ESPN NFL analyst Booger McFarland joined Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 25 to discuss why the Ravens keep falling short in the playoffs, how they can get over the hump and more. McFarland was a defensive tackle in the NFL for eight years and won Super Bowl rings with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002) and Indianapolis Colts (2006).
Questions have been edited for clarity.
PressBox: How does a team this good keep falling short when the lights shine the brightest?
Booger McFarland: It just goes to show you that winning is not all about skill. Sometimes there’s a little bit of luck and good fortune involved. I think if I were inside the organization and I would look at the last two years, [one year] ago you could say it was a coaching failure because we didn’t do what we were good at and we got away from what we were. This past year you could say it was a player failure because [Mark] Andrews dropped the ball. Lamar [Jackson] turned it over. Players didn’t perform at their best. I think overall what I would say is how do we get our team to be who we are most of the time at the most important time? That’s a mindset.
To me, it’s not about going and getting more talent and all that good stuff. Every team wants to improve. I get it. Every team’s going to add a piece here, a piece there. But overall, it’s about the core of your team when the moment gets the brightest. You’ve got to look forward to that moment and you’ve got to go out and approach that moment with the utmost detail and the utmost attention. That way you can play your best. That’s really not an analytical answer … but I think it’s just a mindset, man.
PB: Can you change that mindset?
BM: I’ve been on a couple of teams that were in that situation. Down in Tampa, we couldn’t get past the Eagles and we finally did. I was in Indy, and Indy couldn’t get past the Patriots and we finally did. Being inside both buildings and both teams winning Super Bowl championships, here’s what I can tell you [about] what we did. We didn’t do anything different. We just tightened the details a little bit, and we had to change the mindset because the media made the mindset in Tampa that we couldn’t play in the cold weather. Well, guess what? In order for us to go to the Super Bowl, we had to go to Philly and win when it was [cold]. In Indy, we couldn’t beat the Patriots. Well, guess what? Not only were we down to the Patriots 21-6 at halftime, they were dominating us and we came back to win in that second half.
I guess the moral of both of those stories is there’s no easy way. You’re going to have to go slay the demons. If you’re Baltimore, you’re going to have to beat Buffalo or Kansas City at some point and you’re going to have to look them in the eye and play your best football. I think it’s up to Coach Harbaugh and his staff to get his team to relax and play their best at the most opportune time. I don’t think there’s any better culture in the National Football League than the culture in Baltimore. There’s nothing wrong with the culture. There’s nothing wrong with the coaching staff. There’s nothing wrong with the players. Again, every team is going to add a piece or two. When I say there’s nothing wrong, you don’t need wholesale changes in Baltimore.
When you look at Eric DeCosta and what they’ve done in the draft, he does a phenomenal job. I think they’re probably going to upgrade the secondary. They’re probably going to upgrade a piece here, a piece there. But overall, the core of that team I expect to be the same. They’ve just got to show up and play better at the most opportune times. There are several teams in the league where it’s not about the regular season. It’s not about how many games you win in the regular season in Baltimore or Kansas City or Buffalo or Dallas. It’s about what you do when the calendar turns to January, and I think Baltimore is clearly in that category. Maybe they need to go into the postseason 10-7 or 11-6. I don’t know, because when they win 13, 14 games and [they get the favorite label], they don’t seem to perform their best.
PB: When you arrived in Indy, did you have a sense for how much the postseason struggles impacted Peyton Manning? How do you get Lamar Jackson to not dwell on the narrative that exists around him?
BM: Everybody’s personality is different, so I’m not going to get him not to dwell on it. I’m just going to try to get him to … play in January the way you play in September and October. I think what makes him great in September and October can’t be the same thing that makes him great in January. And here’s the thing that I saw when I got to Indy. The MVP quarterbacks, the superstar quarterbacks, they realize they can’t win by themselves but they also realize they get the blame when they don’t win it. I think that’s what you have to realize, that it’s going to be on Lamar just like it was on Peyton. It’s not all on them.
The reason I got traded to Indy is because we couldn’t stop the run defensively. I was brought in to shore up the defense. I was brought in as a veteran piece to kind of help the team. They’ll tell you that I came in and made a huge difference. Listen, I just tried to come in and be myself. I wasn’t a superstar player. I was a glue guy. I came in with a mindset of a guy that had won a championship and understood sometimes it’s not about changing everything. It’s about doing the little things. If you’re Lamar and you’re Baltimore — and this is what I said on “NFL Live” — how do you get your best players to play the best when it matters the most? To me, that’s a skill. I think that is a mindset. That is something that is a learned thing. That is something that’s practiced. I think you’ve got to do it day in and day out.
The more you develop your good habits, the more those habits will come out. The boring answer is it starts in practice, doing the little things day in and day out — holding onto the football. And even when you do everything right, man, even when you do it all right, it still requires a little bit of luck. Winning championships is hard. Just look at the best quarterback that we’ve seen in this generation. Look how he looked on Super Bowl Sunday. Patrick Mahomes looked terrible. Lamar hasn’t played that bad. You could argue that Patrick Mahomes played one of the worst games we’ve ever seen a quarterback play in the postseason. Lamar has never put a stinker like that out there. He’s had some performances that weren’t his best, but he hasn’t had anything like Mahomes put out there. If you’re in Baltimore, you’ve got to be patient, and if you’re Lamar, just keep running it back. He’s not 30 years old. He’s still got a lot of runway left.
It’s built the right way. They’ve got to figure out what they’re going to do with Ronnie Stanley, which I think is a good discussion up there. Are you going to let him go to free agency? Are you going to pay him? I do know if you can’t block ’em, you can’t beat ’em, so I would be very leery to let a guy like Ronnie Stanley walk out of my building. They’ve got to figure that out also. [Update: The Ravens announced March 8 that they had agreed to terms on a contract extension with Stanley.]
To hear more from McFarland, listen here.
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