Slumping team looking forward to bye week
Cornerback Young avoids serious ankle injury
The Ravens limp into their bye week with a 4-5 record that includes a three-game losing skid and find themselves trailing the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals in the race for the AFC North title. While the position is not ideal, the bye could not have come at a better time for a weary group of players and coaches, coach John Harbaugh said.
“It’s a long season obviously. It’s been a tough stretch,” he said during his weekly media availability Monday afternoon. “We’ve played three really good football teams the last three games. We haven’t won them. Two of the three have been really tight good football games and we didn’t do enough to win one, two or any of those games. That’s the difficult part. The plus part is they’re good football teams, and we’ve been going hard, our players have been playing hard.”
Harbaugh laid out the schedule for the week, saying players will attend meetings and work out at the team’s training facility in Owings Mills on Tuesday before being given off the rest of the week. The coaches will remain at team headquarters to begin planning for the next game, against the Bengals on Nov. 18 at M&T Bank Stadium.
Harbaugh said he has already watched film of Sunday’s 23-16 loss to the Steelers and came away with specific points and areas to address with the members of his coaching staff and the players.
“If you watch the tape, we played fast, we played hard,” he said. “But are we as fast as were early in the year? Probably not, probably a step off just because it’s Week 9. So this week is going to help us. It’s going to help us pick up that step back, and I’m really kind of excited about that.”
Barring a last-second development, the players will return from the bye with Harbaugh in his familiar position as head coach. After answering questions Sunday about his future with the team, he said Monday that he was not offended by the questions about his job security.
“I understand that’s part of it and probably not surprised because you have to win games in this league,” he said. “That’s the bottom line. I’m not really surprised or insulted, no.” Nothing ‘serious’ for T. Young: Slot cornerback Tavon Young suffered a right ankle injury in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game but did not appear to be walking with much of a limp inside the locker room underneath M&T Bank Stadium. Harbaugh confirmed that Young’s ailment was minor.
Harbaugh said outside linebacker Terrell Suggs’ absence on a few third-down plays late in the game was not injuryrelated. He said the bye week should help players such as left tackle Ronnie Stanley (left ankle), right tackle James Hurst (back), outside linebacker Tim Williams (right ankle) and maybe even a player on injured reserve like cornerback Maurice Canady (hamstring). ‘Issues’ for Dixon: Harbaugh indicated that running back Kenneth Dixon’s return from injured reserve might take longer than anticipated.
“There’s issues going on with him that are beyond our coaches’ control,” he said of the 2016 fourth-round pick. “We just have to wait for league clearance and things like that.”