Postgame Press Conference: Coach John Harbaugh on win over Titans

John Harbaugh (0:00)

Praise and glory to our savior, and to our guys, nothing but respect for finding a way to win a tough game in the fourth quarter. That's the way these games go, usually in the National Football League, and for Javon to come up and make that play, for the defense to rise up, and, you know, make a play to win a game. That's really what's required in this league, and I was really proud to see those guys do that. I think it says a lot about who they are and where they're going, hopefully, and that's the plan.

So proud of those guys. What questions do you have?

SPEAKER_2 (0:32)

What was your vantage point for the game-winning interception? Kind of what did you see as the play unfolded and feelings when it first happened, or what finally happened?

John Harbaugh (0:40)

My vantage point?

SPEAKER_2 (0:41)

In terms of what you were seeing from where you were standing on the sideline of the play on the playoff line?

John Harbaugh (0:44)

I just saw, you know, the quarterback got pushed out of the pocket, tried to make a throw to, I think, someone coming in on the back line, and Javon, I'm sure you didn't see Javon. Javon did a great job. He was kind of a poached player there, a little bit of a free player.

And I think he had a good sense of where the routes were, obviously, and just got in position to make a great play. And he's been doing that all year so far. He's been our turnover guy on defense, done a great job.

SPEAKER_3 (1:09)

John, what was the approach for you and the offensive coaches with the conditions? What did you want to stress? And what did you think maybe you couldn't do because of the conditions, things like that?

John Harbaugh (1:20)

I think the biggest thing is it was gonna be that kind of a game. I think both teams understood that. And Coach Sala, I can tell he looked at it in a similar vein. I mean, it was gonna be a field position game. It was gonna be a turnover game, takeaway game, run the ball game.

Try not to put the other team in a short field. That was really the way the game was played, and that's the way it played out.

SPEAKER_4 (1:44)

What's your message to your team after a game like that, right? It probably wasn't the cleanest game you've ever played, but it is tough conditions. But you are able to leave with a win, obviously.

John Harbaugh (1:53)

Well, yeah, I mean, that's just how it is. I told them that's really how it works most of the time. There's very few wins where you walk in and you're really happy with everything, where you feel like you played this great, amazing game. And even when you did, even the few times you have those games, you go back and look at tape and you're disappointed by a bunch of stuff. I mean, football is really, it's crazy. It's crazy out there. So that's what it's all about, is finding a way to win a rough game. You know, it's just a, they're never pretty, they're never perfect, you know, but they need to be us doing what we need to do to win games, you know, find a way to win games in those kind of moments. That's what it is. There's plenty of times that we could have put this game away. We should have put this game away.

You know, we're going to look at our red zone offense and be really, really unhappy about the penalties.

I mean, you get the ball down there inside the five, inside the 10, and we penalize ourselves out of scoring position. That's going to be obviously a major point of emphasis. So, to your point. But then our kicker comes in there, our rookie kicker, in these kind of conditions, and kicks all those field goals. I'm really proud of them for that.

SPEAKER_5 (2:57)

Do you feel like manufacturing ways to win games is an actual talent that could be developed? And have you identified that talent with this team? Do they have that?

John Harbaugh (3:06)

Well, they showed that today. I mean, you know, the punt team. How about the punt team? How about the field position that was flipped? We had numerous long punts with great coverage, even created a few penalties that backed them up even a little further from the top of the catch. So that, and then off defensively, we had, they might had one first down maybe in the first half. So that's tough. That puts them behind the eight ball. That's what set it up for us, you know.