Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Ravens’ ugly 22-19 overtime loss to the Colts and the many squandered opportunities and mistakes that cost the men of Harbaugh the game.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
play, game, week, ravens, indianapolis, sunday, mistakes, ball, injuries, lamar jackson, offense, field, pass, orioles, lost, team, cincinnati, gave, backup quarterback, players
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back W and S T, Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive it is it’s gonna be quite a month around here the Maryland lottery sponsors our Maryland crabcake tour but here’s the problem I I’ve had some scheduling difficulties this week, not knowing if the Orioles are playing wild card games and LDS games so it’s a little bit on hiatus we’re gonna get some crab cakes in here in October. I’m waiting on the settling of all things calendar for our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends at window nation 866 90 nation and of course Jiffy Lube, our newest sponsor as as we turn the week here, Orioles, ravens ravens Orioles certainly for one Sunday, the Ravens had a chance to beat the Colts had lots of chance to beat the Colts on Sunday. It did not happen in the end a very very unlikely outcome on a really strange day with weather and rain and 50 yard plus field goals all over the place. Matt gay outpointing Justin Tucker at the end Luke Jones here to talk about and he will be monitoring all things Orioles all week long as we get a clinch Miss around here at home maybe against the Nationals probably against the Red Sox. Look what a week and what a strange Sunday tickets for 10 bucks people didn’t want to go to the game. It was rainy out. And then you know the Ravens sort of slept enough long enough to lose the game and I stand shocked that they lost the football game on Sunday look. Well, it’s a
Luke Jones 01:30
reminder to everyone that it’s a week to week League. We forget it every year right around this time and after week one where the Ravens were unimpressive for the most part offensively they go to Cincinnati down so many starters and they play so well. Right. I mean, they beat the Bengals and the offense, the passing game Lamar Jackson, everything looked as advertised as hyped over the course of the spring in the summer with the new offense under Todd Monken. And I would disagree that it was sleepy, they came out and started fast. They looked like a continuation from Cincinnati over the first couple drives, you know, touchdown on the opening drive for a second straight week. They’re marching down the field Lamar Jackson completes passes to mark Andrews and Kenyan Drake just resigned to the practice squad. And lo and behold, he coughs up the football just outside the red zone from that point in time. The offense which started so fast, then it went into whatever you want to call it sleep sloppy, whatever. It just wasn’t very good for most of the remainder of the game, save for a touchdown drive. And, you know, they were able to get a field goal. But I mean, they it was ugly after the after that first what first 15 plays I think they gained 133 yards. I mean, they did move the ball. Well, Lamar Lamar
Nestor Aparicio 02:56
was 10 for 10 Start the game, right? Yeah, yeah, but,
Luke Jones 02:59
but, but that fumble I mean, it really changed things. I mean, I was thinking at that point in time, as as Kenyan Drake, catches the short pass and runs for 20 Some yards. At that point time, I’m starting to think this game is looking much more like a blowout than what we ultimately got. And that fumble changed everything. And that’s not to say that there weren’t critical and pivotal plays and mistakes and shortcomings and breakdowns with offense defense to a lesser degree, but not like it was a perfect defensive performance by any means. Special teams once again, that’s left something to be desired and just an absolute coaching snafu with what happened after the safety with no one alerting ze flowers to not make a fair catch and essentially give the Colts an extra timeout right before the two minute warning there. So I mean, there was plenty of blame to go around. But as you pointed out, I mean, this was a game the Ravens should have won. This is a game that considering the elements while it wasn’t a monsoon by any stretch of the imagination, and the rain mostly subsided after that opening quarter. Which team looked like the team that you know wasn’t wasn’t used to playing in the elements. The Ravens were the team that put the ball on the ground multiple times and didn’t do well. Whereas Indianapolis for the most part took pretty good care of the football and you want
Nestor Aparicio 04:24
a backup quarterback to I mean exactly the part for me in the beginning of the game it felt like Indianapolis is going to struggle to get a first down felt like they weren’t gonna move the I mean the Ravens defense can be pesky especially if they get after you if if you’re not past blocking against this group specifically, and McDonald drawn up let me call Hamilton had a career day right? You know if you can get a special player like that loose to be a game record called Hamilton wreck their game at various points and they still lost it like I’m still scratching my head about All of it, but certainly the coaching decisions leaving the three seconds on the clock that created a second timeout not getting a first down when they needed a first down late in the game, and then sort of the the aftermath of the injuries continuing to pile up. I don’t know how close we are to getting Marlon Marlon Humphrey back I don’t know where we really are with Stanley or Linder balm or Odell Beckham but now you can add Rashad Bateman to that list you can add Gus Edwards to that list. And part of this is you have to there to one right and to your point they play great on the road against the big Division team now there and I wrote this in my column this week a column this about three being the magic number three seconds left the Orioles magic numbers three, right. They’re gone for three weeks. I mean, they’re they’re playing the biggest of big games division row games like these are the ones that make or break you. As we found out we played Tampa last weekend, there’s a two game swing when you play each other right. And this next month, they’re going to be away and the Orioles are really going to own the stage here eight days a week until they’re eliminated or until they win a World Series. We’ve really never been through this. I saw everybody buying tickets last week. And how much did I add to tickets up on my screen? I’m like, am I giving them 600 bucks today, not today, maybe four weeks from now if I feel it for Game Six. But the the Ravens send off in this on sort of a sleepy day with a lot of empty seats, people watching the baseball game, you’re watching the beam. We’re all sort of watching the baseball and that’s the weird part. For me. The weird part for me is caring more about the baseball game than the football game for like maybe the first time ever, and sort of to some degree this thinking like they’ll figure it out and they’ll win and you look up and you’re like, oh my god they lost or not three in Oh, and now they got to go on the right it changes the trajectory of the season what happened to them. But more than that three on the road anytime and arose a lot now they might come back five and two. I mean, they’re good enough pass rush can get there the quarterbacks all world, but who’s gonna play I mean, like, they’re they’re really as injured as they’ve ever, ever ever been. It’s at the end of September. I mean, they gotta get healthy if they’re gonna be any good at all this year.
Luke Jones 07:15
I mean, the one thing I would beg to differ a little bit about injured as ever. It’s not as though they’ve lost so many guys the season ending injuries. I mean, two years ago, they look how many guys they lost before the guys on the field just this week, not guys are selling for the year. No, I understand that. But I’m just but I’m not comparing this year to two years ago, when you look at the magnitude of players they had already lost for the entire season. The one saving grace with what they’re dealing with right now. Is there not dealing with a number of long term or season ending injuries? Okay? They’ve lost Dobbins, they’ve lost our Darius Washington. I get it. Marlon Humphrey has been out since mid August. He’s close to coming back. Now, I don’t know if that’s going to be in Cleveland or Pittsburgh, let’s say. But the point is, the rest of these injuries are of the nagging variety. But I’m glad you brought it up. Because part of what we need to remember here, you’re never as great as you look in your best performance. And you’re never as bad as you look in your worst performance. And I think this was a reminder again, of it being a week to week League, everything that went so well in Cincinnati a week ago. Okay. They’re not that great. Yet. Everything that went poorly on Sunday, specifically, I mean, I put most of it on the offense. Again, the defense gave up too much on the ground, no doubt about that. But still, they gave up 19 points in regulation. I mean, you still can’t fault that too much, even though it was a backup quarterback, as you mentioned, but it took 54 of them to get there. Exactly. And it was a reminder of what it’s like to place another team that has a kicker who can do things like Justin Tucker does on a regular basis. I mean, the Ravens have been the benefactor of that for over a decade now. And they were on the other side of it for once. Yeah. And defensively when
Nestor Aparicio 08:59
you’re like on fourth and something from the 30 or 40 something yard line. Defensively, you’ve done a pretty good job. But I mean, like, right, I
Luke Jones 09:08
mean, it’s not the same thing. You know, I wouldn’t call that a win over and over and over. But it’s not this bad loss. It’s not as though Wow, they just marched 80 yards on us again. I mean, it wasn’t really like that, but I’m glad you pointed it out. And this is where we need to recognize this team’s really banged up to hurt. They had multiple starters out last week and they played so well. And they had showed such impressive metal. But the reality is, they were even more injured this week. And then they lost some guys over the course of the game. I mean, David Ajab only played a few snaps. They were leaning on a rookie, you know and TV is Robinson and a former practice squad player in Jeremiah moon in their outside linebacker rotation. I mean, that’s just not ideal, even against Indianapolis, even against Gardner Minshew. So that’s not an excuse and look, they made too many Miss mistakes. They had self inflicted errors that cost them dearly and ever We face the game at different points in time over the course of 60 minutes. But we can’t just be dismissive and say, Well, next man up next man up next man up, I’ve said to you for years, you get to a point with next man up that it’s little more than T shirt slogan, when you’re talking about missing as many starters as they miss. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 10:16
saw 95 run around, I’m like, Who the hell was that? And I guess, you know, since chat took my press pass, I don’t have a flip card I had, who’s 95 I mean, like, and I, that’s when 95 is making plays out there running around in week three, you have to say this was not the plan. This is not the way this was drawn up four weeks ago, and training, you
Luke Jones 10:36
know, and again, it’s not to give them a full pass, but it is part of the conversation here. Right? I mean, you you’re only going to endure so much. Now, I’ll point out unlike the last couple years at the end of 2021, where they had the losing streak, and last year, they did have their franchise quarterback on the field. And we saw Lamar Jackson running the ball and making magic with his feet. But the passing game while the completion percentage was good, they didn’t push the ball down the field, they didn’t really push the ball downfield much at all. And that’s something that we saw last week. And that’s something that, you know, they they were efficient and they were able to push the ball down the field and they were able to make plays through the air and I get it you’re not going to certainly the elements were not in line for Lamar to have a 350 yard for touchdown passing day but they didn’t do a whole lot especially after those first two drives when you know the second one was short circuited with the Drake fumble but yeah, you just look at and I kind of begin with the offensive line here. They held up so well against Cincinnati they played so well. Without Ronnie Stanley and Tyler Linder bomb. And, you know, we talked about it. I know I talked about it with Dennis previewing Sunday’s game. That’s that’s a cold front that is pretty good. At defensive line linebackers as much as you kind of view Indianapolis through the lens of okay, they have a rookie quarterback and a new head coach. And they’re coming off of this lousy year. It’s not as though the cupboard was entirely bear with certain positions now, do they need some more skilled talent on either side of the ball, whether you’re talking about wide receiver tight end, running backs, although Zack Moss had a really impressive day, and on the flip side, their secondary has nothing to write home about. In fact, a guy that was listed as a starting corner under a depth chart was a healthy scratch. He was benched for Sunday. So it kind of shows you where they are there. But three out is the Colts more so than your typical team picking in the top five and drafting a quarterback. Now it’s not as though they were completely devoid of talent. Now that said, the Ravens still should have won the football game, even with their injuries. And that’s where we go back to how this game completely changed and shifted after the Drake fumble. I mean, they just they had good mojo going early in the game, you know, of course two punts, opening drive touchdown, they’re moving again approaching the red zone, you turn the ball over, and they never really recovered from that, you know, they not to say that they were blown out or anything like that, of course, but they just they didn’t find that same level of play the rest of the way, certainly on offense. And defense. As we said they gave up a little too much on the ground. No question about that. It’s a cautionary
Nestor Aparicio 13:18
tale. You left a bad team with a backup quarterback on a rainy day, you gave them hope. You gave them the football, you made mistakes. You missed opportunities, you threw behind receivers all day, you put the ball on the carpet, you did everything you could do to allow them to kick a 60 yard field goal and beat you.
Luke Jones 13:40
Yeah, coaching mistakes. Punt coverage was not good on a number of occasions. occasions Jordan stout for as, as well as he punted at times, at a pretty lousy punt at a bad time late in the game. So I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 13:54
and mistakes the Colts made not fielding the ball. I mean, just there were there were a lot of mental mistakes. I’ll tell you one thing Gus Bradley, I mean, didn’t appoint himself great as a head coach and the situation he was in, but, you know, as a coordinator and putting a game plan together to run around with, you know, mediocre talent, Chase Lamar Jackson around all day and say, All right, they don’t have Dobbins, they don’t have back home. Look out, Bateman’s not in there. They don’t have their left tackle. They don’t have their center. They’re trying to use the fullback as a pinball. And sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn’t work. But it felt like the Ravens didn’t have a lot of dimensions for the offense to that degree to be able to go down the field to be able to do what they wanted to do. And this should be troublesome that this unit sort of shut them down in this way. And the trouble for me is seeing mCherry get get turnstiles a couple of times the center snap exchange on a wet day. It only takes one you know, one mistake by the center one mistake by the quarterback one mistake by the running back. You’ve got three fumbles and you’ve got a problem. against the bad team.
Luke Jones 15:01
Yeah, I mean, and I’ll say what I just said. I mean, this is a good front. I mean it is if you didn’t recognize that you’re not paying attention. I’m not saying you I’m saying in general, I mean, DeForest Buckner is a multi Time Pro Bowl player, Grover Stewart, their nose tackle is an accomplished player, Queenie pay. Not saying he’s an all pro but coming off the edge and you have Shaquille Leonard at linebacker, a guy who’s become a household name, and you know, kind of was forgotten last year because of a back injury and only played a few games. So this was not a front seven to take lightly. And I don’t think the Ravens took them lightly up front, I think the offensive lines banged up and missing arguably, its two best offensive lineman that they were able to overcome that and play really well in Cincinnati, not so much this week. So again, you come back to the injuries, and areas where you think it’s going to be a strength, and it ended up being a big struggle for them. And you throw in some blitzing. And some pressures that were dialed up that Lamar Jackson in this Oh, line, couldn’t handle on that front. And you put the ball on the ground multiple times. I mean, again, this game looked like it was rapidly heading towards 14, nothing late in the first quarter or midway through the first quarter. And it changed after that. And they want to put the ball on the ground three more times over their next seven or eight snaps, whatever it was, I mean, you can’t do that. And, and you’re the home team, right? You’re the team that’s used to play it outdoors. You’re playing a dome team.
Nestor Aparicio 16:24
You know that that if I told you last week they lost to the Colts on Monday, you’d say they turned the ball over? Sure. That’d be the only way to lose. Yeah, I
Luke Jones 16:32
mean, that’s that’s typically when you’re when you’re facing an inferior opponent on paper. At home. That’s typically how it’s going to happen. Especially you know, that maybe a special teams return touchdown, something along those lines, a couple weird things to happen. And, and again, this is where we need to have the proper perspective, as much as there’s always the mindset that the sky is falling, when you lose a football game of this nature. Indianapolis needed for field goals of 53 plus yards to beat the Ravens on Sunday. Let’s keep that in mind. If Matt Kay misses one of those. We’re having a different conversation where we’re saying it was ugly, wasn’t a whole lot to write home about survived. It certainly wasn’t going to be the game that headline headlines the highlight video for the 2023 season. But we survived. problem was they just they made too many mistakes. And it’s where you do give Indianapolis credit where they made some big plays and their kicker headlining that list of big plays when you’re talking about, you know, a team that scored 22 points, but five field goals to do it. Again, this is kind of maybe not so much the Ravens of the Lamar era. But when you go back to the second half, you know, the post, Super Bowl 47 Joe Flacco era, this is how the Ravens won a lot of games, right? I mean, they kick a lot of field goals, and they play defense and, you know, their offense, made some plays, but wasn’t great. You know, I mean, Indianapolis kind of in some ways beat the Ravens that what the Ravens pride themselves in doing, you know, they ran the ball, and their, their kicker had an all world kind of day. So that’s not to say that anyone should be happy about this. And certainly the Ravens. They were shell shocked. And I know numerous players from Lamar Jackson to Kyle Hamilton kind of said, Hey, this shouldn’t come down to Matt game making a field goal a 53 yard field going overtime, you know, we had our chances, and we didn’t put the game the game away. And you know, whether it was mistakes, or even with the defense, where I would say that was a wasn’t a poor defensive performance. But did they make the big play to end it? At any point, you know, that the safety kind of felt like it was going to be right. I mean, that kind of fell. I think if you had asked if you would polled fans in the stadium, or anyone watching at home, nine out of 10 would have said ballgame right there. I think that that’s how it felt in the moment. But all it really did was precede a number of mistakes that they made from coaching to the offense doing absolutely nothing after that. And then the defense, you know, they gave up a couple big plays, you know, a couple runs, you know, the long play downfield, Regino stone got banged up, where, you know, it’s just a phenomenal catch. But the Ravens didn’t make that play to seal the game, you know, Indianapolis did, so give them credit. And it is back to the drawing board. But again, we cannot look at this list of injuries right now. And not acknowledge that’s a major part of the issue right now. I mean, it is and that’s they still should have won Sunday. Let me be clear. For anyone listening, I repeat, they still shouldn’t want on Sunday. But when you look at the list of injuries that they had that’s continuing to grow on a weekly basis. I mean, they need to get healthy and again, regardless of me saying that they’re not of the season ending variety. You said it, I mean, they have three straight road games. Cleveland looks pretty good so far. I get it, that they’re the browns and no one likes to Shaun Watson and I don’t care for me either.
Nestor Aparicio 19:55
Did you see that pass backwards pass that he threw the Morpher one left hand that out of bounds. So I, I don’t know what these guys get paid to take care of the ball. Like, it’s unbelievable decisions that are made as they’re getting sacked what they do with the football and the Watson throwing the ball backwards thing was like, oh my god, I mean, it’s I’ve seen guys do careers and not do that, ever.
Luke Jones 20:22
Yeah, but Cleveland looks pretty good. And yeah, the ravens are gonna have their hands full go into Cleveland and forget about Watson, their defenses played really well. I mean, that’s been a really good defensive start. So what have we seen from the Ravens offense? Two or three weeks? One, week one, choppy? Week two, excellent. Week three, good start. And then after that, it was way more bad than good. So, you know, what’s their identity on offense? Well, it starts with you need to get Ronnie Stanley and Tyler Tyler Lindenbaum back and no offense to Patrick mCherry. No offense to say Mustafa, they filled in admirably and weak to their their quality backup players, but their backup players and you need your $20 million left tackle out there. Unfortunately, we’ve been saying that a lot for four years now, you know, four plus years now. And they need their their first round center back out there. We’ll see if it happens this week. You know, I again, I don’t think that these are injuries that are going to go on for many weeks after where we are right now. But it hurt them on Sunday. There’s no doubt about that. And as I said, you know, you can talk about next man up, you can talk about your depth. You’ve got to play clean football, when you have backups on the field and you’re lacking in certain positions. And there were just way too many self inflicted mistakes from turnovers to coaching errors. I mean, let’s just call it what it was. I mean, this is a team that John Harbaugh talks about this in a very generic way, you know, at the end of a win that might not be the most aesthetically pleasing. What will he say? We played winning football and that’s what matters. The Ravens didn’t play winning football on Sunday, and they ended up losing as a result. Here’s Luke
Nestor Aparicio 22:03
Jones, you could find him in Owings Mills all week long to a double duty as we get clenched fists together around your week. It’s really weird because like when we used to be able to take phone calls, people would call and talk about whatever they wanted. Now you sort of either go down the orange path or the purple path, and certainly the orange path is paved a little better here and certainly much more in focus in the next couple of weeks as the importance of what the Orioles are trying to do as the Ravens quietly go off to Cleveland and play for three hours on Sunday and quietly go off to Pittsburgh and play for three hours and then very quietly sneak off to London with some fans playing at 930 in the morning. We’re gonna be in Hollywood casino in Perry Ville. for that. For really my 55th birthday is October 14. It’s the morning of the 15th nice and early proper British breakfast we’ll get you up Berryville that day for the Titans game. Also our Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery in conjunction with wind donation 866 90 nation and our newest friends at Jiffy Lube are getting that back on the road. I’ll be giving you more details on that I’m trying to figure out don’t think we’re gonna be a wildcard I think Luke and I might be going on the road with the alts either to Tampa or Toronto or Texas or Houston or Seattle or it could be anywhere though. The West is truly the wild wild west so as I was watching the ravens and trying to keep an eye on the Orioles, I’m scoreboard watching the rays and the Blue Jays so quite a week we have around here it is our 25th anniversary the cupcake out front should tell you that that is all brought to you by curio wellness and our friends at far and daughter talking about cannabis education. We’ve had Wendy brown fine on this week. But also this top 25 countdown we’re number 24 our barn shows legendary barn shares later this week. We’re going to be celebrating 25 years of community service money we’ve raised for Ed block and juvenile diabetes and there goes my hero in all sorts of great causes it canned food drives and code drives will be stacking all that up as we pride ourselves a little bit here 25 years into this thing looks doing a great job doing double duty. I am in the cockpit for all things check out my column this this week on the magic three and the magic three a 50 yard field goals on Sunday on Nestor he’s Luke stay with us continuing coverage of all things Orioles and ravens and Baltimore positive. We are wn st am 1570 Towson Baltimore with fresh liners from Andy Mueller. That makes me chuckle
