Jerome Baker – December 2, 2021
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Thursday, December 2, 2021
LB Jerome Baker
(You’ve been playing really well. The same could be said frankly for most guys on your defense and your linebacker group. Was there a point this season where you were not personally totally happy with how you were playing and do you feel like you’ve elevated your play the last few weeks?) – “Yeah, just earlier in the year, we weren’t winning. So if we’re not winning, I don’t care how good I play or how many plays I make. If we’re not winning, it doesn’t matter, so it was definitely just a rough few games I had earlier in the year, but now that we’re winning, we’re back on track, everybody’s happy, everybody’s jolly. We’ve just got to keep that going and stick to what we’ve been doing.”
(You’re good at evaluating your own game. Where do you think you needed to be better than you were personally early on? What’s been the focus for you personally? Was it coverage? Was it against the run? Was it something else because I know you’re asked a lot to do?) – “Yeah, it was a little bit of everything. When it was the run fits, I was doing it, but I wasn’t being too physical. If it was covering, I was covering, but I wasn’t finishing well. I was dropping into coverage, but my breaks weren’t good. Those little things that you take for granted, those little things I was noticing, I wasn’t doing well and just recently they’ve been having me do a lot of different things and it’s been cool. It’s definitely been cool and to see we’ve been winning, that’s even better, so I’m definitely happy.”
(You have kind of been a coverage specialist most of your career even though you’re a pretty good blitzer. I always feel like they never blitz you enough. But do you think that they’re adding more, they’ve added more to your plate now recently than they’ve been in your career?) – “You’re talking about coverage?”
(No, everything. Are they asking for more?) – “I wouldn’t say that. It’s a little bit different. I wouldn’t say it’s more. I’ve been playing on the line a little bit more. I’ve been rushing the passer in different ways. But I wouldn’t say it’s anything more. That’s why I’m here. I can do a lot of different things so as far as adding anything on my plate, I’ve been part of teams where you’re asked to do everything and you’re getting killed every week, so I wouldn’t say it’s anything more or anything less. It’s the same thing. They expect me to – wherever they put me, they expect good things out of it so that’s the approach I take.”
(With the edge work, which is new for you, what are the challenges that come with it?) – “That’s funny because it’s different. It’s truly different. Like linebacker, you have a little time to think and react to things. On the edge when you’re down on the d-line, you have about a second – maybe a second – before 300 pounds is on you real fast. But at the end of the day, it’s a little easier because you’re not thinking as much. If you’re asked to rush, it’s either you’re rushing because it’s a pass or you’re setting the edge. It has its pros and its cons, but I think the cool thing is I can pretty much do – I can be on the edge one play and the next play I’m playing inside linebacker. So I really take that to heart and I really appreciate that so I’m out there having fun and just to see the guys faces that I line up against them inside, they’re like, ‘oh, you’re here.’ Then the next play I’m literally outside of you. Then the next play, I’m blitzing. Just that whole of what I can do and the things they ask me here, it’s just fun to play in this defense.”
(So what’s like to not have quarterbacks not identify you as the Mike?) – “It is very fun. I think for me it’s like ,I love to hear that ‘Mike 55.’ But now that it’s somebody else, I have a better idea of like, all right they’re kind of ‘he’s out there,’ but they’re really not paying attention. It’s definitely fun. I truly love our guys. Outside linebackers – ‘Gink’ (Andrew Van Ginkel) – he always gets me right. All those guys. (Vince) Biegel – just to see him back and him bring that energy, I definitely just love being out there.”
(Did you and Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer over the last few weeks or you, Josh and Linebackers Coach Anthony Campanile ever get together and have a discussion about ways to utilize you more or differently? Were you part of those discussions or did Boyer and Campanile just say “here’s how it’s going to be this week?”) – “Yeah, so me and ‘Camp’ (Anthony Campanile) – we had a conversation earlier this year and he pretty much asked me what could we do better, how can we practice better, how can we do anything better. And I just gave him my input on it. And Josh (Boyer) – he’s one of those guys that if he says, ’55, do this,’ he expects it to be this way and be right on point. Just to have that trust from your coordinator, it definitely means a lot to me. So we definitely have conversations, but the main conversation is just to get better. And that’s why I truly appreciate – we went through our bumps and bruises and we never put our heads down. It was always just come back to work and let’s get it fixed and let’s keep going at it. And now that we’re winning, it’s definitely paying off for us.”
(What was your reaction when they first said to you that week of the Ravens practice that “hey, we want you to be the edge?”) – “’Why?’ That was the first thing. ‘Why?’ And it wasn’t why in a sense of I was upset that they were changing my position. It was like, ‘what exactly are you asking me, so I can play it how you want me to play it?’ And ‘Flo,’ he pulled me aside and he explained it to me. ‘You’re athletic and you can do things that other guys can’t do. You can do the zone read. You can stop them from getting the ball but also get back on the play. Just to hear that, it meant a lot. And when I ask ‘why,’ it’s never just because I want to play this position or I want to play that position. It’s just what exactly do you need me to do so I can do it to my best ability and that was definitely my first question. ‘Why am I out here?’ But it definitely worked out.”
(So they said it to you in a meeting or they said it to you on the field?) – “It wasn’t in a meeting. It was kind of like after a meeting. I looked and I’m looking at him like ‘all right, I’m not inside at all.’ I remember I asked ‘E. Rob,’ (Elandon Roberts) like ‘damn, I’m on the edge a lot, ain’t I?’ And he was like, ‘yeah, you are.’ So I said something to ‘Flo’ or something and he just explained it to me. ‘This is why we need you here,’ and it definitely worked out for us.”
(It seems like since Head Coach Brian Flores got here, you guys have a tendency to just really start hit your stride in November and December and that’s kind of the hallmark of a good team. What do you think – is there something that’s said? What clicks during the middle of the season where you guys are able to kind of put it all together and be on the winning streak that we’re seeing you guys be on now?) – “I wouldn’t say it was one thing or the other. I wouldn’t say it was a moment. It was more of a we understood how to win. And for that, we kept hearing what we were doing wrong and we really took that and learned as far as penalties were going to set us back. We do certain things well and we do certain things not as well and we saw that and we tried to avoid those things we did wrong. It sounds simple. Football is simple, but it’s a complex game. So as far as penalties, those mistakes that you can really avoid, we truly locked in on those and we try to eliminate those. And guys have been stepping up and making plays and things are going our way. But at the end of the day, we just learned how to win. That was the main thing. We finally learned how to win. We weren’t focused on trying to beat ourselves. It was actually playing our game and doing what we do best and that’s just lining up and being physical and fast and playing together. So it’s definitely working.”
(As a player or as a team, is it kind of tougher to trust the process when it’s like you think you might have that incremental process but the end result was still the same? You’re losing, you might be losing games, but you see that you’re improving in other ways. Is it kind of tough to follow, trust the process, I guess?) – “Yeah, that’s human nature. If you keep losing, it’s hard to say we’re going to just turn it around. We just keep losing and losing. But that’s what you have leaders for. Guys that have been here when we were – I don’t know, whatever record we were – 0-7 at the beginning or 0-6, whatever the 2019 year. We just kept losing and we were close. We kept saying it. ‘We’re close, we’re close, we’re close’ and just because we lost a few games, it could be worse. That was the main thing. It could be worse when we knew that we were a good team. We knew we could turn it around. We just had to fix a few things and just stop beating ourselves and just to see now that we’re a young team and guys see that if you keep putting in the work, things are going to change. That’s not just going to help us for this year, but it’s going to help us for years to come. So I’m definitely glad that we turned things around, but we still have a long way to go.”
(You had Brian Flores and Patrick Graham here at one point, right?) – “Yeah.”
(So now for the last two years, it’s been Flores-Boyer. Is it virtually identical or is there anything a little different?) – “As far as on the field, it’s nothing major. Personality-wise, they have a different personality but I think the main core thing is they’re all aggressive. They want to play aggressive games. They want to blitz on our terms. They want to do things on our terms and as a defensive player, it definitely helps and you really appreciate that. So all three of them – they’re just aggressive coaches. They want to blitz. They want to call coverages on their terms. They want to get you in situations where it favors the defense and just for you to understand as a player, you can see why stopping the run on first down is so important or why getting off the field on third down is so important. They do a great job of understanding why we want to do things and like I said earlier, when I ask why I’m on the edge, they explain it and everything they explain, why we need to drop at the sticks, why we need to work on our leverage – whatever it is, I think that’s just a credit to them. They’re great coaches and now I guess you could say it’s paying off for us in these past few weeks so we’ve just got to keep it going.”
(I was going to ask in the meeting that you had with Linebackers Coach Anthony Campanile, besides asking for your input on things like ‘How could we practice better?’ Did he ask you how you felt you could best be used? Was that something that came up in terms of where you line up?) – “So he asked what do I like to do as far as coverages and rushing the passer. I told him I like doing it all. I don’t want to be limited to just being a coverage linebacker or every time I’m in this gap, I’m blitzing or things like that. I love the place I’m in where every play you never know where I could be at. You never know what I could do but you know that I can do it all. He definitely asked me and it’s definitely working out for us.”
(What’s funny is I think there’s a perception that it’s like a dictatorship, probably with most teams, but also with teams that have Patriots people in their coaching hierarchy. And obviously what the coaches say goes, but it’s interesting that they do ask for feedback. Do you think that happens with others or do you think you’re the only one?) – “Honestly, if you don’t listen to your players, it’s going to be pretty hard to play well in this league because at the end of the day, we’re the guys on the field. We’re doing it. You can draw up different plays, you can draw up different schemes, but if your players don’t respond well to it, those plays and schemes are useless. This organization does a great job of taking care of us physically and making sure that we understand why we’re doing certain things. They’re just a great coaching staff as far as they truly make sure you’re in the right position and you’re in the best position that you can play. It’s just a credit to them. They do a great job of doing that. It was rough early in the year but it turned around. Now we just have to keep going and just keep stacking wins, honestly. Just a credit to them.”
