**Q: What does a win going into the break do for a team?**
Harbaugh: It makes the bye week a lot better, a lot more fun, that's for sure. When you lose (going into) the bye week, you've got to live with it, which kind of sucks. But for us, it means we'd be two games over .500. It would set us up for the two really huge division games coming up. It would give us a chance to take total control of the division. Those are opportunities for us, but to step back from all that, it really doesn't matter. It's about this game.
**Q: You have coached against DeMeco Ryans when he was a player and a head coach. What do you remember from his playing days?**
Harbaugh: I would say that his defenses reflect the way he played. That's the best compliment I could give him. He played the same way. Obviously he does a great job with those guys.
**Q: You mentioned yesterday his defense plays "ahead of plays." Can you expand on that?**
Harbaugh: For instance, like say you run some kind of a curl-flat route for instance. Well, there's usually a guy sitting on the curl and there's usually a guy on top of the flat route. They don't usually play a step behind plays. They're not chasing plays too often. It seems like they're set up where they need to be, which is a sign obviously, a reflection of a very well-coached defense.
**Q: What player on the team right now would make a good coach?**
Harbaugh: I think Jameis (Winston) would be a great coach.
**Q: He would certainly be motivational.**
Harbaugh: Yeah, he'd be great. And he's got a really good head for the game. There's a couple of guys. Guys that jump out at you would be like (Jevón) Holland. I think he'd be phenomenal as a coach.
Harbaugh: He's smart, super smart, great conceptual thinker. He can put a lot of different ideas together. He's got a nice demeanor and personality. Yeah, I think he'd be a great coach. There's others. (Isaiah) Likely, I think, could be a great coach.
**Q: For an 18-year period in Baltimore, nobody in the NFL ran it more than you and nobody had more rushing yards than you. You've seen it all. I'm sure you've gone through stretches where you haven't been happy with the run game like now. From your experience, how do you get through it? Do you have to run your way through it?**
Harbaugh: Yeah, we'll get there. We'll definitely get there. You kind of know whatever the things are that are holding you back. You've just got to kind of keep working on them and it's always going to be important, so you've got to get there. And it's not like we have to be a running team. There were a lot of years where we weren't, you know, that we were throwing. Lamar (Jackson) threw for a bunch of yards a couple of years ago and then back with (Joe) Flacco, but I just think the ability to do everything well is really important because if not, you become one-dimensional. It's just hard to be good enough one-dimensionally if that's what you are. You've got to be able to keep people off balance a little bit or they're going to be waiting on your plays, kind of what we talked about before. Then obviously if you can't run, then you become one-dimensional in a lot of ways because all you really have is drop-back pass. And that's, you've got to be so good at it, ridiculously good at it, to move the ball if you don't have that.
**Q: A theme of the week has been new starts. J.J. gets a new start. Jameis talked about how important that was in his career, too. We're getting to the midway point of your first season here. Have you had a chance to reflect on your new start?**
Harbaugh: I would say yes and no. No, because you're so wrapped up in the challenge. Yes, because how could you not? In moments maybe when I'm doing morning devotional or something, try to put things in perspective and how special it is to be doing something like this and with the guys and just all the things that are meaningful in life. You do think about it. You have to, especially when you get old like me.
**Q: Was Andy Reid right? Change can be good.**
Harbaugh: Oh sure, of course, he was absolutely right. Change can be great.
**Q: J.J. mentioned this yesterday. He gets dropped into this situation and he said he could feel "the culture of just grinding every single day." He also mentioned the makeshift locker room. I know back in the summer you said half-jokingly that the renovations could make you a grittier team. Has there been any truth to that?**
Harbaugh: That's a great question. I don't know. I mean, who could say? Who could say? The organization has done a great job. It's much upgraded thanks to our owners. The guys are pretty happy with it. But early on, it was kind of tough. Maybe that's part of it. Who knows?
**Q: The Athletic put out a great feature that went behind the scenes of [what goes on in an NFL headset](https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/interactive/how-nfl-headsets-work-technology-coach-player-communications/). It's stuff that you probably don't think twice about, but it interests a lot of people like me on the outside. The classic image is the head coach on the headset and we see you all talking…**
Harbaugh (quoting the mound visit scene in _Bull Durham_): "Candlesticks always make a nice gift."
**Q: What's your approach to the whole sideline communication?**
Harbaugh: It can't be everyone going back and forth, but there's got to be an opening for everybody to be involved. And there's different levels of it too because there's the channel that I'm on and then I'm on one of offense, defense, special teams. There's actually four, game management (being the other). But I can click in when I want and they have two channels in each of those areas, so they can be talking to a channel I can't get to. That's where they'll have more of their like strategy kind of conversation. "Hey, what front are they in? What are they doing?" I'll hear that on my line too, and sometimes like between series, I have to choose which conversation I want to be involved with just either to listen or to give input, like next series thoughts or what's going on or why did that happen kind of conversation. But really more than that, like for the head coach, you've got be involved in the action, the actual what's going on on the field right then because you might need to take a delay or call a timeout or just know what the play call is or every now and then just let them know, hey, we should run it here, be careful, whatever you might throw in there. Or just, hey, on fourth down we're thinking one, we're thinking one and two, we're thinking punt no matter what, whatever it would be once we kind of make those decisions with game management. But so much of it is just listening just so that you know what's going on, where we're at, just so you've got a handle on the whole game. I think that's a big part of it too. And so you're flicking, flicking back from offense to defense, jump over to special teams and ask (assistant head coach/special teams coordinator) Chris (Horton) something, like why did the kickoff return leak out?
**Q: Lastly, who are the game captains this week?**
Harbaugh: DJ (Reader) on defense, Huddy (Bryan Hudson) on offense and Malik Harrison on special teams.