Each week, we bring you a Q&A with a Ravens player, coach or team executive to help you learn a little more about the team. Today's guest is special teams coordinator and assistant head coach Jerry Rosburg.
Lardarius Webb returned a punt 68 yards for a touchdown in the 24-10 win against the Cleveland Browns, marking the first punt for a score during the John Harbaugh era. How gratifying was it to see that occur?
Joy, really, is the word I would use. I'm happy for our players most of all. Our return game has not been what we've wanted it to be, and in either phase, we have high aspirations. To finally break one, I really feel good for our guys. We've been grinding. We've been working hard on these guys, trying to get things fixed and do better. We've had hard practices, competitive practices, and to see it all pay off, I was really happy for our players.
As you mentioned, the coaches and players have been grinding away to trying to improve the return game. So is there a level of vindication for you personally?
We're all happy together. The most gratifying thing is it helped us win. When you get into a game like that and it's been back-and-forth and you're trying to put them away and we were actually able to do it at that point, that came at a very timely moment.
How difficult is it to settle on a returner whom you believe can contribute positively either on kickoffs or punts or both?
The thing we always look for on this team, we have a common expression: "the more you can do." We like players that have multiple skills. We want players on our offense and our defense and even our specialists that can do more than one thing. That builds your team. We can go get a returner — perhaps. But if that's all he can do for your team, sure, that's a valuable skill, but what else can he do for your team? Is that all he's going to be doing on Sundays? So when we look at a returner, we would like to have a returner that can do more than just be a returner. So in that regard, perhaps our expectations are higher, but we look at it from a team perspective. How can he help the entire team, not just the special teams? Now when we drafted Lardarius, we thought he was an excellent returner, and we loved him as a college returner. And we also loved him as a defensive back, and it's turned out that he's done both. So that is, from our perspective, a win-win. He's able to do all the things that we saw him doing in college, and really, those are the things that we desire from all of our players, not just our returners.
Long-time fans of this team remember when Jermaine Lewis was the one of the premier return specialists in the NFL. Have you found your Jermaine Lewis for this team?
Obviously not or else there would be one guy doing both phases. We don't have one guy doing both phases. We have shared phases here and have for some time, and it's because of the nature of our roster. Certainly, you'd love to have a breakaway threat on both sides who can do both, but we'd still like for him to do more than that. I wasn't on the Ravens at that time, but I would suspect that Jermaine was able to do something as a receiver, and that's the point. You want to have a guy that can capture both return jobs, but also help your offense or defense or whatever phase he's used in. My experience is that those are the most valuable players.
When you've settled on a returner for either kicks or punts and he is a starter on either offense or defense, how concerned are you about putting that player at risk of getting injured?
I'm concerned for all the players. I'm not just concerned for the returners. You've got starters playing on the punt team, you've got starters playing on the kickoff return team. So it's not just the returners. I'm concerned for the starting defensive tackles. I have concern for all players. Just being a returner, are you more susceptible to injury? Well, I haven't seen any statistics that bear that out. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. But we don't look at it that way. We don't look at it and think we don't want to use this player because he's too valuable somewhere else. Now, there comes a point in time when you're trying to be smart about it and you look at your depth and you look at where you're at. Lardarius has been a classic example of that. When we were thinner at corner, we had less depth there and so we were less likely to use him on two phases like we were earlier in the season. So yeah, all of those things play into it, and it goes right back to the team philosophy team that have of getting as many players as we can that can do as many things as they can so that if we do suffer an injury somewhere, someone else can pick it up.
Is David Reed working his way back into possibly returning kicks this season?
