Mike McDaniel – December 27, 2023
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Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(What have you learned since we talked Monday about WR Jaylen Waddle’s injury? Do you see him missing game time?) – “It kind of speaks to a bigger thing. If it weren’t for this team, let’s say Jaylen Waddle was the only person I coached on this team, I would say in my career he’s one of, if not the toughest, fast guy that I’ve ever been around. It just so happens that all of our fast guys are really tough, which is cool as football players. But him being that way, it’s tough to rule him out for this week. It’s a high-ankle sprain. It’s not overly severe, but high ankles are tough when you make a living on cutting, so we’ll see how he responds. I’m not going to take this opportunity away from him just because x, y, or z isn’t able to. I wouldn’t put anything past him. However, it is a high-ankle sprain, so we’ll see how that goes.”
(What’s the situation with RB Raheem Mostert and WR Robbie Chosen?) – “Raheem, he’s a 20-plus touchdown running back in week whatever-teen of the season, so he’s got some bumps. He got another bump on his ankle. But good luck telling that guy – like, that’s not a tree I try to climb. We’ll just manage him accordingly. Luckily, he’s a consummate professional, so at this stage in the season, for him, the years in the offense and where he is at a preparation standpoint, he’s able to get away with minimal reps during the week and that’s how we’ll approach it because I’m not sure if you guys noticed, but he’s really hard to tackle on Sundays. So that’s a good thing. I’m very optimistic, pleasant – we’re still in the process of the protocol with Chosen. But he’s responded well and so he’s checked the boxes so far that are available to him.”
(So is WR Robbie Chosen going to practice today?) – “He’s not at that stage yet, but he’ll be around and might be able to do some walkthrough participation and things of that nature. But he’s progressing well.”
(Is OL Robert Hunt getting closer to the point where the week to week turns into days?) – “I’m starting to feel that it’s borderline day to day. I’m not quite sure if it’s day to day yet, but it’s feeling like it is. That’s literally how you have to go about injuries with your players. I can feel his confidence. The great thing is, it’s so imperative at the NFL level that the player and training staff relationship is very healthy. What I mean by that is there’s trust on both sides. So when you have that, we do a great job, the whole training staff does, and the players with the relationships that (Head Athletic Trainer) Kyle (Johnston) and his staff have, to keep pressing without overboard. That’s why it kind of gets a little gray with soft tissues because you’re trying to – I mean, the dude wanted to play a while ago. But he also doesn’t want to play half a game and then be out for the remaining, so we’re balancing that. He’ll have an uptick in his day to day this week, starting today, and we’ll see how he responds to that. So that’s why it’s getting closer to day to day. It almost feels like it, but I’m not sure if it’s totally day to day yet. It’s that gray area.”
(Sunday’s game is a so-called hat and t-shirt game. If you win the division, you get the hat and the t-shirt. What would it mean to this organization to win the division for the first time since 2008?) – “Well, I didn’t know that, so let me process that. That was an ultimate goal of the team’s, so they’d be very happy with that. It would be secondary in the moment to this game and winning this game. I found out in the locker room after the game against the Cowboys that we made the playoffs. You just told me about the division. The main thing that is so terribly difficult for NFL teams to do is down the stretch of the season, narrow your focus to the opponent and nothing else. I know you guys got a little sensitive about telling guys to F-off. That wasn’t the spirit of it. The spirit of it is occupying your mind with things that are outside what you can control. The ultimate outcome of the game will determine whatever, but the time you’re spending doing this, you’re not doing that. As I stand here at the podium, I think that would mean a lot to the team. However, I haven’t really looked at – the Baltimore Ravens have the best record, for good reason, in the National Football League. All three phases are playing at a very high level. How lucky are we and how blessed are we that as competitors, you don’t get into the National Football League to be like, ‘hey man, I really want to be average.’ You want these types of games. You want to go against the best and that in itself, justifies 100 percent of our attention. The things that come with the residuals, those are awesome too. But you want to talk about a team that will make you pay if you are outside the lines of what your focus should be, they will, fast and furious, teach you to regard them. We have our hands full in that regard but we’re also in a really, really cool moment to be present and enjoy because we are building on an entire season of work. Then we have this week of prep, starting with today, and then we get to go compete against as good as it gets in the National Football League, and that’s kind of why you sign up.”
(Last time you guys were in Baltimore, QB Tua Tagovailoa had a career game. At the time, I think there were a lot of questions about Tua and how he would fit into this offense and whatnot. Looking back at that moment, what do you think that meant for Tua and showed?) – “Well, I think especially for a young player like Tua, but just in general, kind of the process of an NFL player is desired development and not ever staying the same. Look, you watch game tape of yourself perform every week, and then you say ‘I didn’t do this, this, this as well as I’d like.’ And so the objective is to continually improve and see how many things you can improve upon. Well, I think that game was one of the things in the journey and growth that I know Tua got to learn from. One of the plays that stands out over the year or two years here over a lot of plays, was the interception he threw throwing to (Jaylen) Waddle in the second quarter, because it was just out of character. So we had a moment on the sidelines. ‘Dude, you’re trying to win the game on every play. That’s not your job.’ And then I think I can be quoted as saying, ‘That interception, don’t do that.’ That’s what I said. And then he didn’t and it was phenomenal. But that’s the journey of a NFL quarterback because you have those moments and then another week comes by and you don’t – every game is it’s own. There’s so many different variables. He had success in the second half. What makes Tua unique, and one of the reasons why I have so much belief and trust in him, is he was more focused on the first half. That’s what occupies his mind. From that game to where we’re at now, he would say to himself there’s been definite highs. You can just look at his numbers. It’s really, really, really hard to play the quarterback position at the level that he plays it at. But there’s also been so many things that’s learned from as well. I feel like that game he was probably let’s say arbitrarily he was 20-years-old. Now, I feel like he’s 32. Still in his prime. I’m in my prime at 40. (laughter)”
(Question about turnover margin here. I know you value that. I know you value December football. You guys in the four games of December are plus-eight in turnover margin. Very open-ended question – what does that mean for the team’s focus or what does that say about the team’s focus? What can it do for the confidence? What can it do going forward? What does it do for play calling for you and Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio, any of that kind of stuff?) – “It was really low-key genius from the football team’s standpoint because you go into the season and set low expectations for turnover margin, right? (laughter) No, quite honestly that’s what I concern myself with across the board with everything. Intent and progression, improvement. Things happen, you put your best foot forward, you get the results; what do you do with those results? I know one thing, that turnover margin doesn’t improve if you have people just like, ‘yeah, his fault.’ So I think that speaks to accountability. Right now, I’m very happy with the football team because what I see is coaches putting it upon themselves to give players tools in a relentless fashion and I see players relentlessly taking those tools and asking for more. So in general for me, I’m at peace if that’s the case. Football is a crazy game. You can only control what you can control. A lot of things go into it. The ball is oddly shaped in general. It bounces funny ways, but if you are controlling what you can control, and you’re focused on the things that the team totally necessitates you to be focused on, and you do that across the board at a grand scale? Generally good things happen. When you have a talented team, even better things happen. It’s as paramount of importance as anything to me and that is that the process of getting better at things because I’ve told you guys plenty of times – I think that is the biggest obstacle in the way of people in general, but it’s also the most ironic because not many people are pretending to be infallible and godlike so you’re going to make mistakes. The tough-minded individuals can go after that while maintaining their confidence and hunger, and I’m excited to see how our team practices today because I can feel that guys are at this stage in the season, as hungry as they’ve ever been, which is really cool when you’re getting ready to play a good opponent.”
(The debate show narratives for the week will be that the Ravens are tough and physical and smashmouth and the Dolphins are fast and smart and someone said, “cute, basketball on grass.” What do you think about all that?) – “To spend your time worrying about narratives, I would be a stressed out individual because I know there’s a lot of narratives around even myself personally. I think that generally there’s always going to be something that you have to prove. I don’t get upset about people insinuating or making statements about things as though they are fact, speaking on whatever history they have. You have an opportunity to prove a whole litany of things every – it’s the great thing about this profession, what we do, is you get an opportunity to define yourself every single game and to do that, you have to define yourself every single work day. I think it is kind of odd though. I feel like – I haven’t checked lately – but I feel like we’re pretty good at stopping the run and running the football. That’s generally not associated with cuteness. Whatever. I mean, there’s always going to be something. We talked about it all the way back in Germany. If we didn’t beat the Chiefs, we knew exactly what the narrative was going to be. Why would you expect anything else? You’re a young team that does have athletic, fast players. Well, until whoever’s talking about it – if it’s an opposing team, you have the opportunity to prove otherwise on Sunday. So I don’t harbor any resentment. Clearly I’m the toughest guy in the room, so that was a mis-association. (laughter) But I’m very confident in our locker room style of play. These eyes, which is subjective, doesn’t see it that way at all. But the great news is you get to prove it every Sunday.”
(On Hard Knocks this week, we got to see a little bit of how you were preparing for Cowboys QB Dak Prescott. How much can that roll over to this week against Ravens QB Lamar Jackson? Or is Lamar just that unique of a player that it’s a whole different ballgame?) – “I think Dak is a unique player in his own regard. If you want to talk about the strongest quarterback I’ve ever seen in the pocket, Dak Prescott is that. Lamar is one of one in his own regard. It’s been really cool to watch a guy coming out of college. You could tell that a lot of people used his crazy athleticism against him so he was like, ‘no, I’m a quarterback’ and if I remember correctly, he didn’t run at the Combine. I’m sure it would’ve been really fast. But then to watch his game progress each and every year, he has the same running ability, which is as good as there is in football regardless of position. Like unbelievable. And he is that same player and has developed every year in the pass game. You can tell he has a chip on his shoulder. You can tell his teammates absolutely love him and he presents a challenge that you don’t have one guy stop him. That’s what’s cool about going against a player like him is a team has to not stop him (but) contain (him). And it’s a team effort. It takes coverage, rush, all of that, and they present unique problems that is literally exactly what happens every single time you play a playoff game. If you’re in a playoff game, there’s really good players that have unique skillsets and the name of the game is solving problems collectively, coaches having a good plan, players buying into the plan, players fully executing the plan and bringing their unique talents with them. And it’s definitely not easy and I offered my skillset to be scout team quarterback to try to replicate it, but it was not accepted. (laughter) So it’s hard to even give an appropriate look because he’s just that type of player and outside of this game I’m just happy for the player because what I recognize is you talk about an unbelievable talent, but even him, he’s had to define himself. He’s had people tell him what he is and he disagrees. And how can I tell? It’s not because I’ve had a conversation with him. I see better than I hear.”
(What’s the balance of game planning to get to stuff that you really want to get to versus taking away what the defense is really good at?) – “Well, it is quite the balance. It goes back to why each and every week is so interesting in the NFL, because it’s not like you’re like, ‘Got it, there’s the formula.’ It is an incredible balance of putting your players in the best position to succeed. What does that mean? That means doing things that they’re adept at, but also if your whole offense was A-gap dive plays and they had 530-pound defensive tackles, you’d have to adjust, right? So it’s a balance that is not an exact science. I think it’s one of the reasons it’s very, very important for coaches to find an emotional consistency because everyone is human. If you’re not careful, you can go awry, one way or the other. This is a great example – this Baltimore Ravens defense – because they do a lot of varied defenses. I’ve been so impressed with the defense now relative to the last time we played them. They were a very good defense then, but what I see are guys with a lot of skillsets that play super aggressive, that are confident in what they’re doing. And in those types of situations, with a defense that plays very convicted but has a lot of multiplicity, you do have to make sure that you’re not trying to find the perfect play for a whiteboard. You have to find that natural balance of competitive advantage but conviction in your players and fit them. It’s something that is literally an every week job for all of us, myself included. The great news is it’s pretty black and white in this business. Did we win or lose? Every loss, I suck. But that’s the way it should be. It’s hard to be in the NFL, it’s hard to have any of these positions, so you can’t frown upon those things. It’s a challenge each and every week, and yeah, we’ve got our hands full this week.”
