Ravens coach John Harbaugh has been in charge for eight months and already has persevered more than most coaches during their careers.
Harbaugh’s biggest obstacle came on Saturday evening, when the NFL postponed the Ravens’ game at Houston on Monday night to Nov. 9 after much of the city was pulverized by Hurricane Ike.
The rare scheduling change caused the Ravens to move their bye week from Nov. 9 — Week 10 — to this past week.
The result: The Ravens play 15 straight games in a schedule that includes five road games in a six-week span from Oct. 12 to Nov. 16.
Harbaugh said the Ravens (1-0) would have preferred to play the Texans (0-1) this past week, but the catastrophic damage done in the Houston area trumped a football game.
“We’re very understanding of the situation,” Harbaugh said. “We wanted to play. We’re disappointed we didn’t get a chance to play, but we understand the decision that the league made and support it fully and are looking forward to playing them down the road.”
Harbaugh said the hardest part for his players was putting in a week of preparation for a game never played. To mitigate the loss of a bye week, Harbaugh gave his players off Saturday through Tuesday before regrouping to prepare for Sunday’s 4:15 p.m. game against the Cleveland Browns (0-2) at M&T Bank Stadium.
“We understand priorities are life and property and the well-being of everyone down there,” Harbaugh said. “At the same time, our guys worked hard this week and were excited about playing a football game.”
Ravens kicker Matt Stover, who is the team’s NFL Players Association representative, voiced concerns prior to the storm’s arrival about how a schedule change would impact the team the rest of the year. The Ravens entered the season with the fourth-toughest schedule in the NFL based on teams’ winning percentages last year.
“We don’t want to have to go to a neutral site or cancel the game, absolutely no to that,” Stover said. “In fact, as a player rep I really don’t want that because this would become our bye week and that’s not good at all for us.”
The schedule change is the latest issue Harbaugh has tackled since the start of training camp. He dealt with losing quarterback Kyle Boller for the season with an injured shoulder and Troy Smith being sidelined with tonsillitis. He also had to compensate for the one-game suspensions of cornerbacks Fabian Washington (personal conduct) and Derrick Martin (substance abuse).
The Ravens, however, may have benefited from the schedule change. It gives defensive tackle Kelly Gregg and running back Willis McGahee more time to recover from their knee injuries.
“I don’t think it changes anything right now, but when those weeks come up, we’ll come up with a plan to account for the fact that we don’t have a bye week,” Harbaugh said. “Practices being altered in some fashion, players reps being altered in some fashion, we’ll do what’s right to insure our guys are prepared to play on Sunday.”
