John Harbaugh explains importance of long preseason winning streak

The Baltimore Ravens will take on the New Orleans Saints in their first game of the 2021 preseason. They’ll be going for their 18th-straight preseason victory, with their last exhibition loss coming in September of 2015.

While the preseason doesn’t mean anything from a standings perspective, it’s a big opportunity for players on the roster bubble to earn a spot on the final team. When head coach John Harbaugh was asked about the importance of the team’s 17-game winning streak, he said that it means a lot.

“It means a lot. Whether it’s a winning streak or just the idea of how you approach the games. We play our guys … We play our starters less than most teams, usually. We don’t …. We just run our installs, so it’s not like we’re game-planning for anybody. We don’t practice against our opponents at all in the preseason ever. We might walk-through. That’s all we would do just to have an idea of what plays they’d run – that’s it.”

Harbaugh also gave credit to a lot of factors that have gone into their recent preseason success, and also talked about how his team needs to play against New Orleans.

“So, I just think it’s a credit to the players in terms of preparation and the coaches over the years in terms of we run a good training camp, offseason program, and guys are ready to play good fundamental football. That’s what wins, whether it’s preseason, the [regular] season or whatever it might be. But we’re playing a really good Saints team. They’re going to come in there ready. Coach Sean Payton does a great job with those guys. They’re going to be fundamentally sound. They’re going to play super hard and it’s going to be a big challenge for us. The main thing is the challenge for us in making sure we’re competing against ourselves in terms of how we play, and that’s what we work on.”

There are multiple players who will look to contribute to another successful preseason. However, a lot of those contributions probably won’t come from the starters, as it wouldn’t be shocking to see Baltimore sit a lot of their impact players. If that is the case, young players and others on the bubble will be the ones to try to continue the Ravens’ preseason streak, one that means a lot to Harbaugh.