Pollard was on a slippery slope with this argument, and it got more heated when he took on Harbaugh directly about his intentions, his personal care for the bodies of players, and his moody disposition. Several Ravens players said it was personal and almost over the line.
Pollard is described by virtually everyone as fiery. “He can’t quite calm down,” one player said. “That’s how he is. It’s something he doesn’t know how to handle. There were thoughts, opinions. He just started yelling and had it to get it all out there.”
Pollard thought Harbaugh was punishing the players for losing the game and allegedly challenged Harbaugh, “Are you punishing us or preparing us?” This lingered into a nearly 30-minute debate – it was later called “soul searching” – and more players became involved in the discourse, especially as the words got more contentious.
Harbaugh, who says that he can’t stand a quiet, one-way team meeting, stopped in his tracks, listened and tried to be reasonable in regard to the practice philosophy. But the more personal the remarks became, the more he prayed for the strength to handle it properly and attempt to be the bigger man in front of his team. “God help me!” Harbaugh said out loud between deep breaths. Perhaps it would have been more professional or courteous for Pollard to discuss some of the more personal complaints privately, but the room had 52 other players and the whole coaching staff involved in the heated debate so there was nowhere to run. Jameel McClain said that the small group didn’t necessarily speak for the whole defensive unit. “I didn’t want it to be contentious, but it needed to be solved before we left,” Harbaugh said.
“It was practically a mutiny,” one Ravens player told Silver at the time. “It came very close to getting out of control. But the way Coach Harbaugh handled it was amazing. He let people have their say, and he listened, and he explained himself, and pretty soon it was like a big group-therapy session. In the end, a lot of positive things were said. We didn’t practice in pads, but we came out of there stronger as a group.”
Harbaugh simply said, “OK. No pads, but come out ready to work.”
Because the team has everything that happens in the auditorium wired for video, Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome watched the entire episode from his office. Newsome sat with Harbaugh later that day and said, “You were the giant in that room.”
“Honestly, when I walked out of the there I thought that I couldn’t have handled it any better,” Harbaugh said. “God gave me peace.”
Harbaugh was under attack by three players in front of the entire room and didn’t feel the need to fight back, even if he felt like the rationale, reason and method were crude. It would resolve itself.
“I’ve never seen a head coach handle anything like that as well as he did,” a Ravens assistant who attended the meeting told Silver. “There were some things said where we were like, ‘Damn.’ A lot of coaches would have acted like dictators and been very sensitive about the way their authority was being questioned. John said, ‘Hey, let’s talk about this.’ He showed great leadership. Instead of worrying that it would make him seem weak, he turned it into a strength.”
Flacco said he listened for 15 minutes before he stood up and took umbrage with the line of reasoning that the offense was to blame for the loss in Houston. “I stood up and said, ‘It sounds like you’re making excuses for giving up 44 points,’ ” Flacco said. “ ’Don’t try to put that shit solely on the offense.’ I just wasn’t having it.”
“Joe cut him in two,” Harbaugh said.
Besides, Flacco reasoned: “We came into John to ask for more time off and no pads, not to criticize him or the team philosophy.” Harbaugh and everyone in the room knew the deadliest sin for any team is when it becomes offense vs. defense because then you don’t have a team. You have a pair of fractured units. “When you get into that offense vs. defense area, the thing gets kinda dangerous,” Flacco said. “That’s the last place we wanna go as a team.”
“I wasn’t threatened by it,” Harbaugh told Silver. “That’s the main thing. And, you know, they had some good points, and I had some good points. Other guys stood up and said some great things. To me, it embodied everything that you should have on a team. I think it’s really important to let them be them. And to me, the more I’m able to give them leadership, the stronger that we all are together, as leaders. I don’t know how to put it in words, and maybe someday there’ll be a way to express it, but we have such great leaders. You’ve got to let ‘em lead, but you also have to lead ‘em, you have to direct them, and someone’s gotta make decisions. But, we’ve just got some incredibly strong men on this team.”
Pollard was a strong man, but certainly not one of the true leaders in a crowded veteran maze of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs, and Haloti Ngata. One teammate described him as “kinda like a hockey goon on game day – you want him on your team,” but he cared so much and wanted to be heard. But in a sea of Hall of Famers and Pro Bowlers, there’s only so much air for a 29-year old safety playing on his third team in five years.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that when the conflict happened in Owings Mills, Ray Lewis was not with the team and wasn’t in the room. This incident happened just a week after doctors told him his injury would end his season and perhaps his career. Several Ravens players believe the attempted insurrection or “mutiny” would’ve been squashed far earlier had No. 52 been involved.
But it wasn’t the first time that the players had made a request of Harbaugh and far from the first time the players had a beef with him.
In August, during training camp, Harbaugh got after the team in Owings Mills on the practice fields in the blazing heat and players were grumbling en masse regarding fatigue. Flacco and Reed marched up to the second floor to Harbaugh’s office overlooking the practice field. Flacco told his coach, “Practice is too long. We’re all looking for you to cut time off practice. We know you won’t agree. But you gotta give me something to take back down there. I’m telling you they’re going to revolt.”
After a little bit of resistance, Harbaugh said, “Let’s see where we can cut some time.” He saw the leadership Flacco and Reed were bringing forth and respected it.
Harbaugh wanted unfiltered feedback, and he’s glad they had the kind of relationship that allowed for that. “I don’t care if you think it’s right,” Flacco said to Harbaugh at the time. “And I don’t think it’s necessarily right that we’re revolting down there.”
