John Harbaugh's Press Conference

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh addressed the media this afternoon at the team's Owings Mills, Maryland Practice Facility. He welcomed everyone back from their Bye Week, asking if we were all healed and ready for the rest of the season. He said he spent the weekend watching lacrosse, field hockey, softball and a little football.

While he normally would have preferred the Bye to be in the middle of the season, he echoed a similar sentiment that it came at a good time for the Ravens due to the injuries that had mounted, forcing the team to put all of their healthy players on the active roster for the final game before their break, as they were down to only 46 healthy bodies at that point.

With the focus now squarely on the Houston Texans as their next opponent, I asked Coach Harbaugh how significant it was that fullback Vonta Leach was no longer on the Texans and was now blocking for his team. Harbaugh spoke about the good players who have stepped up in Leach's absence for Houston, but did not hesitate to say (copied from BaltimoreRavens.com):

“It makes me happy. I’d rather see him in our colors, but they have got a young guy that is doing a nice job for them. Losing [Texans FB James] Casey, possibly, takes away a little bit of their flexibility because he is a fullback, plus he is a guy that was in all their two-tight end packages. You didn’t exactly know what kind of formation they were going to get into as much, so we’ll see how that goes. But, they still have another young fullback who is a physical guy. I like Vonta [Leach] on our side. We’re glad he is a Raven.”