With Flacco set to return, there’s a ‘plan’
Ravens yet to make decision on Ricard after tweets
Ravens coach John Harbaugh has a plan for handling the team’s quarterbacks. He’s just not saying where Joe Flacco will fit in after a full week of practice.
The team’s longtime starting quarterback, sidelined by a right hip injury for the past month, was medically cleared to play in the game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. But Harbaugh said Flacco, who practiced fully just once last week, “just didn’t have a chance to prepare enough” to play.
Harbaugh said at his weekly news conference Monday that “if Joe’s ready to go, he’ll be part of the game plan. He’s too good a player not to be.” Could that mean taking the starting job back from rookie Lamar Jackson, who dropped to 3-1 as a starter after the overtime loss at Arrowhead Stadium? The Ravens (7-6) host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-8) on Sunday in another game rife with playoff-chase implications.
“I’ll just have to let you know if we want,” Harbaugh said. “It could entail anything right now. I know what we want to do. I have a plan. Wehaveaplan. Wetalked about it. We have to talk to the guys about it, and whether we share that publicly, we’ll decide as the week goes on.”
Harbaugh said Jackson, whowasknocked out of the game’s final two plays with an ankle injury, “should be fine.” Jackson did not appear to be in any discomfort at his postgame news conference or in the locker room afterward.
While the Ravens’ streak of three straight games with 200-plus rushing yards ended Sunday, Jackson’s passer rating has improved the past three weeks. He was13-for-24 for147 yards and no interceptions, and finished with two passing touchdowns for the first time in his young career.
Flacco, who has not spoken to reporters since Nov. 4, ranks No. 28 in the NFL in passer rating among qualified quarterbacks.
“It’s a football decision,” Harbaugh said. “Everybody understands what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to put the best football team out there we can from one play to the next. That’s all. That’s always what it’s about, and all those guys sitting in the chairs you’re sitting in now understand that. We don’t make it about anything other than football. We keep it simple.
“It’s about football, because that’s what we’re here for. Guys come from every part of the world, every background, every race, religion, creed, whatever else you want to say — town, country, East Coast, West Coast. And they cometogether and sit in a roomfor what purpose? For football. That’s what we’re here for. So we keep it about that and let’s roll.”
No decision yet on Ricard: Harbaugh said Monday that racist and homophobic tweets from fullback and defensive tackle Patrick Ricard were “unacceptable. I don’t care when it happens.”
Harbaugh said Ricard’s messages, the most recent of which were posted in 2013, would be addressed within the team. Asked whether the second-year player is in danger of being cut, he said: “I don’t know anything right now. We haven’t made any decisions.”
Ricard apologized after Sunday’s game against the Chiefs, calling his past comments “inexcusable” and saying they do not reflect the person he is today.
“It’s unacceptable,” Harbaugh said in his first public comments on the matter. “He knows that. He’s said that. He told me that yesterday on the plane coming back, the first time I had a chance to talk to him about it. He’s distraught. But still, that has to be dealt with.”
He added that he’s not sure exactly what role he’ll play in navigating a potentially uncomfortable situation within the locker room.
“I think our players will be the ones to kind of guide the ship on that just a little bit and I’ll definitely be seeking their input,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll see where it goes from there. It will be dealt with internally, for sure.”
News of Ricard’s tweets emerged just hours before the Ravens kicked off against the Chiefs. He was inactive for the game, but Harbaugh said that was a football decision, made before the news broke.
He acknowledged that teams now have to be aware of players’ social-media pasts.
“Very vigilant,” he said. “[Assistant general manager] Eric [ DeCosta] could probably give you all the details of that as far as they do deep dives on social media. They do everything they can to uncover that stuff before the fact, before it comes out. I’m certain we didn’t have that. The first I heard of it was yesterday.”
Humphrey dealing with groin injury: Cornerback Marlon Humphrey could be dealing with a groin injury that limited him to just about half of the Ravens defense’s snaps Sunday “for a while,” Harbaugh said.
Humphrey played 44 defensive snaps in the Ravens’ overtime loss to the Chiefs, four fewer than in their Week 13 win over the Atlanta Falcons but just 51.2 percent of the total share. The second-year player entered Week14 having allowed the lowest catch rate in the NFL since Week 7, according to Pro Football Focus.