from BaltimoreRavens.com

Opening statement: “Obviously, it was a team victory, and when you win, that’s usually the way it goes. We stood up here last week and talked about how well we played on one side last week, and we didn’t get the victory. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how you put it all together as a team, and you find a way to win. I thought the Browns played really, really well. That’s a good football team. Their defense played well. We talked about it all week. I thought their offense did what they had to do in terms of running the ball against our defense, and that’s something we have to work on. We have to make sure that we don’t allow people early in the game when it’s run-pass to run downhill on us. But, by the same token, when we had to get the run stopped at the end, we got the run stopped at the end. That was probably the key factor in the second half. And the last thing was our special teams. I think our special teams were up against it in this game. It’s easy to forget that now that the game is over, and they didn’t break anything on us. But that was the best special teams unit in the NFL last year. We aspire to that. We have a bunch of guys here that want to be the best in the league in that phase. And we made a step in that direction, I think, today. I’m proud of the way those guys played. Penalties were a problem in the second half. The personal foul penalties in the second half is not okay. You know, sometimes in the heat of battle, tempers flare, but you have to understand what gets called and what doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you get pushed. It doesn’t matter if you’re not emotional about a play, those kinds of things we have to do better than that. I thought, obviously, the passing game in the second half, with the big plays were big. Anquan Boldin came up with some big plays for us. Joe [Flacco]-to-Anquan [Boldin] was a big difference. But understand why those things get set up. It’s because they’re not covering one guy. You’ve got guys that rotate to [Derrick Mason], or they’re dropping down to make sure they cover T.J. [Houshmandzadeh] all the time in the three-wide set. They have to cover Todd [Heap], so that’s a team effort right there. So other guys are going to have big days, for sure. I thought we ran the ball pretty well for the most part. It was a tough win against a really good team. I thought the crowd was tremendous. Now we move on to Pittsburgh.”

(on Ray Rice) “I thought he played really well. He made some good runs where the hole was designed to be, and he made some good runs where the hole wasn’t designed to be. He broke some tackles on screens, and that was really important. We don’t know right now [about his knee injury]. There’s nothing ligament-wise that’s a problem, so that’s probably where it starts, so that’s the most important thing, or cartilage-wise, as far as we know. We don’t know [the extent] for sure.”

(on Joe Flacco beating the Browns’ blitz on Boldin’s TD) “That was a big-time play. When you talk about a guy making progress in his third year, I think it showed up right there.”

(on the pass blocking) “The protection was there. They do a very aggressive blitz package, similar to what the Jets do. Rex [Ryan] and [twin brother] Rob [Ryan] are very creative guys, and they come up with some good stuff, and I thought our offensive line was all over it. Our backs were all over it. Not one time did they have a free run, really, that could’ve been picked up by the protection, so our guys did a nice job. I thought Joe handled it really well with the receivers. He got the ball out fast, he handled the pressure. We gave a little bit of ground and got the deep throw to Anquan [Boldin], just like I said, it’s a team effort there, on the blitz.”

(on the performance of the offense) “I think the whole team won the game. That’s important for [our offense]. Our offense wants to be that kind of group that can – if we’re not shutting a team down like we’re capable of doing, which we didn’t do today like we’ve done before on defense, we have to be able to score some points and keep our defense off the field and give them a break. It didn’t happen all the time. There were times when we had to get back out there on defense and find a way to get a stop. I thought our offense carried themselves really well.”

(on how well Joe Flacco rebounded from last week’s loss) “It says he’s the kind of guy you want playing quarterback for you. I don’t think there’s a guy in the building that doubted that for one second. Not Joe, not Cam [Cameron], not one of our players, not me. That’s not to say you don’t do everything you can to be as good as you can be, because that’s what you do. But Joe’s done it before, and he’ll do it again. Every game he plays is not going to be perfect, but he played well today.”

(on the performance of Anquan Boldin) “You talk about Anquan, but I really want to frame it up in terms of all the guys. It didn’t show up last week. We weren’t able to take the so-called weapons and put the kind of points up, so it’s not going to be there every week. That’s why it’s got to be a few men with [big numbers]. But Anquan Boldin showed today why we wanted him to be a Raven. He’s our kind of guy. He played, we want to play. I say that about [Derrick] Mason, I say that about T.J. [Houshmandzadeh], I say that about [Todd] Heap. It’s going to be Anquan today. It’s going to be the next guy the next week. That’s what we’re really all about on offense.”

(on if his decision was validated on keeping K Billy Cundiff) “Thank you for bringing that up. I should’ve mentioned that. What’s the word? I told him he was a stud when he came off the field. I couldn’t think of a better word. But he wanted those deep kicks. We were piddling around in our minds of squibbing it and side-kicking it and stuff like that, because [Josh Cribbs] is dangerous. And Billy said, ‘I want that deep kick,’ and he came through twice. And then he came through with a huge field goal, and it wasn’t an easy kick, at the end of it, so it was a big day for Billy Cundiff.”

(on if he knew how dangerous RB Peyton Hillis would be) “That’s a good question. This guy, Hillis, we watched him on tape, and we thought, he’s a downhill player. I know that Eric [Mangini] really liked him, just by what you read. He’s physical, but I guess he’s a guy you have to see in person to appreciate him. He is physical. I mean, this guy is hard to bring down. He’s a north-south runner. And, he’s a guy we’re going to have to contend with for a long time in this division.”

(on problems on defense at the start of the game) “We were playing kind of a mixed defense. In other words, they were in a situation where it was run-pass, and you’ve got Seneca Wallace, who’s a threat, who gets outside the pocket, and we were playing defenses and fronts that allowed us to kind of cover and play run. They were running the ball well enough and blocking well enough where it didn’t hold up for us, so we tightened up with some calls in the second half. We were more heavy at run-oriented defense, and it worked out.”

(on Derrick Mason’s delay of game penalty and his frustration) “Well, I’m not sure about that particular play. It wasn’t out of frustration. That’s the thing I saw. He and I looked at each other, and he said, ‘Take me out for a play.’ Then he said, ‘Coach, I’m good. I can’t believe [the officials] threw [the flag], but I have to know better than that.’ And that’s what [the officials] do. It’s a delay of game situation when you throwB the ball or kick the ball or anything like that. And it wasn’t a frustration factor. The other side of that is – this is what you’ve got to understand about NFL football players – they want to be the difference. They want to be the guy that wins the game. And they understand the ball is going to get spread around. Same thing on defense. We rotated our corners a little bit. They didn’t want to come out of the game. So I don’t mind seeing that. I just think we have to understand how the rules are called, never put our team in jeopardy with a penalty, and that’s where the line is drawn. I need our guys to be smart enough to do that.”

(on why Terrence Cody was inactive) “Well it’s two-fold. I think his knee is not 100 percent. He’s done a good job. He certainly could’ve played. It’s also, ‘Who do you put down?’ We had some good players up, and you only get 45, so that balance right there made the decision for us. And we’ll just have to see next week where we’re at. He’s ready to play though.”