As my fine Baltimore Sun colleague and gameday chat partner Kevin Van Valkenburg wrote in a feature for Sunday's newspaper, Ravens coach John Harbaugh is close friends with Steve Spagnuolo. But the Rams coach admitted to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that in the heat of the moment after the Ravens ran up the score on his Rams in Sunday's 37-7 win, Spagnuolo questioned whether he would speak with Harbaugh again.
"It's funny. I'll be very open and honest here. During the game and toward the end I felt that way. Even when I was home with Maria, I said, 'We're not ever talking to him again,'" Spagnuolo, who coached with Harbaugh on Andy Reid's staff in Philadelphia, told Kathleen Nelson on Monday. "But when I came in this morning and got a full night's rest, I don't believe that. I'm not so sure that isn't the exact way you do it."
After the game, the coaches shook hands and spoke briefly on the field. "I told him to say hello to Ingrid, his wife, and he said, 'Give my love to Maria.' I shook his hand and away we went," Spagnuolo said.
It probably wasn't the point total on the scoreboard that upset Spagnuolo. With less than four minutes remaining and the Ravens up by 30, Harbaugh unsuccessfully challenged a fumble. Moments later, after the two-minute warning, Joe Flacco threw a long pass down the sideline to rookie wideout Tandon Doss.
"That's one bit of game experience that those guys wouldn't have, with Joe, when it really counts," Harbaugh explained at his Monday media conference. "So, that's really the point. … We weren't trying to run the score up at all; we were trying to get a first down so our defense and our punt team didn't have to take the field."
After cooling off Sunday night, Spagnuolo said that he respects the way that Harbaugh and the Ravens operated Sunday.
"Let me tell you something: John Harbaugh is a competitor. I know that, and I've got no problem with it," Spagnuolo told Nelson. "I did feel one way yesterday. But I calmed down and looked at it."