The first thing that Joe Flacco said when asked about his approach to the bye week during yesterday’s presser was:
“When we didn’t have to be here – I wasn’t here.”
Draw your own conclusions.
The topic of Dennis Pitta’s comments on the Ravens offense was also raised. Here’s what Joe and his skipper John Harbaugh had to say.
Joe Flacco
“I didn’t really know. Somebody in a group text sent some article where all those comments came out. But, I didn’t read the article, because I didn’t really care. (laughter) I don’t know. What is there to say about our offense right now? We all can see the obvious. When you go out there and watch the game on Sunday, [it] is that we’re not performing at the level that we need to, to win football games. It doesn’t really matter what you say. I think it’s pretty obvious as to what people see and all that. We know that, we understand it, and that’s why we’re working on getting better.”
(Reporter: “Are there instances though when you only have one read and have to checkdown, where you’d like to have more latitude?”)
“Just from talking to Dennis, I don’t think he said … I don’t know what he said, to be honest with you, so I can’t speak completely honestly on what he said. But, I think he’s probably trying to – at some level – stick up for a friend, and at some level do some other … He’s trying to answer a question honestly. Like I said, I can’t talk too much about it, because I don’t know exactly what he said. But, your reads are what they are. The way the play turns out is what it is come Sunday. It’s really on us to get that better.”
John Harbaugh
“I don’t think that is exactly what he said. I didn’t read it, but someone brought it to my attention. I can tell you this: I have been in every single offensive meeting, and I know how the reads are built. It is not one read and then dump it down. Dennis called me last night, and we had a great talk. He explained to me what he was trying to say. The difficulty – and as he said it to me – the difficulty when you are trying to explain how offensive systems are built in a sentence, it is really hard to describe it, because it is just not that simple of a game. Our reads are complicated. They are the same reads that we have had. They are West Coast-style reads. They take into account many factors, [like] rotation of the defense, coverage structure. Is it two-deep, is it three-deep? Is it man? Is it zone? What are the matchups? Are they pressed, or are they off?
“Those are all, just off the top of my head, examples of what the quarterback has to go through to decide where he is going to start his read progression. From there, the read progression is always one through five, if you get them all out. If you get four out, it is one through four. The checkdown is part of that. Sometimes the checkdown might be two. Most of the time, it is three or four depending on where the structure of the defense puts the quarterback’s eyes. If you ask him, he could probably explain to you what he was trying to say better than I could, but I know how the offense is built, and it is just not that simple.”