. There's no doubt about it. Really, to what you alluded to at the start is just chasing that playing better in a way that makes it really tough for your opponent to even stay close if you're good enough to do that. So we would like to get to that place. And that's what we're working for, for sure.
Q: You've dealt with various ball security issues this year. Where are you at with (wide receiver) Charlie Jones? Obviously had another miscue yesterday.
JOHN HARBAUGH: That was a tough catch. I definitely don't want it. We don't want the ball on the ground. To me, that was more of a misjudgment in terms of just trying to catch it. You've got the wind at your back. So, it's blowing exactly in the direction that the ball's cutting from the right to the left, not turning over cutting away from you. It comes at you. And it goes like this. It goes like this, because the ball pushes it back. And the wind was coming from there. So, it ran away from him. And then he's got a guy at his feet, just as he's ready to catch and tries to still reach and catch it. I think you do get locked in to catching the ball probably at that position. But at some point in time, you've got to make a determination that this is just too tough of a catch, especially in traffic. Just let it hit. And if it bounces against you, it bounces against you, but we have the ball back. It's more about that than not being able to catch the punt. It was kind of the decision probably to try to catch the punt there in terms of where it was at. But we have complete confidence in Charlie. Yeah, he's got to come through. We don't want the ball on the ground. He had one on the kickoff return. He had this one here. That's two. That's two too many for him. He knows that. That's who Charlie is. I'll tell you what, he was more upset about it than I was, if that's even possible. But all the guys have been. So he'll be back next week and his thumb will feel that much better. But it wasn't thumb related if that's what you're asking. It was more just decision making.
Q: A lot on the broadcast was made about Malik's body language and issues with that. I know you weren't watching the game on TV, but I'm sure some of it got back to you. Just what do you make of that? Do you think that Malik sort of helps or hurts himself in any way with the way he sometimes acts on the field?
JOHN HARBAUGH: That's an interesting thing to think about, for sure. We do talk about it sometimes, like someday it's probably going to be like this, there will probably be cameras and there will probably be everybody wired for sound at some point in time. And if you want to get more fans involved in this thing, that's how you do it. Because it's crazy what goes on and the real-time chaos that you're dealing with. Even on the headsets, man, sometimes it's just completely organized. Most of the time it's really, really great. Every now and then, stuff hits the fan, and that's part of it. So I don't make too much of it because I've just been living in that world for so long and kind of understand how that goes. As far as body language, body language is interesting. It's definitely a language, and languages are interesting because they require interpretation sometimes, especially if you don't speak the language. I took German. My mom, she went to Austria on a student visa trip when she was in college. And so she said, "take German, I'll help you with it." And she didn't help me that much and I didn't do too well. So, I don't really know German too well or any other language. I barely know English, I guess, but you do kind of become an expert in body language. And yet, if you really don't know the person or you don't know the dynamic or you don't know the circumstances or who the person's talking to, especially if you're judging through a TV screen, how do you have any idea what the application is and how do you judge it? It's really hard to judge it, make a judgment on it. That's good, bad, especially to say good or bad. I don't think that really even makes any sense to me. And then you don't really know the person, you don't know the relationship between the people. So I try to stay out of all that and probably good advice for others too.
Q: You were asked about (defensive coordinator) Dennard (Wilson), I'll take (offensive coordinator) Matt Nagy. He was on a podcast where he was talking about how you really helped him in your first interview. He was down bad, I guess, after not getting some head coaching jobs. What do you remember? Obviously, you guys have the (Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach) Andy Reid connection. I'm sure you guys knew each other a little bit. But what do you remember about the interview process with Matt? Why did you know he was the right guy? And especially if he was, in his words, was down bad after not getting the Titans job?
JOHN HARBAUGH: That's interesting he says that. I don't know that I really even took notice of that, and I probably should have read the language, the body language, a little better than I did because I was just excited that we had a chance to get him. I'd always thought he was a really good coach and excellent offensive game planner. I was fired up to talk to him. And really, all I could think about was how good the interview was and how much I thought it could be a fit for what we were trying to do with (quarter back) Jaxson Dart and what potentially this offense could be. I just appreciate some of the specifics, in terms of his communication skills, his people skills, his knowledge, especially of the pass game, the pass game that he had been part of building, a big part of building in Kansas City, and used the same thing in Chicago. I wanted that drop back pass game that he had. But also I had been around Andy for a long time, too, to your point. So I kind of knew Andy's process. And so, I knew Nags and I would understand each other that way a little bit with the process. And I like the way Andy thinks about stuff. In the interview, I found out how he looked at it. So yeah, if I helped him with the other part, that's really cool to hear. That's really cool to hear because I think that's a big part of this job. And even day to day and week to week, as we go through it, as we try to navigate what direction we're going to go, sometimes you try to help guys and point them in your direction, just so they see, "hey, how do you see this? How do I see it? I see it this way." And in the case of Matt, "let's keep building this offense. Let's run with this thing. What do you see? What do you feel? Like, what direction do we need to go? What does your gut tell you about your play calling or about what we're good at or what we need to do against this opponent?" I just want to be encouraging to all the guys in terms of, don't be worried too much about what I think we need to do. I'll tell you if I have (something), and then we'll talk about it, but I really want you to be willing to go for it, and what do you really see and what do you really want to do? And I see Matt, I see all the coaches doing that.
Q: How close was (running back) Cam Skattebo to making it yesterday to the game and where does he kind of stand moving forward here?
JOHN HARBAUGH: He was very close. We just decided to not take the risk that would go with it. There were some things that he was going to be limited just a little bit maybe, and we decided not to go down that road because of the short week this week, so he should be full go on Thursday night.
Q: With (inside linebacker) Arvell Reese, what did you see from him? Obviously, he played a great game, but from a pass rush perspective, he's obviously not rushing regularly like every play. What did you see, when you went back and watched the film, that he was able to get three sacks in a game? Like why was he able to be so successful as a pass rusher in that game?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Because he's really great and talented and he's a gifted guy. A lot of people looked at him as a pass rusher off the edge, and I remember you talked to him about pass rushing and asked him, "what's your move? What's your take?" He goes, "I just rush the passer. I just try to get to the quarterback," and he's just a young guy, man. He goes, but he's so coachable. We're bringing him from a lot of different places, and a lot of times he's picking, or he's setting the pick, or he's spying. He does everything. He never gets into that world like, "I want to do this or that." Or "I want to rush the passer." Or "I want to cover man to man." He doesn't worry about it. He just says, "you tell me what to do. What does the defense call for? What's my job?" He's going to be doing it 100 miles an hour every time, and it's just very, very cool and refreshing to see that, especially in such a young guy. So, he rushed the passer really well, really, really well. I couldn't tell you if it was a speed rush, or a counter rush, or any kind of deal like that. It was just part of the blitz pattern that we were running, or the rush pattern we were running, and he did it.
Q: You've been asked about short-term and long-term with the trade deadline, and building this program, and all of that. It's a really kind of up time right now for the Giants after winning in Philly yesterday, and being in first place, and all of that. How do you guard against not making an emotional choice here at the trade deadline?
JOHN HARBAUGH: Very true, very important, and yet you want to do everything you can do to make your team as strong as you can right now, because we're in the now, and we're told to live in the moment, be where our feet are planted, concern ourselves with today, but that's not at the expense of tomorrow or just prudent planning. I think we just have to look at each situation, and just weigh it out in terms of, okay, what's the cost? What's the benefit? And is it worth it? Is it going to benefit us? Is it a good thing for the Giants, and for the organization, and the team? So, I would say that the now weighs more important than the future, if you're going to put it on a scale, and kind of go from there.
