A difference in the defense? Burrow, Wilson and Herbert are next up…

It was an impressive victory by any measure for the Baltimore Ravens over the Denver Broncos on Sunday. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the defensive improvements and needs as the level of quarterback savvy will step up on the purple November calendar.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Ravens defense, Broncos game, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, pass defense, run defense, Travis Jones, Kyle Van Noy, Marcus Williams, Roquan Smith, Marlon Humphrey, offensive balance, trade deadline, Super Bowl readiness, defensive improvements

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

8

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We’re positively taking the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ll have some Raven scratch offs to give away when we rev this thing up into November COVID State Fair next week. Also Cooper’s north and timonia, one of my favorite places, definitely, that’s going to turn it into the gumbo tour. I mean, this oyster thing, crab cake thing, we go to Cooper’s. We’re going to be doing the oyster and gumbo tour as well as probably the black and tuna tour there as well. All of it brought to you by our friends as well at Liberty, pure solutions, one 800 clean water, and our friends at a curio wellness as well for our oyster tour, which is now on day 11, day 12. Check that out at Baltimore positive check everything out. This week, we got election week going on. We got an incredibly short turnaround for the Ravens this week. Thursday night. See a lot of people selling their tickets. The Bengals coming to town. We’ll see how that goes and stopping Jamar Chase, as well as just getting out of a game with 31 point win, just a sort of gaudy stats for Lamar on a perfect day, Luke Jones joins us now. He will be in Owings Mills on short rest this week. Weird week for everybody you me, everyone watch football on Thursday and sitting around on Sunday with no football but defense man, as much as we talked about last week, and Jameis Winston and the big pass play and stopping the run, and where Bo Nicks would be in reading things and trying to confuse a rookie quarterback, which is part of the fun of this, if you’re roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey and a bunch of the More veteran guys as well. Defense comes out on scath Because didn’t give up points, give up some yardage, some garbage time thing, and then stop them at the two yard line. But nice for the defense to have some good vibes, especially before Joe burrow gets here on Thursday night. Yeah, I

Luke Jones  01:56

think it was important for their confidence. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and try to hype up the defensive performance that, let’s face it, I mean, they gave up a lot of yards in that first half. There were scoring opportunities for the Broncos. They were able to get some stops on fourth down, Bo Nicks misses, a throw on fourth down that could have been a touchdown, which could have very much changed the complexion of the first half, and maybe that’s a little bit of a different game in the second half as a result. But you know that 10 points allowed is 10 points allowed, right? And for a defense that has given up points and has given up a lot of touchdowns, and specifically through the air, it was nice to see them be able to get some stops situationally. I mean, I like the way they started the football game. I mean, how about the fact that Marcus Williams comes flying up on the first play, makes a tackle for a minimal gain, and then Kyle van Noyes in a passing lane, not necessarily pressuring, but just has, you know, he’s in a spot that forces a little bit of an errant throw. It goes off the receiver’s hands, and ardarius Washington catches one right. We’ve been talking about this defense, if they can just catch the balls thrown their way that things wouldn’t looks quite so bad as they’ve looked. So it was good to see that, yeah, they get a turnover on downs on the next set of series for Denver, as I mentioned. You know, the next fourth down stop was that that was a playboy Nicks with like that back. I mean, got throw. Was there to make pressure was minimal. He just didn’t make the play. But that also goes back to, hey, quarterbacks aren’t perfect either, and that’s why what Lamar Jackson has been doing has just been so impressive. How on point he’s been throwing the football when you give him even just a little bit of time. So you know, you look at that game. I mean, Denver moved the ball other than that opening drive. They moved the ball every time they touched it in that first half. But the Ravens did get some stops. They got some stops on fourth down. They held to a field goal at the end of the half, which I think was important, and as we talked about in our previous segment, it left an opening for Lamar, and this offense to get a touchdown and then get the two for one coming out of the third quarter,

Nestor Aparicio  04:07

defense has to give you a chance to make it a blow. Sure,

Luke Jones  04:11

exactly so. And look what we saw Sunday. That’s the formula, right? And obviously you’re not going to win by 31 points every week. We understand that. But my point is, this offense is so great, and I’m using great this offense is great at this point in time. I mean, you look at it in terms of the points scored, in terms of yards per play, I think they’re at 7.1 for the season. I mean, that’s absurd. That’s absurd. What kind of statistics they they’re putting up Nestor so they go back

8

Nestor Aparicio  04:41

and like, look at the 99 rams, and look at the Vikings of Bill X team. And look at these teams that were regularly putting up 3841 45 the Peyton Manning machine, where you couldn’t stop it, where they would just come down. And, you know, be 35 points at halftime if you gave him the ball five times. Eight this. Felt and looked different because you didn’t have a quarterback that was part of it, and now you have this bruising running game that it doesn’t have to be indoor pinball, it doesn’t have to be arena ball. It’s you called it complimentary, but everything it but it’s balanced on the offensive side, because it isn’t lopsided. And to my point, and I’ll keep going back to this, it isn’t Lamar playing bumper cars and running the ball 14 times, either. Sure,

Luke Jones  05:31

sure, although he can still run the ball and he still has over 500 yards and and he’s done that. But go to your favorite, whatever site you like to go to Nestor to see the stat leaders right now. You know, as everyone’s waking up Monday morning and talking about Monday’s game before, all the attention shifts to the Bengals going into Monday Night Football. Lamar Jackson, second in the league in passing yards, not not raiding, not yards per attempt, volume, second in passing yards. We’ve never said that before, right? We’ve never talked about that even, even lamar’s biggest supporters have always acknowledged, okay, it’s not a high volume passing attack, and no, he’s not leading the league in pass attempts, but, I mean, he’s got 20 touchdown passes already. We’re halfway through the season. He’s on pace to be over 4000 yards, right? I mean, that’s a benchmark that we talk about with great passers, right? Even though 5000 yards kind of became that over the last five to 10 years. But the point is, second in the league in passing yardage, Derek Henry, obviously second in the league, or first in the league in rushing and, oh, by the way, as I mentioned in a previous segment, zay flowers, don’t look now, fifth in the league in receiving yards going into Monday Night Football. When have you ever said that about a Ravens offense? Ever where you’re talking about a a top five passer, the the lead leading rusher? Okay? Jamal Lewis in 2003 we’ve seen that.

Nestor Aparicio  06:59

I’m thinking Bert Jones, Lyondell, Mitchell and Roger Carr.

Luke Jones  07:02

8

I mean, we’re talking about, we’re this isn’t, I mean, this isn’t a lead offense, and that’s why I keep saying, I keep coming back to this defense. Hey, they stopped the run. Great. Get your pass defense into the middle of the pack territory. You do that. I’ll take my chances going up against anyone fully acknowledging, hey, you got to beat Patrick mahomes and the Chiefs up. That’s still the standard. That’s going to be the standard, no matter what the Ravens record is, no matter what Buffalo’s record is, whoever you have to beat the chiefs. We all understand that, but until they get to that point where they have a chance to do it, I’ll take that formula with an elite offense and get just get your pass defense into decent territory. You know, don’t be 32nd How about being 16th, 17th, somewhere in that neighborhood. I take that, but that’s coverage on the back end, and that’s also pass rush, which, again, they had four sacks on Sunday. It was great to see tavius Robinson, a second year player, makes some contributions there. I thought this wasn’t pertaining to the to the pass rush quite as much, although we saw him Blitz. Trenton Simpson, I thought did some nice things. So it was nice to see some some young players play well. But I don’t need this to be a well, ravens esque defense. It doesn’t need to be, because this isn’t a Ravens esque offense anymore, right? I mean, this is an amazing offense, so I don’t need the defense to be great. Just be better defending the past than what we’ve seen through the first nine games. If they can do that, if they can make some meaningful improvement there in the second half of the season, boy, it’s going to be difficult to beat this team. I mean, it just is, but they’ve got to do that. And you hope what they were able to do Sunday, and the fact that, albeit I get it, people will call it Garbage Time, but they were giving up a lot of yardage and points and garbage time in the Dallas game, for example, or the Tampa game, for example, where a blowout suddenly becomes an uncomfortable game again. So they didn’t do that. It was good to see again. The bar is really low. I get it. They’ve got a long way to go this pass rush still. And I do want to point out that, since I’m talking about the pass rush, Travis Jones was active. Didn’t play a defensive snap on Sunday, so he clearly was available in an emergency sense. And let’s face it, the pass rush has really been suffering and more noticeable in terms of not being very good these last three games. Travis Jones hurt his ankle against Tampa Bay, you know. So he hasn’t been a factor over the last three games. He’s been out there some, but he hasn’t been a factor the last three games in the way that we were seeing him be a factor through the first six. So I think it’s of the utmost importance to get him right. See what they can do with the trade deadline. Can they Is there a move to be made? See if they can get some things going schematically, to scheme up a little more pressure. But again, I’ll go back to it. This past defense doesn’t have to be top. Five for this team to go to a Super Bowl. I just, I don’t think that. I think this offense is that elite, that special, that get some stops, you know, get some stops on fourth down, get some stops in the red zone. And they were able to do that on Sunday. Get it. It’s Bo nicks, but hey, Jameis Winston threw three touchdowns in the second half against him and look what he did this past Sunday. So kind of speaks to how, how bad things have been, quite frankly, you know, for calling a spade a spade. So, you know, a step in the right direction, even though Lamar and the offense was the obvious story, but nice to see the defense, at least coming coming out of a performance feeling much better about themselves than they did last week. That’s for sure. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  10:41

I mean, when the defense turns the thing into a track meet and, you know, the games in the 30s or whatnot, I don’t, I don’t love that all the way around, you’re like, well, spent a lot of money across all lines of the defense, whether troquan Smith, Matt abike up front, Humphrey on the back end, a lot of the names you mentioned making plays Were not those guys necessarily in this game. But I look ahead to short rest and Joe burrow, and look the Bengals defense, you know, like the Ravens might score 40, getting Lamar off the field wasn’t a bad thing. And I want to talk a little bit about his health as well, because I don’t know that he’s 100% it looks like he’s full burst or rare in the run, as much as maybe was early in the year, and hopefully they coach a little of it. So I’m leaping into the air in the Cleveland game last week. But in order, Bengals, little time off here, little mini buy or whatever you call it, you’d like to think you got to get through this. First you lose them feel like a buy. It off. It’s like a loss Steelers. Feels like a division loss. Steelers and a conference loss, and then the chargers, right? So sort of a wild mix of you mentioned Denver in the last segment being one of the good, bad teams. I thought that of the Steelers when the season started, and I call them division leader at this point, and that’s over the hill and at the Bengals are dangerous because they play Lamar more often for all the things we’ve mentioned about the film, familiarity, maybe not, with matchups on a short rest, and how they come out of their game. And you know, they they played the Marvins. The Raiders came in, so they got to get ready for the game as well. But this next couple of weeks Conference football capable teams. I mean, I think we could certainly say in these all three of these teams could beat the Ravens. So I this is a nice measurement point for them to be playing better football, certainly defensively, better football against a rookie quarterback that that has to carry into Thursday night because Joe burrow and chase give him three plays. That’s 21 points, they can beat you. Yeah, I

Luke Jones  12:47

mean, and that’s why, like we said, I mean, from a confidence standpoint, it was good to see the defense have something to feel good about, which they had nothing to feel good about in Cleveland. So, you know, they, we know they can stop the run, I think. And I thought this, you know, because you had made mention in our previous segment about, you know, the Broncos running the ball a little bit at times. And again, you look at the numbers, it was very modest. I mean, it wasn’t like they put up these eye popping numbers against them. You know, 4.1 yards per carry. That’s, that’s nothing special. But I think a team like the Bengals, I don’t know how much they’re even going to bother trying to run the ball right? I mean, I think they’ll, they’ll try to, they’ll try to get you in the wrong look and pop a run. But I think we’ve seen this past defense struggle so much that it becomes a case of, we’re just going to drop back and throw it all over you and try to stop. And you try to stop it, you know. And the Ravens haven’t had a lot of success in it when teams have gone to that approach. But when you do look at these next three games, Cincinnati, okay, that’s a given. I mean, the Bengals scored 38 against them in in the first meeting, and we know what they’re capable of doing, but Pittsburgh still a team that wants to run the ball a lot. The Chargers very much a team that wants to run the ball. I mean, Greg Romans are offensive coordinators, so they aren’t even if you look at the quarterbacks and you say, Okay, well, it’s Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson, say what you want about him as a quarterback, at this point in time, he can still throw a deep ball. The Ravens have had issues defending the deep ball. Justin Herbert, you know, for as much as he’s been anointed as one of the elites hasn’t really come to fruition the last couple years, if, if for, you know, his health problems, for, if nothing else. So, you know, this is a big stretch, obviously, for the football team, but I think this is a big stretch for this defense. You know, can you go out there on Thursday and get some stops against Joe Barrow? We’ve talked a lot about, you know, can teams get stops against the ravens and how difficult that’s been. But on the flip side, can you get some stops against Joe burrow and this Bengals offense that embarrass them in Cincinnati? Let’s call a spade a spade. I mean that ravens should have lost that football game from the you know, considering the fumbled snap and. Whatever Zach Taylor was trying to do offensively on that last series, and then McPherson misses the field goal. I mean, that’s a game where you look at it and say, Raven should have lost that game. They won. Hey, credit to them, right? And shame on the Bengals. You know, they did what the Ravens do when they when they lose, they tend to beat themselves. So. But for this defense, you know, can you get some stops? Can you limit some red zone trips to field goals rather than touchdowns? Because, again, it’s not that high of a bar for this defense, but they got to start stacking those. They’ve got to start moving in that direction. Because if not as great as the offense is, you’re always on alert that what happened in Cleveland can happen, can happen against anyone, right? I mean, if the Browns can do that to you, if the raiders who just fired their offensive coordinator can do that to you, Well, anyone can do that to you. That’s why it’s so important for this team to start coming up with some answers on defense, and some of it might be and I saw a few people mention this on social media over the course of the game, you know, whether, whether we’re talking about knowledgeable fans or media types or or whatever, you know, they’re kind of talking about this defense and their approach. And you think about all the things that you have come to think about a Ravens defense and how prideful it can be and all that. I mean, are we at a point now where the defense play conservative, right? Just keep things in front of you. You can give up yardage you need. You can give up field goals. You know, you don’t need to pitch a shutout. You don’t need to hold a team to 10 points or 14 points. Your offense is going to score way more than that, even if the defense, you know, even if the opponent does a good job against Lamar in this offense, as we pointed out in Cleveland, bad day for the offense was still 24 points. So, you know, do you need to maybe simplify things? Do you you know, play a little more zone, keep things in front of you. Play more cover three. You know, different concepts that you know trying to take away the big play. You know, you like your run defense still. You know, the run defense hasn’t been an issue. You know, even to your point, Denver ran it a little bit, but hardly ran it all over them, right? I mean, you know, it’s still, you’re still doing the Ravens a favor when you try to run the ball on them at this point in time. I mean, that’s, that’s just the truth. But you know, are there things you can do to maybe limit some of the pre snap confusion, the miscommunication, the busted coverages, you know, do you take some of that stuff away? Simplify things a little bit, streamline things a little bit and say, Yeah, you know, this is going to maybe lessen our chances of having a, quote, elite performance. But you

Nestor Aparicio  17:37

don’t really need that. So burrow eats you up doing that. I think, I think you get away with that with Jalen Hurts four weeks from now, five you know, I think you get away with that against, certainly the Giants, whoever you but I think you start to make things too simple for the opposing quarterback and matchups who can beat you, capable quarterbacks, like just in a general sense, capable quarterbacks. And, you know, I did last year, like, just against, like golf, and when he was going well, that was Josh Allen earlier this year, when he was going well, you know, Purdy, I mean, just guys that were going well, that they just stop it in the past. That was last year. This year, I’m like, I think this burrow think Thursday football’s trash. You’ll get your chance to say that. I’ll say that as well. I throw everything out for what it is. But these teams have seen each other so much, and burrow is seeing it so much, that this feels like advantage, borough, to me. To your point, the 38 points in the kicker like this feels like a game where they’re going to put up 30 the other team that that, that the defense will be exposed for whatever they are, maybe not the 32nd ranked defense, but they’re going to give some points up on Thursday night, and that worries me a little bit because of mahomes, because of who they’re going to have to beat in the end, and how they’re going to have to play it. And you know, for me, Far be it for me to go Mike Preston or even Joe Enoch to give mid season report cards. But like, if I were to say to you, grayed out their six, their top 16 players who’ve played on defense this year, would any of them get an A, maybe Hamilton, right? I mean, but like, how many of them have not played to capability, or what we thought they were going to be, or their contract, or where Patrick queen was last year, where Clowney was last year, even where van Noy was last year versus this year, and what Chino stone represented in the depth in the secondary. And I saw Darby running around on Sunday, and I see these other players will see Geno stone on Thursday night. You mean they’re not to mention Mike McDonald, who lost on Sunday and now sits sub 500 has to figure it out. I would just say a lot of missing pieces from what was. Response to what is and not to mention the confusion and what they’re trying to run. And you’re like, let’s simplify the defense to me, that plays into Joe burrows hands, and to some degree, it probably plays into Russell Wilson’s hands too.

8

Luke Jones  20:13

They gave up 38 points to burrow in the first meeting. So, I mean, whatever they did then, it didn’t work. I mean, I hear what you’re saying. I mean, they’ve got to figure they’ve got to figure out a way to be better. But

Nestor Aparicio  20:27

poor card for you, it’s, I’ll get to

Luke Jones  20:32

that in a moment. But, you know, you said advantage bro, Cincinnati can’t stop mediocre offenses. So, I mean, how are they going to stop the ravens, right? So, you know, I still, I’d say advantage ravens overall, but I hear the point you’re making. You know, as far as their look, here’s where I have the issue. Go. Look at their highest paid players on defense, Marcus Williams. I mean, you know, he started on Sunday, and you know, Eddie Jackson was a healthy scratch. I mean, as the safety World Turns. I mean, it seems like everyone’s content to move on. I mean, we did talk to Marcus Williams, and in the locker room, I guess it was Thursday. Thursday, it was and, you know, he was ready to move forward, and he was back in the starting lineup, okay? And to be clear of their internal options, yeah, I’d still rather have him out there than Eddie Jackson, right? Well, he’s

Nestor Aparicio  21:22

8

making a fortune, and Eddie Jackson’s not, right, sure.

Luke Jones  21:25

Well, you have that. I mean, roquan Smith’s not playing like a $20 million linebacker. It’s not, I mean, he’s been a liability in coverage. Now we can talk about how much of that is roquan, how much of that is scheme, and maybe putting him in bad positions. He

Nestor Aparicio  21:39

looks slow or,

Luke Jones  21:40

I mean, it’s just, you know, I mean, but, but this is the prop, but this is also the problem that guys like me who are talking about not disliking roquan Smith, but just the idea of paying an off ball linebacker $20 million a year if he’s not playing at that, and it’s not like he’s one of the worst in the league or anything like that, let’s be Clear, but he’s been closer to being average than that elite guy, especially in pass coverage, then that becomes a value concern. Just namdi Mata BK, I don’t think he’s been bad, but has he been as dominant as he was last year? No of their high priced players on defense. I think the only one who’s played at a high level was Marlon Humphrey and of course, he’s been banged up the last couple weeks. You know, was on a pitch count yesterday, kind of rotating. I think, I think Humphreys played well, and I think pro football, I think pro football focus had him on their mid season, all pro team. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I think he’s played good football, but I

8

Nestor Aparicio  22:37

don’t think burrow comes in here looking to throw at him,

Luke Jones  22:41

yeah, sure. I mean, but he’s got to make it’s Jamar Chase, and we’ll see if T Higgins is available. It’s a challenge, but, but, but to your point, they’ve had some guys that have played well. I thought Travis Jones was before he hurt his ankle, was kind of trending towards being that kind of guy, maybe the next great, or at least very good ravens defensive player, so they need to get him right. I think that’s a that’s a big piece for their pass rush, as much as we’ll talk about the trade deadline this week, whatever happens or doesn’t happen. You know, I think getting Travis Jones right, that’s why it was good to be able to keep him out. He didn’t play a single defensive snap on Sunday, even though he was active. But, yeah, you kind of look at this. I mean, hey, for what he is and for what he’s making, Kyle van Noy has been excellent. But, you know, we’ve seen his pace slow down a little bit here over the last month or so. And I think part of that is he’s 33 and they’re asking them probably to do too much because they don’t trust, you know, a job was a healthy scratch at this point, right? I mean, a decent Isaac’s a healthy scratch, and he’s a third round rookie. I’m not stunned that he hasn’t been playing, but a job, it was supposed to be part of the part of the formula to replace your Davion Clowney this year, and that hasn’t worked out. So, so yeah, you kind of look at this defense top to bottom, and you’ve got guys that are playing well, like Humphrey, like Kyle Hamilton, you know, certainly, but you’ve got other guys, including guys making a lot of money, that haven’t really been carrying the weight that you expect them to carry. So it’s something that they’ve got to figure out. And I’ve seen people make this comment and look, it’s tough for me to push back on it. People have said, how can you not point to the coaching when you have multiple players who have track records of playing at a high level, suddenly not playing at a high level? I think it’s fair to pose that question, and that doesn’t mean it’s 100% on Zach or but hey, a lot they went through a lot of change, and Mike McDonald’s highly, highly regarded, right? There’s a reason why he’s the head coach in Seattle, regardless of the Seahawks record or the state of their defense or anything like that. You know, there’s a reason why he was held in the regard that he was, because he can coach and he knows defense. And let’s face. It the ravens, They chose Zach or right? They could have gone in a different direction there. They could have hired, gone out and hired a more experienced defensive coordinator, but they chose him. So it doesn’t mean it’s a failure, or that it’s not going to work out, or that he’s not going to become a good defensive coordinator, but right now, it’s a lot of questions, right, even after a better performance against Denver, but we’re still talking about a performance against a rookie quarterback who missed some open throws that could have made that game different in that first half. So

Nestor Aparicio  25:29

by the way, Romo was very clear and Nance, because I listened to the broadcast, because you were up in a Kevin Byrne mini sized press box, watching the game up in the corner under the victory arches. I need to, need to point out as well for Roy summer off, and for Bob eller back in the old days, and Kevin Byrne, um, but Romo pointed out that, like they they kept showing peas and, you know, they, they have the camera monkey all the time up in the box. And they pointed out that peas was taking on more responsibilities during the weeks, the last couple of weeks since he came in. And they, they pointed that out twice. And I thought that was kind of an interesting thing that they probably know Dean, he might have been in the meetings, whatever, or that they were just told, like, you know, we need to get some help in here. And the more I see it and feel it and sniff it out from the outside, it is a little unusual?

Luke Jones  26:21

8

Yeah, I mean, it’s, I said it at the time, if they brought Dean peas in on August 5, you barely shrug your shoulders, right? You say, hey, good move. Bring in a former defensive coordinator. He coach sack war. You’ve got a more experienced voice in the room, a more experienced mind. He’s seen it all good, bad and in between. But when you do that after, what was it week five, you know, they did that going into week six, that that’s that’s why I said to you at the time that actually elevated my concern for the state of affairs with their defense. The fact that they did it doesn’t mean it was a wrong move, but it shows you that they recognize this isn’t, this isn’t just a rough start. This is some things aren’t right here. And again, I don’t want to put it on Zach or it’s never just one coach, it’s never just one player. It’s always a pie, right? And you I’ll even hear someone say, hey, Zach, or might be the biggest piece of the reason why, I don’t know. I mean, again, he’s never that. That was the question I asked John Harbaugh at the press conference. Hey, how much of a consideration was it that Zach Gore is not called defensive plays as a coordinator at any level of football, when even Mike McDonald had the one year apprenticeship with Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, you know that he he was an apprentice? I mean, that’s what that ended up being. He he learned his craft and learned it at that level and became a play caller and then applied that, you know, coming back to the Ravens. So, you know, I mean, we’re going to see and to hear that. I can’t say I’m shocked. You know, Zach, we’re still calling the plays. But is Dean peas having a bigger role as far as between Monday and then one o’clock on Sunday. Well, I don’t think they brought him in to just have a free lunch and just watch things and and interject from time to time. I think they brought him in to say, hey, this, we need this to get better. And, you know, we like Zach, but he might need a little help. And Zach, or said as much. He said he wanted to bring in Dean Pease. You know, I don’t think this was a case where, even if John Harbaugh, or whoever might have brought it up first, even if it was brought up initially by someone else, I think Zach Gore embraced this because I think, I don’t think he’s a guy who has ego. I think he wants things to get right and

Nestor Aparicio  28:39

but by the way, Jim Caldwell was not brought in to run the offense until he did, right? Sure,

Luke Jones  28:44

sure. And look, I mean, this is a team that’s ready to this is super bowl ready as Super Bowl ready as it gets. We’ve been taught, and it’s been that way, right? I mean, it’s why January has been so disappointing in these parts, because we know what this team has been ready to do and they just got to go do it. You know, the offense is playing better than ever. Lamar Jackson’s playing better than ever. Sitting

Nestor Aparicio  29:06

there, they beat the snot out of the team that was winning football games, but beat him by 41 right? Or 41 to 10. So, right, but, but the

8

Luke Jones  29:14

point is, you better not let the defense of all things be the reason why you don’t win in January, right? Be the reason why you don’t get over the hump against Patrick the

Nestor Aparicio  29:23

defense let Lamar down. Yeah, exactly. You can’t have that happen. So yeah, the way it always let Peyton Manning down in the early days. In the way it never let Tom Brady down, right? Yeah. I mean, look,

Luke Jones  29:34

you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta have everyone pulling their weight. And, yeah, the offense is doing the heaviest lifting right now, and that’s it. Can do the heaviest lifting all year. That’s fine. That’s how special I think that offense is right now, and they just need to stay healthy, right? I mean, they just need to keep beginning with your quarterback, which is applies for everyone, but you know, their core players need to stay healthy. If they do No. One’s going to stop this offense, the best you can do is to slow it down a little bit. That’s why I keep coming back to this defense. However you do it, you know what? You and I, you know, disagree a little bit on the philosophy. You know, maybe you go more conservative. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just need to figure out the things that you’ve done well in the past and figure out how to do them now. But whatever it is, that’s the group that obviously needs to elevate, right? That’s the group that needs to be better. You know, it’s great to say you can stop the run, but stopping the run only gets you so far. In 2024 it’s just the truth. You need to stop the pass. You’ve got to be able to pressure the quarterback, and you’ve got to cover on the back end at a much higher level than what we’ve seen from this group overall. So Sunday was a step in the right direction, albeit against an offense that’s not very good. Bo Nicks did some nice things, but he also showed you why he’s a rookie, and they don’t exactly have a ton of personnel. That scares you, but 10 points allowed is 10 points allowed, and it sure beat what happened in Cleveland the week before. So we’ll see what they do Thursday night. You hope. You hope the fact that they saw borough, and even with all the issues they had against the Bengals back in week five, you hope that that helps them come up with some some answers to at least slow things down, get a couple more stops, not give up 38 points again. But I think we’re all expecting, while acknowledging it’s Thursday night and understanding that that can lead to some ugly football. I think we’re all expecting a shootout here, right? I don’t think anyone’s expecting a defensive struggle from either of these teams at this point in time. So let’s see what this defense can do in terms of maybe having a few more answers, a few more ways to slow down Joe burrow, because Mike McDonald had his number, right? I mean, that’s something we talked about for those two years. How much the Bengals the ravens, made things so difficult for them to drive the football the length of the football field. And that was not the case back in week five. So we’ll see what happens Thursday night. But again, a performance at least allowed them to feel better about themselves than they had the week before. And at the very least, they needed that knowing what kind of challenge the Bengals can pose to them.

Nestor Aparicio  32:13

Here’s Luke. John sees Baltimore. Luke, he’s going to be in and out between now and Thursday night the the Bengals. Quick turnaround here, quick game. Some point I’m going to shave. We’re going to have some Maryland lottery scratch offs and the Raven scratch offs to give away. That’s part of our Maryland crab cake tour. We’re getting back out. We’ll be at State Fair. We’re going to be Cooper’s north. I’ve already got a date for Coco’s in the holiday December 4. We’re going to be at the Gertrude on December 5, with Dan Rodricks talking about his show over at the BMA with family, John shields, my my cousin John shields, the great chef. On the 12th of December, we’re going to be at fadelies and then the 19th, excuse me, the 18th. Now we’re going to be a casus. I think Gina shocks going to be joining us over there. All of it brought to you by friends at Jiffy Lube multi care. They get Luke back and forth out to Owings Mills as well. In this short week, also our Maryland oyster tour, very much underway. And you can follow all of that with our friends at Liberty, pure solutions. One 800 clean water. I keep the water here on the set all the time, and they make the well water clean as well. They’re great plumbers, as well as our friends at curio wellness and far and daughter. We try to always educate folks about the research being done in the cannabis space. Stop by far and daughter, you can learn about a lot of things, including this incredible move product that keeps me and my back moving around, and it does not get you loopy or anything weird like that. I swear it’s an interesting plant. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore, Luke and I can have a lot of football ahead. We got a lot of election ad, and you’ll hear some archival stuff here in regard to presidential elections and in regard to baseball, as well as the Orioles. Dust off here in early November. I don’t know what we’re expecting, but we’re expecting something back for more Baltimore positive. Stay with us.