Pittsburgh Steelers Media Conference

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

John Harbaugh

Visitors Postgame Press Conference


Pittsburgh - 20, Baltimore - 19

JOHN HARBAUGH: Appreciate you guys being in here. Kudos to the Steelers, did a great job and won the game, made the plays they had to. Great rivalry, and I have a lot of respect for them and what they do. They won, and they deserve it.

A couple injury notes. Mekari, Pat Mekari has a hand issue. Could be a few weeks. And Marlon Humphrey has an issue. We'll get an MRI, but it could be a while for Marlon. So we'll see.

Q. John, obviously, when you get down and you're down by one, what went into the decision-making to go for two instead of just kick it?

JOHN HARBAUGH: Trying to win the game right there. We were pretty much out of corners at that point in time. It was an opportunity to try to win the game right there.

Q. The defense played so well for three quarters, and then Pittsburgh scores on their final three possessions. What changed? Did they get tired? Did Pittsburgh change up what they were doing?

JOHN HARBAUGH: No, they hit zero coverage a couple times. You go to the well too many times, and they get you. That's what happened.

Q. You said the reason you went was because you were out of corners. Marlon was not coming back at that point, is that correct?

JOHN HARBAUGH: Correct.

Q. Is that exactly what you wanted from that play, John, just not executing?

JOHN HARBAUGH: You saw the play. It's that close. It's a game of inches. You saw the Al Pacino speech in Any Given Sunday, right? It's football. It's just that close.

Q. We've asked you before about Lamar standing in the pocket. Take the good with the bad sometimes that he holds the ball. Are you concerned that he's holding the ball too long? It seemed like several of those sacks --

JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, we can put him in better position too in terms of getting the ball out quick with some of those calls. Seven sacks is too many. It's way too many. That's on us as a coaching staff to get that cleaned up.

Q. Obviously, T.J. Watt got activated pretty late in the process yesterday. Were you able to game plan for him throughout the week? How did that process work?

JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, we game planned throughout the week. We don't change our defense too much with the other guys in there. It's just a matter of who's going to play. Great player. We probably expect him to find a way to get back.

Q. Lamar, was that more of a product of what you guys were doing with the pass rush?

JOHN HARBAUGH: The ball was being held, trying to push the ball downfield a little bit at times. We gave them enough time to get to him for sure. There was plenty of times where he ran out of there too and made some huge plays, extending plays. That does -- we talk about that in our press conferences quite a bit. So that's kind of Lamar's a unique guy that way. Seven sacks is too many.

Q. Is Marlon a knee?

JOHN HARBAUGH: I'm not going to get into all that right now.

Q. Did you get what you wanted on that two-point play? Minus the touchdown, but did you get the looks? Did you get pretty much everything you wanted?

JOHN HARBAUGH: Yeah, he was open. So we did, yeah.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
115379-1-1182 2021-12-06 00:56:00 GMT

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