John Harbaugh: Ravens Press Conference 12/29/25

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

Welcome to the Ravens Press Pass Podcasts. The Ravens are gearing up for a week 18 showdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This is a Sunday night football game, a winner take all match for the AFC North Crown. As the Ravens prepare for that matchup today, we heard from head coach John Harbaugh.

John Harbaugh (0:23)

Okay, great seeing everybody. Really appreciate everybody being here. We're preparing for our game on Sunday night. We're excited, looking forward to it, and we've got a lot of work to do. What questions you have?

SPEAKER_4 (0:36)

Obviously, we weren't there yesterday to be with you for the Browns Steelers game. Any way you can reenact your reaction to that fourth down pass that kind of sealed the Browns win?

John Harbaugh (0:50)

Thanks for asking. Is there something out there on that? Oh, good. Yeah, good. Yeah, there were phones.

We had the coaches came over and some players came over to the house. And, you know, it was probably like a lot of fans. You know, we had to watch it. And there was plenty of times where I wasn't watching it, you know. Sometimes it's, you know, someone told me at one point in time, don't move. You know, a couple of good plays had happened. I wasn't allowed to move. But we had fun. But it was also, you know, it was a nail-biter. And great job by the Browns, obviously. A lot of respect for our division. You know, our division is a very tough division. Hard fought games in our division across the board. All four of these teams know how to play each other. And that was a great example of AFC North football, really. So we're appreciative of the opportunity that it affords us. And it's our job right now to prepare for it.

SPEAKER_5 (1:51)

How do you kind of look at it when you have, you know, you and Pittsburgh, you guys have gone at it for years in this division. I'm sure neither of you have had the seasons you thought you would have, but here you are in the last week of the season playing for the division. I mean, is that kind of, you always say, it's a week-to-week league and the NFL season is unpredictable. Does that kind of fall into that?

John Harbaugh (2:12)

Yeah, I mean, it's a great opportunity.

We'll be playing a division championship game on Sunday. That's what we're doing in the last week of the season. We're excited about that and it's a meaningful thing. And so we've worked hard to get to this position. And there's a lot of different paths in football, and there's a lot of different paths in life. And this is the path of the 2025 season. So here we are and our goal is to make the most of it.

SPEAKER_6 (2:41)

John, do you expect Lamar to be able to play this week or is that still to be determined?

John Harbaugh (2:46)

Yeah, well, it's to be determined, you know. I mean, still he's coming off a very serious injury and he's working at it. Saw him in here today working at it. So I think we'll know a lot more on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_7 (2:58)

Coach, have you had a chance to be with the team? I mean, did you speak to the team about this opportunity that was presented to them?

John Harbaugh (3:04)

No, we haven't met yet. Today's are, well, it's an official off day today.

Tomorrow will be on our normal schedule. Since we play on Sunday, Jerry, we're on our normal week schedule. So we'll talk to him about tomorrow.

SPEAKER_7 (3:18)

Why did you go later with the hitting this week, knowing the physicality of the Steelers, Ravens, the Street Frames?

John Harbaugh (3:25)

Well, you must have been watching the shows. Coach Cowder talked about that. I happened to see that because I was watching TV this weekend, unlike other weekends. You know, we don't really, I mean, at this point in time of the season, we haven't been in pads for about three weeks now.

Rules don't really allow you to be in pads too much, but also we haven't wanted to be. We haven't needed to be. We will focus on technique for sure, blocking technique and all different things that we do. But it's not this point in time of the season when there's not a lot of hitting that you do in practice anyway. So it's kind of where we're at.

SPEAKER_8 (3:59)

John, could Justice Hill return for practice this week?

John Harbaugh (4:03)

Possibility. I'll probably know more about that closer to Wednesday, but I haven't, we haven't discussed that yet today.