The New Orleans Saints left the Baltimore Ravens a little Shough up on a Monday morning after a weird goal line stand with the game on the line. Luke Jones and Nestor pick up the pieces from a brutal home loss and the culpability for many mistakes with the new coaching staff of Jesse Minter.

The discussion concluded that the Ravens’ 1–1 loss to the Saints resulted from breakdowns across offense, defense, special teams, coaching, and execution rather than one isolated mistake.

Game Assessment

• Luke and Nestor agreed the Ravens should have won but deserved the loss after failing to finish in the fourth quarter.
• New Orleans received credit for converting third downs, limiting explosive plays, and making key plays late.
• The Ravens’ strongest concern was defensive performance on third down, including missed tackles and difficulty containing Tyler Shuck and Chris Olave.

Remaining Questions

• Can the Ravens improve their offensive line depth and replace the production lost with Zay Flowers and Ronnie Stanley unavailable?
• Will the new coaching staff eliminate recurring late-game problems, or will the team’s longstanding habits continue?
• Can the Ravens’ top players make high-leverage plays when games are decided?

• Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour at State Fair in Catonsville on Thursday morning. (@Nestor Aparicio)
• Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour at Pizza John’s next Friday, October 2. (@Nestor Aparicio)
• Record and publish baseball discussion content on Thursday, including conversations with Casper Wells and Alan McCallum at State Fair. (@Nestor Aparicio)

Goal-Line Decision

• The final goal-line ruling was debated, but the ball did not clearly cross the plane.
• The officials’ failure to review the earlier third-down goal-line play was also questioned.

Team Breakdowns

• The Ravens struggled on third down, including several conversions in long-yardage situations.
• Special teams allowed a long return before halftime, and Tyler Loop’s field goal was blocked.
• The offense gained field position late but produced only 27 yards on 12 plays.

Coaching And Accountability

• Jesse Minter’s challenge and defensive calls were criticized, while Declan Doyle’s third-and-one deep pass was questioned.
• The broader conclusion was that coaching changes did not automatically remove the Ravens’ recurring late-game execution problems.

Personnel Impact

• Missing Zay Flowers reduced the offense’s big-play ability.
• Ronnie Stanley’s injury and limited receiver depth increased pressure on Lamar Jackson and the offensive line.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Tallis in Baltimore. It is Baltimore positive. We are positively into the week. We’re going to be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour at State Fair in Catonsville on Thursday morning. We are at Pizza John’s next Friday on October the second. Hope the Ravens are over 500 by the time we get there, all of it brought to you by friends at GBMC and the Maryland Lotter. We have the Ravens Kiss Face Birds to give away, and our Kissers number 28 in our 28th anniversary countdown of rock and roll bands. And it is a special day today, I must say. It is september 21, which is the night that Earth, Wind, and Fire wrote about. By the way, and on the 22nd of September is my son’s birthday, but the 21st of September is the 20th anniversary of Free the Birds. It’s 20 years ago today. For all of you that walked out with us, some of you who ignored us and disparaged us, I was still right. They had kind of a lousy weekend down at this place, and there was some traffic and commotion and other things in the aftermath of the Ravens home opener. Luke Jones was on the scene at the bank, as they say. Although we’re about to have a new bank sponsor around here, which I’m probably going to be telling you about, dude. I read your aftermath on Sunday night. I mean, you’re meaner than even I want to be, and I just I’m gonna let you go because like same old Ravens. I mean, even Minter in the aftermath sort of wrote the post script before Chad Steele pulled him off the off the podium after four minutes and 25 seconds to just basically say, oh yeah, I know what you guys are gonna say and write because this has happened to this group of people and John Harbaugh get his own ass beating on Monday night out in L.A. like his brother did on Sunday, but this has nothing to do with any of that at this point. And the bad call at the goal line, which I mean, the face mask aside, the ball never crossed the plane of the goal line.

Luke Jones 1:56
I mean, I can’t be upset about that. Roquan Smith tried to tried to rip Tyler Shuck’s head off. I mean, if that’s ruled not a touchdown, everyone’s talking about the face mask. And quite frankly, I didn’t really touch on this in my postgame column, but I kind of thought he was in on third and goal from the one, right? Like I couldn’t believe they didn’t look at that, right? So weird sequence. They got to chip the ball,

Nestor Aparicio 2:20
by the way, and I wrote that in the third quarter. You know when the when the Ravens got an advantage, or I don’t remember what it was. It’s fourth and inches, and I’m like, like they got to chip the ball. I mean, there’s no there’s no question about it, right? I mean,

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Luke Jones 2:32
do they do they have the technology to really do that yet, though? I mean, I that sounds great, and I hear you, but are we really sure that they’re ready for that? Well, right. Once

Nestor Aparicio 2:41
the knee is down, where the ball is, is still going to be disputed. Right, right. And that’s and that’s kind

Luke Jones 2:45
of my question in the big picture sense. I mean, look, dude, we’ve had home runs go over to

Nestor Aparicio 2:51
foul pole, and they can’t figure it out. Exactly, exactly.

Luke Jones 2:53
So, so we have technology. We need better technology. I, I don’t think he was across the goal line there. I don’t feel sorry for this football team. I mean, I don’t start with that. Go ahead. And I’ve been called an a hole in the after match, which my wife really appreciates too. By the way, but like it’s amazing when they lose and people are drunk. How I mean, I people get me upset. I mean, I and I don’t think I was mean. Look, I don’t. I don’t think the season’s over. I. I don’t think this means Jesse Minter’s a failure. I don’t think this means Declan Doyle doesn’t know what he he’s doing. I mean, like none of that. All I really wrote was old habits die hard. And looking at this through a big picture lens, it probably was a little unrealistic to first of all think this team. Anyone who thought this team was going to go undefeated, you know, and I mean that’s right off the bat, and that’s the NFL, right? I mean, my goodness, look no further than the Chicago Bears. What they look like in week one compared to week two, right? It’s a reminder of it being a week-to-week league. But I think it really just, for me, it comes down to you’ve had this DNA, and as much as in these parts we’ve talked about, Bengals gonna bungle, Browns going to Browns, Ravens are gonna Raven, and it’s been that way for a long time, right? Here in Marlin,

Nestor Aparicio 4:17
you better hope Jesse Minter doesn’t get wind of that the way Tomlin, you know, and monkeying ravens, raven.

Luke Jones 4:24
It’s not. It’s not like it’s just Jesse Minter. I mean, it’s something that’s gone on for a long time, right? And that’s, and I guess my point is, it was probably unrealistic to think that all of those old habits conveniently go away because your longtime head coach is no longer in town, right? And it’s a reminder, and and this was something that we talked about at various times. And you know, I said this. I thought it was time to move on from John Harbaugh, but I’m also going to wholeheartedly reject that all the Ravens issues were because of John Harbaugh and Sunday. They validated that idea. That said, it’s not as though they blew a four-touchdown lead in this game. It’s not as though they had completely dominated the New Orleans Saints over the first three quarters. Were they winning? Yes. Were they winning the entire time? Yes. Should they have won the football game? Absolutely yes. But as I wrote in my 12 Ravens thoughts going into the game, and you can go and read this word for word in my prediction column, and I picked them to win. I picked them to win 30 to 17. I

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Nestor Aparicio 5:32
picked them to win big just because I I thought they were better than they are, and obviously without without some players, no doubt. And and that’s absolutely they’re missing some players, man. There’s no question.

Luke Jones 5:41
Zayflowers not being out there. You saw it limited their big playability. They’re still missing Nomdi Matabike or the idea of Namdi Matabike, right? And we talked about that throughout the 2025 season. But here was my comment as I was laying out why I thought the Ravens were going to win, and I thought they were going to win 30 to 17. I was wrong. Not the first time won’t be the last time, but here’s what I note. I noted in the midst of making that prediction. That said, this is the kind of sneaky early season game in which the Ravens would too frequently play with their food and lose in the final years of the John Harbaugh era, and New Orleans proved capable of erasing a 21-point deficit only last week. Give the Saints a lot of credit. I mean, Tyler Shock for a second-year quarterback, and look, he’s a strange case study because he’s so old and was in college so long. I mean, he’s he’s at his second year yet. I think he’s getting ready to turn 26 or 26, yeah, he might be

Nestor Aparicio 6:43
decent. I mean, that might be McKellen more. Better than kind of bank on him. I mean, he might be okay. He might be Jake Delhomme, kind of good enough, or or Sam Darnold, maybe better than that. You know, like in the end, I mean,

Luke Jones 6:56
he’s going to be 27 years old in a week, so he needs to be good because because there’s not this isn’t a 21 year old. But I looked up at one

Nestor Aparicio 7:02
point. He was 15 and 19, completing passes, keeping them in the dude. He, they won. Sure, they won. I’m not giving them credit.

Luke Jones 7:09
And and Chris Olave, the only thing that’s held held him back in his career is injuries, and he’s had concussion issues. I mean, you see, he wears a guardian cap. I mean, all that. But by the

Nestor Aparicio 7:19
way, why don’t they all wear that? That’s for another day, but keep going. You know, you’re on concussion. Yeah, if it’s that much better for him, but nonetheless, keep going.

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Luke Jones 7:27
They all have a choice to make, and they make those choices. But I, I think you, you look at Chris Olave and the kind of player that he’s been when he’s been healthy in his career, and the Ravens didn’t really have any answers for him, right? I mean, you Marlon Humphrey

Nestor Aparicio 7:41
did, you know. I mean, right?

Luke Jones 7:43
Well, not just. I mean, no one did. They had what their secondary, I think, combined for one pass defense. I mean, that’s they didn’t get their hands on any footballs, really. I mean, that’s that’s really a big part of the day story there. I mean, and obviously Jesse Minter calls the defense, so he’s got to own that. But you you just look at this game, and there were breakdowns across the board at various times that cost them the football game. And for me, I looked no bigger sequence in my mind than late in the third quarter when they get two sacks, they force a three and out. Right, they got off the field on third down, which they struggled to do throughout the game, and the the raven, you know, it’s it’s a bad punt. The Ravens get the ball at the New Orleans 49. At that point in time, they’re leading 17 nine with just a little bit of time left in the third quarter. I mean, that was the moment where you thought, okay, you know, whether you’re going to lean into Derrick Henry, whether you’re going to have a a little bit of play action, whatever you’re going to try to do there, this is your opportunity to not end the game right there, but seize full control of the game going into the fourth quarter. And instead, they went backwards. I mean, just went. I mean, they might as well have taken the ball and just sprinted backwards over the course of the first few plays of that drive. That’s also when Ronnie Stanley left the game, and I thought that was notable as well. But from that point on, when they took over at the New Orleans 49 and led 17-9 late in the third quarter, from that point on, their defense allowed two touchdown drives on the Saints’ last two drives, not counting when they got the ball, you know, to for the final knee kneel down, and their offense, 12 plays for 27 yards. Now, that doesn’t mean the special teams is absolved because, of course, we remember in the second quarter, Tyler Loop’s field goal blocked, and then when the Ravens, who I thought did a fantastic job of threading the needle at the end of that first half, where they score a touchdown and they leave just 24 seconds on the clock. I mean, that’s that’s what you want. That’s exactly what you want. You know, okay, in a perfect world, you score with no time left in the first half, but you understand what we’re talking about here. You don’t want to leave a bunch of time on the clock, and they didn’t. But then they give up. A long kick return, and allow the Saints, you know, defense sudden change situation. Not an easy position for them to be in, because I mean, I’m guessing some of those guys. I think I even looked at Marlon Humphrey. I’m not sure even had his gloves thrown. I think some of these guys had even taken off some of their gloves and pads, you know, arm pads and whatnot, thinking it was halftime, because you can’t give up a long kick return there, but so so there. Well, there’s your first

Nestor Aparicio 10:24
Ray Lewis play 60 minutes, not 59. You know, taking your gloves off and you can’t go play. That’s crazy. No, that’s crazy

Luke Jones 10:32
though. That is. You’re missing my point though. The point is the new the special teams there is what completely broke down. Kick the ball out of the end zone there, even if they get it at the 35. I’m guessing New Orleans is much more inclined there to just take a knee. And I’m not. I’m not saying everyone took off their pads. I looked at Marlon Humphrey. I saw he didn’t have gloves on. Marlon sometimes doesn’t wear gloves. Also, there are other games. So I, I’ll retract that because I don’t know that for sure. And that’s not really the point I was trying to make anyway. Point I was trying to make is the special teams had a meltdown late in the first half as well. So you look at that, you look at Jesse Minter with a very, very befuddling challenge on three yards worth of field position when you saw the immediate play and it wasn’t clear cut that was it was going to be overturned, even if it is overturned on that third down, I didn’t like it from the standpoint of you. Kind of gave New Orleans a an extra timeout to think about what was going to be a really big play one way or the other. So you had that. You had the throwing the ball on third and one, throwing it deep, not to Zay Flowers, not to Rashad Bateman, to the 54th guy on your team, to journeyman Chris Moore, right? And and as as well as Chris Moore played in week one, week two displayed why he was on the practice squad, right? And we were

Nestor Aparicio 11:52
doing final cuts two weeks ago, two hours of football ago. He wasn’t even a consideration to be a part of the team, right? Like in any but that’s what but that’s what happens when when you lose two of your top three wide receivers in. I’d like to talk about the offensive line too and their inability. To your point, you have 12 plays, 27 yards, or whatever the math is on it. Not good enough. Not good enough to move sticks. Bringing the punter on. Just just I don’t know Lamar in big moments and when they’re down and like expecting him to go in the phone booth, and he had another ridiculous play. The guy called back, right? I mean, the penalties in the offensive line. I mean, the concerns you and I had for eight months was the offensive line, and now the left tackle, and the $20 million wide receiver, and the sort of the guy they wanted to be the number two receiver, right? Like that’s what Jacoby Lane was sort of building into by week 10. But yeah, they were expecting him to be that kind of player, and now he’s out of this. Their offense is hampered, and and Lamar could be as healthy as hell, but he needs players around him that aren’t Willie Snead, right? You know what I mean? Like going back to when he didn’t have good players, which is why Derrick Henry was a part of this thing, and you know I saw Yuane pulling out and doing the things that you want to see a first-round guard do, and the athleticism and all that, and even Mark Andrews, right? As far as dropping the one ball behind him, I’m not gonna. I Mark Andrews will have the rest of his life for me to be on the radio beating him up for walking away from a podium and not having the accountability that Jesse Minter talked about in the post game. I mean, I’m keeping notes on you, Jesse. I’m every word, me and my clone. But in a general sense, the offense, the defense is Minter. He’s going to call the defense. They have players. They’re going to get mad at BK back. They gave all the money to Hendrickson, who’s playing with that splint. I mean, he’s already hurt in some not good way. That probably won’t. He won’t be healthy most of the year. Like that thing’s probably going to get tweaky, tweaky because that’s the way the game plays when your hands are messed up and you play with your hands. But flowers lame. Stanley. I have been saying to you the whole time, we’re worried about who this and who that. Who’s the backup tackle? You know, if anything were to go wrong, we were talking center and guard and like all of that, dude. They’re one and one. I had them at six and zero or seven and one. We all had them going to Buffalo and thinking like by the time Halloween rolled around, they’d be a one seed possibility, or they’d be in that conversation. That’s what we expect this team to be. If they’re going to win the Super Bowl and they’re going to be all that in a bag of purple donuts, they’re going to need things to line up. And losing games to the New Orleans Saints at home for any reason, to your point, should piss everybody off. It it should be a flair for all of them. But the flair for me is maybe they’re not good enough without some of these plays. You take a $25 million wide receiver and a $20 million left tackle, and take them out and put in whatever you put, Chris Moore, whatever you put in over 60 minutes. Even against an okay team, it’s it’s troublesome against the Bengals and the Bills, and you know when Chiefs and when they’re going to see real teams, they can’t be playing January games without say Flowers, dog. Like they’re not going to be to January if they’re playing without say Flowers at this rate. They’re going to be eight nine running around. Yeah, I mean, I

Luke Jones 15:22
in the same way that you asked me back in week after the the week one demolition of the Colts that are are the Ravens number one in your power rankings, and I said to you no at the time, and it’s not because I foresaw this, it’s not because I predicted this, I didn’t, I did not, but it’s it’s a reminder, it’s a week to week league, and again, it’s like I said, I’m not trying to forgive away, like forgive any of this stuff, or to be an apologist about it. I think you look at a team that’s had a DNA for a long time of doing plenty of what they did in week one, right? That’s why I was as impressed as I was. I wasn’t going to sit there and say, well, that’s validation for Jesse Minter. The Ravens never won a game under John Harbaugh. You know what I mean? Like some of the stuff that people say in the off season, like it gets so extreme that every compliment of Minter or Declan Doyle was then, oh, that’s a slight to John Harbaugh, a referendum on John Harbaugh and Todd Monkin, right? And Zach Orr. Well, that’s a difficult business, as Mike Tomlin would say, which is why he is on Sunday, and that’s kind of my point, and that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make. And he’s an idiot, right? All he did was win a Super Bowl, never had a losing season in 20 years in Pittsburgh, and somehow, you know, he’s second rate. You know, like that’s it’s insane what we put these coaches through, you know, on a Monday morning when they lose. At the same time, he has to own the fact that they didn’t win a play. They haven’t won a playoff game for a decade, right? I mean, that that matters, right? So, point is, there’s nuance, right? Point is, it’s ever rarely truly just one thing. And Sunday’s game was a perfect example of this. I mean, I just in a matter of a couple minutes, I spilled spilled out or spelled out breakdowns, offense, defense, special teams, coaching. Right, the officiating. Right, you you can throw that in there. But the perception of the game is they had better talent. Right, they were big favorite. That the perception of the two teams forget coaching, forget home and away, and like, and that’s important. They were home team. They’re a home team with superior talent, and they’re going to talk about the ref screwdriver at the end. I mean, come on. I mean, right? I mean, but but that’s also the story of recent years, right? I mean, the the Ravens lost playoff games where they had the superior talent, and okay, if you wanted to think it was as can be, and I don’t, when I say you, I just mean in a general sense. If you wanted to think that that was all because of John Harbaugh and all because of the old coaches and everything was fine overnight and no nothing to see here, we’re never going to see another blown lead. We’re never going to see another fourth quarter collapse. I mean, if you thought that, okay, but that’s not how that’s not how it works. It’s a team game, and again, even looking at the offense, even without Zay Flowers, I saw this note and I thought this was wild. I mean, it’s very Raven like in this last 10 years or so, but but the note I saw it it was from Sumer Sports. You know it’s an analytics site. They said the Ravens had a 64.3 percent offensive success rate. Now success rate has to do with what kind of yardage you get compared to what down it is and what distance there is to go. Right? They would consider you know a four or five yard gain or better on first and 10 to be considered a success, right? You look at second down and how much of the yardage are you getting? Third and one, typically you talk about a two two yard run in isolation. You say, well, that’s not impressive, two yards per carry. But if it’s on third and one, that’s a successful play. A two yard run on first and 10 is not a successful play.

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Luke Jones 18:59
Point is plenty of context, but the Ravens 64.3% offensive success rate according to Sumer Sports. That is the second highest success offensive success rate for a losing team since 2022. Point is, even without Zay Flowers, they did have a lot of success with their offense. However, you get to the fourth quarter and you make a questionable decision or two, right? You throw throw long on third and one. I saw some people pointing out, you know, you throw that deep ball to Chris Moore on third and one. Maybe you forgive that a little more if you decided the play before that you were going to go for it on fourth and one. Now they didn’t. I’m not saying they should have gone forward on fourth and one. I would have given the ball to Derrick Henry on third and one and just moved the chains. But they didn’t do that. Point is, they did a lot of things well, even with their offense lacking Zay Flowers for large portions of that game. But because of the kind of game it was, where. You were, you know, probably were trying to shorten the game as much as you could, and New Orleans with their defense. I mean, this is where you give the Saints a lot of credit. They took away big plays. Derrick Henry had a good day, but think about it. Derrick Henry didn’t bust any long runs in that game, right? They tackled him, right? That’s what I’m saying. So you give the opponent some credit, but it was the kind of game where you didn’t get an abundance of possessions. And look how long New Orleans drives were with all of those third downs. I mean, I mean, really, for me, beyond that sequence that I talked about, if there’s something that just stands out that really was very disappointing from any specific phase, it’s the Ravens’ defense on third down. Couldn’t get off the field. I mean, and it’s not just it was third down. If it’s a if you’re in a bunch of third and ones and third and twos and third and threes, okay, there’s a lot of third and eight. There’s a lot of third and 10. There were third and thirteens that they gave up, right? I mean, just a lot of third and long. I I I know the graphic flash. I I took a picture of it with my phone as I was kind of rewatching the TV copy late, late, late Sunday night, but and looking at it at this point in time, it was the third and eight with 213 to go. At that point in time, the Saints had converted seven of 13 on third down. The average yards to go at that point, 8.4 yards on third zone, so these were not again third and one. If you’re going to be beaten on

Nestor Aparicio 21:26
third and long all day long, my God! I mean, that’s just. I mean, it speaks to how good Alave was. It speaks to how poorly the Ravens tackled, right? I mean, there are a lot of missed tackles in that game as well. So, and Minter said he was getting the ball out quickly. He kind of felt that way. I mean, it felt like where’s the pass rush, but there wasn’t. It it was much more thoughtful in the way that Joe Burrow would be, the the way they’re going to run off. They’re going to neutralize. Look, if we had brought Crosby in here, didn’t matter. They’re going to neutralize that by getting rid of the ball. I mean, if your pass rush is good, that’s the game, right? Like, and and that’s the game that a guy like the Saints quarterback, he call him Shoff Shuck. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s a strange pronunciation, but in general sense, I get it right when it’s draft beer with the G and A H. But you know that that Kurt Warner indoor pinball hitting wide the Zay Flowers game, the game that plays, let’s get sticks. Let’s keep the ball. We can convert third and 8/3. and eight’s not long for us. It’s hitting a pass at four or five yards and just eluding a tackle. Literally, and that’s Declan Doyle and these young guys. They study this all day long. To your point, your 63 percent, your your number. They love all of that, all of the stats and the minutia of are we converting third downs? Jesse Minter’s not going to like what he sees on the tape, right? No,

Luke Jones 22:51
and I think you know I asked Hendrickson about Trey Hendrickson about this in the post game locker room, and you know he didn’t have a whole lot to say. I mean the guys were he did a minute and

Nestor Aparicio 23:00
16 seconds. Yeah, yeah. But

Luke Jones 23:02
I asked him about the mental toll it takes when you’re not getting off the field on third down, especially when it’s some third and longs. And you know, he kind of talked about, look, we’ve got to figure out what kind of defense we want to be in terms of marrying up how we’re covering with our pass rush. And I think there were times they got they got to Shuck. There were times they should have gotten to him, and he broke free. I mean, he scrambled. I mean, he moves around. It’s funny that you mentioned Jake Jake Delhomme. He’s someone that I thought of, and the other guy I thought of a little bit. Early career Ben Roethlisberger. Early, not not the Ben that morphed into the pocket passer who threw it 50 times. The you know an Antonio Brown, and also a guy who was just such a big guy. Well, sure, but I just mean like someone who isn’t necessarily looking to take off and run in the way that Lamar or even a Josh Allen does. Extend the play. Will extend the play and and and you know get get off schedule and and and do some nice things that way. But just

Nestor Aparicio 24:00
part of it’s making the first guy miss and having the ability to turn and see the field to either make a play, dirt the ball, or run like hell. Not get sacked, fumble, you know, take take throw the ball and get 50 get 15 more yards. Like just stupid stuff, right? Like the responsibility he played with to give them a chance down at the goal line that he didn’t do what Lamar did with 20 seconds left to go in the game, which is just throw the ball up for grabs.

Luke Jones 24:28
Yeah, and and obviously Lamar. I mean the Ravens are in a different position there when you’re down seven and you only have so many seconds left and there’s no timeout compared to the Saints being a position where it’s a tie game, you have a a game winning or go-ahead field goal in your pocket at that point. Dude’s nuts were tight. He he converted third. Did a nice job. I mean, he did. He did. He really did. I mean, again, we might be finding out, and and it’s funny. And I’ll I’ll own this. I thought when they came back against Detroit to force overtime, and then we see Detroit play the way. That they did on Thursday night against the Bills, I was starting to think, okay, the Saints come back in Week One. That was way more about the Lions than it was the Saints, and I think maybe now you look at how they played, and they played on the road for a second straight week. That I mean, they still haven’t played a home game, you know, as we’re entering Week. They’re this

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Nestor Aparicio 25:19
close to being two and zero,

Luke Jones 25:20
and you look at them and say, “Wow! I mean, they’re in a division that’s not exactly a formidable division. Talking about the NFC South, and now you look at them in terms of, I mean, maybe they’re the favorite. Maybe they’re the team that wins that division, and it’s not going to take a probably not going to take 12 and five to win that division either. So, how about playing with your food? Look at Tampa. Yeah, I mean, Tam. Well, go back to the second half of last year for the Bucks as well. I mean, that’s Todd Bowles. You know, we can get to that at some point. But, but yeah, I mean, you give New Orleans credit, and everything we’re talking about with the Ravens. This is not to pile on in the way that my expectations of thinking they were going to go 11 and six and winning the division have now changed and I think they’re going to go six and 11. No, nothing like that. I mean, like let’s not lose our heads about this. This is why this is why I kept saying throughout the off season for all the complaining about John Harbaugh. And yes, I agree with the need to move on and both sides to go their separate ways. They still won plenty of games under John Harbaugh over the course of the Lamar Jackson era when Lamar was healthy, but it’s the little things, right? It’s playing a full 60 minutes. It’s not breaking down on third and long. It’s not giving up a long kick return late in the first half when the other team’s probably inclined to just kneel the ball as long as you don’t give up a 50-plus yard return. It’s not overthinking third and one, right? It’s not committing penalties at inopportune times. So I mean, these are all the things that you talk about, and you’ll hear some of the best coaches talk about there are more games lost than won in the NFL. I mean, that was a game that yes, you give the Saints all the credit that they deserve, and they deserve plenty of credit because that they made the big plays. Their their best players made the big plays in crunch time, right? They were at their best when their best is needed, right? Hearing Jesse Minter say that from his introductory press conference, whereas the Ravens weren’t. And it’s not to say the Ravens didn’t do good things over the course of the game. It’s not to say that I’m gonna sit here and suddenly think that the season’s doomed. No, in the same way I wasn’t, I wasn’t automatically changing my tune to pick them to win the Super Bowl last week because of how they played in Indy. But it’s a reminder that you need to play a sound, complete, you know, not mistake-free, but limit mistakes over the course of 60 minutes, and and that’s how you win ball games. And they didn’t do that, and that’s something that’s been too much of a calling card for them for a long, long time. And in hindsight, when you have a first-tier head coach, a first-time play calling offensive coordinator, and plenty of other new faces with your coaching staff. It probably was a little unrealistic to think that Jesse Minter and this new coaching staff was going to come in, and every one of those issues that they’ve had over the years, all those issues that have plagued them in these close games and not being able to finish, that that was just going to automatically go away. Now that doesn’t mean Minter’s not accountable. Doesn’t mean that Declan Doyle’s not accountable. Yeah, they have to be accountable. Everyone does. But again, old habits die hard, and that was the point of what I wrote. And looking at that game, if you had gone, you know, if you were what’s the nursery rhyme, Rip Van Winkle or whatever, right? Where goes to sleep for for all that time? If you had gone to sleep the night that Tyler Loop missed the field goal in Pittsburgh, and you only woke up and no one told you anything about coaching or anything like that, you just watched the game on Sunday.

Luke Jones 28:54
You’d be screaming about John Harbaugh and Todd Monkin and Zach Or and the old coaching staff, it looked very horrible esque, for for lack of a better term. But the lesson there is, at some point in time, yes, you need your best players to make plays. And in crunch time, where was Lamar Jackson? In crunch time, where was Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton? And your your best player, Ray Hendrickson, the guys are paying. Yeah, and no one made a play down in crunch time. No one could make a play. The Saints made plays, right? To give their give their studs credit. And yeah, if you leave yourself in that position, if you put yourself in that position, if you fail to make the the the high the highest leverage plays, then yeah, it can come down to an official’s call at the goal line when there’s a pile of bodies and it’s tough to see and a call’s made right or wrong, and it’s tough to overturn it because of the indisputable evidence thing. Even though, like I said, I still. Went back and and watched the third down one, and I was kind of amazed they didn’t at least look at that. I suppose the difference is there that, well, they they said he was short of the goal line, and you know, so I guess that doesn’t trigger anything. I guess, but but I just you know they they they deserve that loss. I mean, they did. They deserve that loss. They had enough breakdowns across the board: coaching, offense, defense, special teams, and yeah, maybe a little bit of tough luck at the very end. Although I saw a couple people say with the football cosmos, I don’t want to say the football gods, but the football cosmos. And think about it in in those terms. I mean, you see the replay. Okay, maybe he didn’t get across the goal line. Roquan Smith. I mean, basically trying to rip his head off. And I get it. You’re grabbing for whatever in that situation. But it’s fourth down. But if that’s called there, then the Saints get first and goal at the one-inch line, and they’re taking a few knees to run out the clock, and they’re kicking what amounts to the old school extra point to win the game, and the Ravens never even get the ball back under that scenario. So, they still had a chance, fleeting as it might have been, desperate as it might have been at the end. And no, even then, Lamar Jackson and Rashad Bateman weren’t on the same page, whatever it was. But it fell into the arms of the defender, and the Ravens fell to one and one.

Nestor Aparicio 31:21
Here’s Luke Jones. He is at Baltimore, Luke. We’re going to be here every day this week, even talking some baseball for a minute or two. We’re going to be over at State Fair in Catonsville on Thursday morning during the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, presented by the Maryland Lottery in conjunction with our partners at GBMC as well as Farnan and Dermer. They are the comfort guys. Luke wears them. They are sponsoring our audio vault, you could hear instantly after the games. Things will be up at Baltimore Positive, and obviously we put it all together here at AM 1570 as well. We’re going to have some baseball conversation on Thursday. We are celebrating 28 years at WNST on the radio here at AM 1570. We hope you set a spot on your dial if you’re new to us in football season, but also we’re doing rock and roll, and we’re doing music around here. And my love of music, and a lot of folks didn’t even know that I was a music critic back in the 1980s, dude. I got piles of bylines. I’m finding stuff I absolutely forgot existed in my life, so I’m sharing lots of this stuff. And first up was Kiss at number 28. We’re going to be counting down 27 other musical artists between now and the end of football season. Then we’re going to have our 35th anniversary of me being on the radio. We’re going to have all sorts of fun next year that has nothing to do with baseball not playing. But they are going to play for another couple of days here, and we will discuss Mike Elias and Matt Blood and Greg Albernaz and bad decisions and worse press conferences, and getting swept at home quietly, and no one notices because the football team lost on Sunday. But Casper Wells will be with me on Thursday at at State Fair, and Alan McCallum going to join us as well. We’re also going to do some rock and roll and continue our conversations about silly stuff like camping out for concert tickets. Back before you had to spend $600 to get a front row ticket, you could actually do it and see Journey for nine bucks. You just had to sleep in the parking lot for two days. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. We’re not going to sleep for five days here because we’re going to Brazil. Going to be doing the Copacabana. They might even play a football game there. God forbid anything happens to Lamar there on the turf. The turf at Maricana in Rio. Oh, the NFL-they have it all figured out. We’ll have more ahead. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.