It’s been a very healthy campaign thus far for the the Baltimore Ravens but this is the first week when the injury report has become a concern. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the short week, potential trade deadline movements and big expectations heading to Cleveland.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens fans, Browns franchise, Jameis Winston, Lamar Jackson, Derek Henry, offensive line, defensive issues, short week, injury concerns, playoff hopes, trading deadline, pass rush, stadium issues, fan base, game prediction
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke. He’s out in Owings Mills up. Jiffy Lube is also making things happen. This week, I’m going to be in Owings Mills with these beautiful Raven scratch offs been a pretty lucky batch from the Maryland lottery. Will be at mamas on the half shell on Friday. My buddy Howard chair is going to be out there. Mike Warren’s going to be coming by. Finn McCusker, stunning son, both of the Bob Earth say dummies are in the nacho Mama’s location. So and Finn didn’t even know the story about how the dummies got there, so I saw him at the Oyster recovery partnership. We’ve talked in all these oysters. And by the way, while I’m on oysters, day six of the oyster tour was Ray Bachman. I joined him down in Riva, Maryland. Mike’s great place down there on the water, on the South River. I’d never been there before in a Dundalk kid going to Anne Arundel County. What do I know about that beyond Pasadena, but nonetheless, Ray’s battling cancer. There’s a GoFundMe page. There’s a lot of information available. Just click on day six of the Maryland oyster Tour, where Ray is there. And I communicate with Ray almost daily, just checking in on him. He’s hanging in there and fighting the fight. So that is going on as well, also our friends at Curia wellness and foreign daughter putting on the oyster tour, along with our friends at Liberty pure solutions. I’m wearing the shirt, but the shirt doesn’t say one 800 clean water. The water bottle does say 101 800 clean water. Liberty, pure solutions, my friend Doug workman did all of our well water. But more than that, a plumbing as well. So you know, have an older facility, corroded pipes, any that sort of thing, any drip, drip, drip. Drips are bad. Floods are bad. So there’ll be pure solutions. Make sure you keep them in mind, as well as our friends at the Maryland lottery and Jiffy Lube for putting us up and out on the road. Our friends at Royal farms power us up every day. And we call them wise conversations, because, well, Luke’s here, so they tend to be a lot more intelligent when he’s here. Raven taking on the Browns this week. All right, Luke, so you said something that to me, pretty banged up, pretty banged up, as you call it. Let’s sort of go one by one, and we’ll have chance next week to get ready for Denver and you know, and then the short week. Right? I mean, they’re gonna play three football games here in a compressed period of time. Um, say which one about Cincinnati? Say which one about that? For for me, I’m looking at the quartile and saying, Man, they really got through this part of the schedule. What, you know, five and two. I think anybody takes that, we’re all great. Not the direction it went with two and then five, but to your point, they’re the toast of the town. Everybody’s coming to town to do their their Johnny Bravo. Lamar is on his third MVP, and the expectations raise you and I went through the fact of what would have to happen for them to play a potential championship game here versus Kansas City. Kansas City is a plus three right now, like just crazy, not playing as well. They have questions, but they’re getting help the trading deadline. Set that up for me. As we go into this with injuries. Trading deadline, pass rush problems, offensive line, you feel good about it, but you wouldn’t feel good if there’s any injury. Feel great about Ronnie Stanley. Feel great about how lots of elements are there of this are going but this is a week to assess it and say, Where do we get better? The bills and the Chiefs got better this week already. Yeah,
8
Luke Jones 36:12
they did. I mean, look, when you’re talking about the trade deadline, which is November 5, so we’re about two weeks, you know, less than two weeks away from that. So two more, two more games you’re going to play. You know, you look at this thing and what can, where can they get better? You know, fans inevitably and look, I’m not going to I’m not beating anyone up here. It’s just Raven. Fans have been conditioned to think about wide receiver. And you look at the fact that the chiefs, DeAndre Hopkins, the bills, have gotten Tomari Cooper, the Jets, Devonte, Adams, I care way less about that, because I just don’t think the Jets are a factor. But those other two teams have been right there. The Chiefs have been the team, and the bills have been right there with the ravens and wanting to be that team to come out of the AFC. So do I think the Ravens really need a wide receiver at this point, I really don’t I mean, okay if, heaven forbid, if the zay flowers ankle was a more severe thing. And keep in mind, he’s missed practice this week, but he played through this on Monday night. You know, this wasn’t something that he got hurt in the fourth quarter and then didn’t return. I mean, he missed very few plays compared to what his normal workload would be. But I mean Rashad Bateman. Go look at his numbers. Rashad Bateman’s right on the heels as a flowers for receiving yardage this year, Rashad Bateman is on on pace to have a 900 plus yard receiving season. So you have two very viable wide receivers. You have two very viable tight ends, and Mark Andrews has put that the ghost of a September behind him and had a really good October. So I think they’re fine on that front, defensively, could they add a safety? Sure. Do I know who that guy’s going to be? No, I don’t. Right now, you know? I mean, I think it’s easier said than done. You know, is it a rental? Is it someone that’s under contract? You know, I’m guessing at this point in time, the way things are shaping up, Marcus Williams probably isn’t going to be back next year. Give next year, given what his cap number is. Eddie Jackson has not been very good in his own a one year deal anyway, so they could make a move, there, no question about it. But I look at edge rusher, and I look at the fact that Kyle van Noy has been fantastic, but Kyle van Noy is also well on the wrong side of 30 and playing a lot of snaps. How’s that going to hold up over the second half of the season? So can you bring someone in? I mentioned Zaria Smith in passing. I I’m guessing the Browns being the Browns aren’t going to want to trade to a division rival if there are other options out there for them to make. So I’ve heard some people say jadavion clown. He could be on the market, you know. And that would be ironic, you know, certainly I think Carolina would have to eat some money to make that happen, because you’re still going back to the main principle, why the Ravens didn’t resign Clowney in the first place, because he got too much money from Carolina compared to what they were willing to make or willing to pay so, so you have those factors. I mean, you look at the roster top to bottom, are they as deep as they were last year at certain position groups? No, and that’s why we talked about how last year was so disappointing, because they were in a position that they had some impressive depth at various positions on the field that maybe they don’t have quite as much of that now. So you know, none of these injuries are dealing with this week are, you know, I haven’t gotten a sense that any are like these multi week kind of injuries. I mean, you’re talking about guys that might miss a game, you know, maybe, in Humphreys case, if he misses Sunday, there’s some question about the following week, but he was walking around. I mean, he he was, you know, he was even on the sideline in the second half now, albeit not dread, not suited up. So, you know, none of these are catastrophic, multi week major concerns, at least from the early impression I’ve gotten so, so they’re pretty healthy.
Nestor Aparicio 39:54
Look maybe the in gauquet edition sort of serves as. They feel that, you know, I again, we’ve seen pass rushers come off the shelf and be okay. We’ve even seen run stoppers, domatapeca, some of these guys just say, I don’t want to go to camp. I don’t want to play the first eight weeks. I don’t know if that exists, you know, in anywhere other than my mind, but I thought Kyle van Noy might be that guy. I was a little concerned that jadavyan Clowney might be that guy. And they were wreckers last year to some degree. And also, this is Darius Smith’s circumstance that you bring up sort of bottom fishing off of these teams that are going to be having carcasses picked through here. Eric’s good at it, right? Like, just in a general sense, Eric’s very good at it. I’m with you. I don’t know where you go to get that help, um, from, not from within, at this case, especially in the secondary, but this would be the week if they’re going to do anything, if you’re a fan, you’re like, I’m waiting on the wnst tech service. Where’s my is it on my iPhone? Is it, you know, my wife gets it on her watch, right? Like, like, hey, got a wnst text, you know? And I know you’re sending that. You’re not shocked if they do something, right? No,
Luke Jones 41:14
no. I mean, I expect them to do something. I’d be surprised if they didn’t do something. I mean, they didn’t make a move last year at the deadline. And as we pointed out, you know, with the Derrick Henry thing, they tried right now, let’s be clear, they’re not going to let a team fleece them. You know, they’re not going to give up a first round pick for a rental or something insane, right? I mean, they’re, they’re not going to do that, nor they’re not desperate. They’re not, right? They’re, they’re already, they already have a pretty good argument as the best team in football right now, or certainly the best offense in football, I don’t, I’m not sure there’s any disputing that, even though,
Nestor Aparicio 41:44
8then, how do you make your defense better? You are better players, or your players play better, but, but
Luke Jones 41:50
you also, you also get into, okay, how much of it is a talent thing, and how much of it is a coaching thing, and when I say a coaching thing, not saying that Zach or stinks at his job, just that this transition hasn’t been as smooth as they would have hoped, right? I mean, clearly they’ve continued to have miscommunications on the back end of the defense. So do you need to streamline some things? Do you need to simplify some things? Do you need to clean some things up, you know? Do you need to change up some tendencies? Are there certain guys that need to be doing different things than what they’ve been asking them to do. So, you know, there’s, there’s all that, but could, could you add a an edge rusher? Yeah, I mean, I think way was a perfectly fine addition. But is he a premier, top two or three pass rusher on a championship hopeful defense at this point in his career, he might be more of the number four guy, you know. So, you know, they’re still waiting for David ajabo to pop. I mean, he’s healthy, but has he made a big splash? Not really. So, you know, I think man been, always been really good. But again, the age factor and how much he’s playing and how that’s going to look come January. You know, in the same way that I’ve talked about Derrick Henry, like, I’ll be totally honest with you, from a standpoint of the Ravens championship hopes, I really have no interest in Derrick Henry setting the all time single season rushing record, because that means he’s touching the ball a heck of a lot. And I, as amazing as he is, you want him in January fresh not not the guy who’s rushed for 2000 yards already. I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 43:22
think he’s on fresh but he’s running for 80 yard touchdowns. So you know, that’s the way he’s amassing his his large s5, 100, come on, six runs, understood, but
Luke Jones 43:32
we’re but we’re also talking about someone who’s going to be 31 in January at some point in time. You also have to have some common sense about this, that’s why. And I’d be remiss, and my apologies that we’ve talked as long as we have. Keith Mitchell returned to the practice field on Wednesday. Now he’s not playing this week. I’m guessing he’s not playing the following week. You know, I think he’s going to need some time to ramp up here. I think you need to be have tempered expectations as far as what he could be. But look, you talk about Derek Henry at the trade deadline last year, or we talk about this happening or that happening, or Lamar not playing well, or is a flowers fumbling the ball going over the goal line against Kansas City and some of the inopportune penalties that they had. If, if Keaton Mitchell never tears up his knee in mid December and he’s available and healthy, that might have been the missing piece that that might have been such an X factor against Kansas City in that game. So we forget. Go, look at his numbers. Go look at how many yards per carry he averaged. You know, I I think part of what Keaton Mitchell started is what the Ravens had. And this sounds funny to say this, but hear me out. Look at what Keaton Mitchell was doing on the edges and outside and on the perimeter. Derrick Henry, for all the talk about how big he is, where does he do his best work, running on the perimeter. So I think what Keaton Mitchell was doing, I think, was that Prince. Is what the Ravens had in mind. And wanting to keep going and saying, Derek Henry can do those things, albeit he just does it in a very different way, because he’s 250 pounds, as opposed to, you know, whatever Keith Mitchell is, 200 you know, 195 whatever he is. Well, this
8Nestor Aparicio 45:12
is where I would say to you, if I’m writing Purple Rain three, and I’m not at the end of this with Eric de Costa sitting at it at a coffee establishment, I would say the misdirection is the thing. And the misdirection is the thing because you have a quarterback that’s faster than anybody on the field. I mean, you have a queen in chess can go anywhere, anytime it wants, and usually the queen doesn’t have the football. You know that the fastest person on the field, usually, Keaton Mitchell is a flowers or like that, right? Or a freakish tight end, match up to match up. Um, but one of the things that this team does so well, and they did it under Roman with a running mindset, was create space, and running back gets the ball in space, whether it’s Walter Payton, or whether it’s Barry Sanders, who could make you miss and had this first step quickness and burst, but it’s space you give a guy with speed space to ramp up and vision. Imagine Justin for setting this offense, who had the best vision of any running back I’ve ever seen. Like I’ll say that straight away, his game wasn’t necessarily the fastest certainly. Wasn’t a bruiser, certainly, but he could see a hole, and knew how long the hole was going to be there, how long he had to go to hit it, where the ball needed to be, where his body needed to be to to have the right momentum. Just vision, and that Vision’s different when you’re running back and you have space than when you’re Derek Henry, and you get the ball and you look up and there’s three bad fat guys in the way, and you have no ability to accelerate. He’s getting the ball on the edge. Now we’re to your point. Guys are 468, yards away from him, and he’s only got one guy to be, and he’s got blockers who wide receivers who can block a little bit and bring back Willie Sneed. I want him to be our addition. I want to see him cracking Steve Smith cracking on the outside, then Lamar cracking on the outside in the running game last week, like lather up about wanting to do it, which I don’t like it all, by the way, I’ll get back to him and running in the linebackers I don’t like him in I don’t like Lamar and in run blocking situations, I don’t ever want to see that again. Your
Luke Jones 47:32
streak continues. You had to, you have to reference that every conversation. But no, I everything you just said. And
Nestor Aparicio 47:39
I’ll bet I’ve never said that before. I’ve never said that out loud. You know, literally,
Luke Jones 47:44
8Henry has better vision than Justin forset Derek. Henry’s going to the Hall of Fame to me this year. Leaves no doubt. You know, regardless of how, I mean, I assuming, heaven forbid, he doesn’t have a season ending injury in the next month, or something like, should have bought
Nestor Aparicio 47:59
that oil or jersey for 33 bucks. I’m gonna keep going back to that, but it just
Luke Jones 48:03
it goes back to what we talked about in the aftermath of the Tampa game. Lots of offensive coordinators talk about it. Greg Roman talked about this a lot, the principle of forcing a defense to defend every blade of grass, the entire length and the entire width of the field. The Ravens got close at times in that era, but not really. You know, they did not have a perimeter runner, you know, JK Dobbins when he was at his best. You go, go down the stretch of his rookie season, they got close. You know, they were really close to it at that point. Their past game wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now, wasn’t as advanced as it is now, with Lamar Jackson in year seven, as opposed to what year three at that point in time. So but, but with what Derek Henry does, with what they do between the tackles, which, you know, they’re not a special running game between the tackles. They’re, let me be clear, very good between the tackles, but that’s not where they do their absolute best work. They do their absolute best work on the edges. And when you look at it, it’s you put these defenders, whether you’re talking about defensive linemen, and specifically the edge players and the linebackers, you put them in such conflict, because you have Lamar Jackson with the ball, and is he holding on to it, or is he handing it to Derek Henry? He’s handing it to Derrick Henry. You can see these defenders go back and watch, go back and watch the film, go back and watch the the replays of these games. You’ll see a defender hesitate because he’s afraid that Lamar is going to keep the ball, and then Derek Henry, boom, has the edge and he’s not even touched. I mean, I’ve talked about this. Derek Henry has an overwhelming, overwhelming career high right now in yards before contact per attempt, he’s not being touched. Now, I don’t say that to take anything away from him. He’s obviously a large part of that. But when you’re talking about such an astronomical yards before contact per attempt, kind of offense that speaks to how good the. Operation is across the board, the blocking Lamar. Again, all this begins with Lamar. Derrick Henry would be the first to tell you that this all begins with Lamar, His mere presence. We’ve talked about this street running backs have come in here and had success, because Lamar is the quarterback that was kind of, that was always that was my argument against spending all the money for Derrick Henry, because they were able to do it with do it with anyone they brought off the street. And my thought was, just allocate those resources elsewhere. That was the gist of my argument. It wasn’t that Derrick Henry is not a great, great running back, but you have all of this together collectively. So these defenders are in conflict, these linebackers are in conflict, and then, oh yeah, their play action game is fantastic. So then every time you run a play fake, you’re worried about Derrick, Henry or Lamar keeping the ball, and then, oh well, the linebackers. And, you know, slot or not, linebackers, the tight ends and any slot receivers are, you know, running over routes, over the linebackers and in front of the safeties. I mean, the intermediate passing game is just one point and oh yeah, now you’re throwing in the deep shots through shaitan that are working out, and they’re starting to hit on those. So how do you stop them? I mean, it’s that simple. How do you stop them? And it’s not, it’s one guy in the sense that Lamar is the MVP and on his way to being MVP again at this point, as we’re approaching the midway point through the season, but beyond that, acknowledgement of how great Lamar is. I mean, they’ve got talent everywhere, and you have an offensive line that struggled the first couple weeks, no question about it, but that group has faded into the background in terms of discussion, offensive lines are like umpires in baseball. You don’t want to talk about them. If you’re not talking about them, that means they’re doing their job. So they’re not perfect, they’re not the best in the NFL. They still struggle when, when they’re in positions where they must pass, when it when, you know, we saw it on a couple occasions against Tampa, when they’re in third and long. They struggled. News flash. Most offenses struggle when they’re in third and long. There are very few. Kansas City is not doing so hot on third and long this year because of the lack of, you know, decim, you know, the decimation they’ve had at the wide receiver position. So you don’t want to be in that position, so that that’s a simple acknowledgement there. But they’re in that position very rarely, because they’re so good. I mean, they’re not even getting the third down all that frequently. You know, you look at some of these games and you look at their number of third downs over the course of a 60 minute game where they’ve run a lot of plays, it’s not that many. Why? Because there’s their offense has been so great that they’re picking up first downs on first and second downs. So I’ve said it to you for years, and that’s kind of been the the gist of how great this offense has been, yeah, they’ve managed to find their way in third and very manageable when they’ve been at their best. But the truly great offenses avoid third down altogether. You know, are able to avoid that very frequently. So it’s just, it’s a very good operation, and everything we talked about at the beginning of this conversation about Cleveland and the changes in a short week, and new quarterback, new play caller, defense that’s still really good. All of those things apply. And as I said, there’s a very fleeting, small window that I think the Browns can make this a game that makes the ravens and especially their fans uncomfortable on Sunday, but at the end of the day, I still think there’s just too much Lamar Jackson, too much Derek Henry, too much ravens pass catchers, too much offensive line, too much Justice Hill and what he’s done. I think there’s just too much of that to deal with. And I think there’s too much of that to think that even a defense that is as talented as Cleveland is going to hold them down enough that will give Cleveland’s offense that looks different. Now maybe we’ll have a shred of hope here or there. But are they going to march up and down the field on the Ravens consistently? No, I don’t think they’re going to do that, even with the Ravens pass defense leaving a lot to be desired. So at the end of the day, I still think the Ravens win this game. I still think they win it handily, but I just think there are a couple more red flags about this game that I think you just need to be careful going into Sunday, and need to make sure you start fat fast compared to how I would have felt about this game a week ago, where they this team was just a a dead on arrival offense with Deshaun Watson running the
Nestor Aparicio 54:18
show. Luke is laying down the purple gospel on Sunday, we’ll have the tech service up and running. If you’re not on the tech service, all you have to do is text join or wnst, two, 410-821-9678, you’re on the tech service. I’m gonna put a sign up up on the website now that it’s running and functioning and operating, all courtesy of our friends at Coal roofing and Gordian energy. Our friends at the Maryland lottery put me at it. Mama’s on the half show. On Friday, we’re going to be in Owings Mills. Finally, I have returned to Owings Mills. Our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care put Luke in Owings Mills each and every day. And we got we’re in the middle of this oyster tour. It’s fantastic. 26 days of oysters, 26 ways to promote the oyster recovery partnership. Lots of videos, some fun stuff told, some stories. Been telling stories here for years about it. I finally got out. Oyster fritters, fried oysters, raw oysters, roysters, oysters, Rockefeller, grilled oysters, buttered oysters, oyster stew, oyster chowder, oyster shooters. I feel like Forrest. Gump, uh, he is Luke. I am Nestor. There’s going to be football on Sunday, we’ll be here to talk about it. On Monday, we’re Baltimore positive.com. Stay with us. You.
