Closing the Loop on Pittsburgh loss is key for Ravens kicker

With the Baltimore Ravens taking a summer hiatus, this was our last chance to take a first look at rookie head coach Jesse Minter and the new operation. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss Loop, Lamar and the fresh offense of Declan Doyle as the team disappears for six weeks before the purple explosion.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ new offensive strategy under Declan Doyle and the impact of Tyler Loop’s missed field goal in Pittsburgh. They highlighted Loop’s accountability and performance, noting his recent successful 40-yard field goal. They also discussed the Ravens’ need for a starting center, with potential trades or roster adjustments expected. The conversation touched on the transition from John Harbaugh to new head coach Jesse Minter and the importance of offensive line continuity. They expressed optimism about the team’s potential but acknowledged challenges, particularly in the offensive line and quarterback protection.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Bring Maryland Treasure scratch-off tickets to the upcoming Sorrento of Arbutus show and to the Green Mount Station event next week for giveaways
• [ ] Send a text notification to the audience (notify about the July 13 Max Pizza event / related update) when details are available
• [ ] Attend/appear in Owings Mills when the time comes (be present for the event or coverage as planned)

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Election Day Reminder

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning dates and locations.
• Nestor reminds listeners about Election Day on the 23rd and encourages voter registration.
• Nestor mentions giving away Maryland Treasure scratch-off tickets during the tour.
• Nestor transitions to discussing the Ravens and the recent missed kick by Tyler Loop.

Tyler Loop’s Performance and Accountability

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss Tyler Loop’s handling of the missed kick in Pittsburgh.
• Luke Jones praises Loop for his accountability and ability to answer questions about the missed kick.
• Luke Jones highlights Loop’s performance in practice, including making a 40-yard field goal.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of competition for the kicking job and the potential for bringing in a new kicker.

Coaching Staff and Offensive Strategy

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the new coaching staff and the transition from John Harbaugh.
• Luke Jones mentions the importance of having a solid offensive line to support the new offensive strategy.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential impact of the new offensive coordinator, Declan Doyle, on Lamar Jackson.
• Nestor expresses optimism about the new coaching staff and the potential for success in the upcoming season.

Super Bowl Prospects and Team Dynamics

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the Ravens’ chances of winning the Super Bowl and the impact of the new coaching staff.
• Luke Jones highlights the challenges of having a first-time head coach and a rookie offensive coordinator.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of team chemistry and the potential for success with the new coaching staff.
• Nestor mentions the quiet offseason and the lack of major issues or controversies within the team.

Offensive Line and Center Position

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the importance of the offensive line and the need for a solid center.
• Luke Jones expresses concerns about the current state of the offensive line and the potential for issues at the center position.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the possibility of trading for a starting center to address the team’s needs.
• Nestor emphasizes the importance of continuity and stability on the offensive line for the team’s success.

Impact of New Coaching Staff on Team Culture

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the impact of the new coaching staff on team culture and player accountability.
• Luke Jones praises the new coaching staff for holding players accountable and maintaining a professional environment.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of having a supportive and constructive coaching environment.
• Nestor mentions the potential for the new coaching staff to bring fresh ideas and energy to the team.

Lamar Jackson’s Role and Influence

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss Lamar Jackson’s role and influence within the team.
• Luke Jones highlights Jackson’s ability to adapt to new coaching strategies and maintain a positive attitude.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential for Jackson to have a greater impact on the offense with the new coaching staff.
• Nestor expresses optimism about Jackson’s ability to lead the team to success in the upcoming season.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Ravens

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the Ravens in the upcoming season.
• Luke Jones emphasizes the importance of addressing the offensive line and center position to ensure success.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential for the new coaching staff to bring new energy and success to the team.
• Nestor expresses optimism about the Ravens’ chances of winning the Super Bowl and achieving success in the upcoming season.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T. Hey, I’m 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour next week. We moved our Sorrento show. We’re gonna be doing it on the 17th, the 24th We will be at Green Mount Station. By the way, the 23rd is Election Day. Hope everybody gets registered. Make sure you’re voting for democracy and all the good things that that keep us where we are with our flag and our state and our councilmen and our county executives and all the stuff we’re gonna be voting on here in the coming weeks. By the way, Maryland lottery, I will have Maryland treasure scratch off to give away to Sorrento of Arbutus next week, as well as a Green Mountain Station up in Hempstead. Our friends at GBMC put us out on the road, as well as Farnham and Dermer. I’m glad that Zach gave me this. It’s Oriole orange, if you’re watching out on the YouTube or listening on the radio, but this is a purple segment. I don’t know the next time you and I are gonna like sit and do a football segment, right? I don’t, I don’t, you feel a little talked out on Lamar and the center thing, and that is what it is. We did the defensive thing in Matt Abigay, and you know, we did an hour on how important that is, and I thought we were going to do more on Derrick Henry in the center and Lamar, and like all that, but it turns out Ryan Loop was the star, Tyler Loop, I should say, Ryan Loop, Tyler Loop was the star of the show on on Wednesday, and are you shocked that they, that that it is gone as quiet as it has, that it was just a missed kick in Pittsburgh for a play, you know, like this kid’s handled it as well as I think anybody can handle it. I tuned in thanks to Chad Steele, I tuned in on the video late, and I saw him. I thought he reported himself pretty well, you know. He seems like a good kid. He seems like that they still believe in him. To send it back out there,

Luke Jones 1:50
we’re gonna find out about that part of it, you know, the last part of what you mentioned, and how he does. But I mean, go back to the night, that fateful night in Pittsburgh, where that was John Harbaugh walking off the field as a lap for the last time as a Ravens head coach. Remember, he had his arm around Tyler Loop. To his credit, there was no running and hiding from for Tyler Loop. He answered every question in the locker room that day. He talked at length, and not that that’s a big

Nestor Aparicio 2:20
deal, but Mark Andrews didn’t the year before, just so we know, you know,

Luke Jones 2:24
and on Wednesday he answered more than 10 minutes worth of questions, and all but maybe one or two were directly about the kick, the missed kick. Moving on, he was asked about how he felt in the aftermath of John Harbaugh being dismissed, and did he feel in which I thought was a really interesting question, right? I mean, you’re trying to get over that, and then suddenly 24 hours, or less than 48 hours later, you’re your head coach is gone, and you know you’re you wonder about that, there’s there’s so much involved when we talk about sports, and when we talk about failure, right? Failure is a huge part of sports, whether we’re talking about a team losing, whether we’re talking about a sport like baseball, where there’s way more failure than success, when you’re talking about being at the plate, but when you’re talking about a situation, a scenario where someone is on an island and it comes down to them, and they fail. I mean, Tyler Loop failed in that situation, right? I mean, we can talk about, could the Ravens have run another play, should they have done this, should they have done that. He missed a 44 yard field goal. Period. End of discussion. And you were there. It’s not as though the wind was gusting or anything like that. He failed, and be the first to tell you that, but for him to show the accountability he did after the game, for him five months later, six months later, whatever it is, to answer more than 10 questions about it, and to not burr up about it, to not bristle, to not have Ravens PR cut off, cut it off, and say, “Hey, okay, you guys have asked enough about that. What about now? Like, let’s ask other questions. There was none of that. Like, he answered every single question, and he answered it with dignity and respect, and an acknowledgement of, yeah, I missed the kick, but he said all the right things too. I’ll say this, and this goes back to even him being drafted last year putting aside scandal and off the field and all that stuff with with Justin Tucker, not an easy thing to put aside, of course, but just hearing him talk about his craft, hearing him talk about himself as a professional, he does remind you a lot of Justin Tucker in that way, he just does, and he said, look, you can’t carry it like you learn from it, you see what you did wrong, but then you’ve got to get ready for the next kick, and you’ve got to move past it, and he’s saying all the right things now. Wednesday, he made a 40 yard field goal at the end of practice that Jesse Minter and the coaching staff set up that they said, hey, if. Makes this, you guys don’t have post-practice meetings, you’re done. Sayonara will see you in six weeks, right? Other than the rookies, so he made the kick, you know that obviously isn’t remotely comparable to making a kick to win the division. Let’s make you popular with your

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Nestor Aparicio 5:18
teammates for an hour,

Luke Jones 5:19
but it does, but it’s also, it’s kind of all you have to go off of right now, and I asked Jesse Minter after Wednesday’s practice, said understanding it’s a collaborative conversation with Eric and the front office and Randy Brown and everyone, what kind of consideration has been made to bringing in competition, because if there’s one thing I’ve been surprised about to this point, and again, it’s June. They could sign someone tomorrow, or bring someone in the second week of training camp, because they’re not necessarily loving what they’re seeing from loop, or they just want to beef things up, and, and see if you know they can, you know, create some competition there, and see how he responds to that. But I’m really surprised they haven’t brought in competition. I mean, let’s face it, we all compared this to what Billy Cunda 15 years ago wasn’t, wasn’t the same exact kick, right? Wasn’t the same exact situation, but it was a similar failure. It was a similar, you know, similar stakes in terms of, you know, whether you’re moving on or not. Now that was for the Super Bowl or tying the AFC Championship game, and trying to go to a Super Bowl, but this was still pretty big as week 18 and trying to win a division goes. So I’m really surprised that they haven’t brought in competition. Minter’s comment was, ‘Look, we don’t play again till September. He said, ‘I think there are ongoing talks and conversations about any position, whether you have what you feel you need to be successful or whether you want to bring someone in, but he said we feel really good about where Tyler’s at. He’ll continue to work over the summer, he’ll continue to work in camp, but again, we play in September, so I think that gives us a lot of time to be able to answer questions as they may come up. So that left the door open, but it certainly didn’t make it sound like, oh yeah, we’re looking to bring in a kicker yesterday. So I’m surprised by that, because I look at it through this lens. By no means do I say you bring in competition as though you’re actively seeking out a replacement, right? I don’t know, because you can bring in 12 other kickers who might miss a kick in a, in a critical spot. That’s why, that’s why Matt Stover was so valuable once upon a time. That’s why Justin Tucker, as a football player, was so valuable for such a long time, right. So, that’s not easy to replace all the time. So, as much as you’re disappointed and concerned that Tyler Loop failed in that spot. You also don’t want to dismiss the fact that look, everyone’s going to miss a kick from at some point or another, and you’re either you’re even going to miss a kick that’s going to cost you a game. That said, we also know the psychological part to that can be, I mean, that can be torment, quite frankly. I mean, ask Scott Norwood, right? Ask any number of professional athletes in a situation where they’re perceived to have choked in the biggest moment. You don’t always get over that. So, that’s where I.. that’s where my urging competition is rooted, because you just don’t know, and I would say this, because I’ve seen some people say this is not too many, but I’ve seen some people say, oh, you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to mess with the kid’s confidence. Well, I’d say that’s baloney to me, if he’s going to be, if he’s going to fold because you bring in competition for him, then he’s not that guy, you get the wrong guy, but he’s not that guy, so I reject that argument, but until they bring someone in, it does lend you to believe that they at least like what they are seeing in terms of the response, right?

Luke Jones 8:51
Whether you’re talking about Randy Brown and the other specialists who sat down with him the day after the season ended and they reviewed it, Tyler Lueup said he hasn’t watched it since then, but he said he knew exactly what he did, you know, in terms of what he did mechanically that caused the ball to sail right, all that right, he hasn’t watched it since then, and I think that’s a healthy thing, probably, you know, deal with it, watch it, and then move on, right, and he said the biggest thing for him was just to confront it, yeah, I missed, yeah, I didn’t do my job in that spot, and it sucks, but I also can’t, you know, he didn’t say this, but you know the implication, you know, is you can’t just lay in your bed for three months and just mourn it, either, you know what I mean, like it’s you’ve got to move on, and the I think the probably the most challenging thing for anyone in that spot is how long you have to wait to truly have a moment that I mean, even the kick in a game, let alone a game of that kind of leverage and those kind of implications. Is that tough, that’s to me, that’s the challenging part, because yeah, if you’re Jesse Minter and Randy Brown, you can conjure whatever drills you want to do in terms of running onto the field and make it seem like you’re simulating a last second kick to end practice early like they did on Wednesday, but none of that comes close to simulating what he experienced in Pittsburgh that night, and let’s face it, not going to get that in a preseason game, not even going to get that if they do bring in a kicker to compete, but to me there’s a little bit of a different urgency there when someone is brought in to hypothetically push for your job, right, so but but he has september 13 is going to be his first opportunity to make a meaningful kick, and even if he has a chance to, that the Ravens and the Colts are tied with three seconds to go, and he has a chance to make a 44 yard field goal. Yeah, he’s going to be thinking in a dome,

Nestor Aparicio 10:58
in a dome, but it’s in a dome, and it’s also week

Luke Jones 11:01
one that even if you miss that, your season’s not over, right? So, like, it’s tough, and that’s where it’s tough for the team as well, because they clearly have some conviction in this kid, right? They identified him pre-draft last year, Randy Brown went around the country looking at different kickers, trying out different guys, working out different guys interviewing different guys, and he was the guy they identified, right? He was the guy that they said, you know, regardless of how they handled the beginning of the Justin Tucker, you know, that off season and all that. You know, we, we don’t need to rehash that part of it, but they clearly identified him from a football standpoint to say this is our guy if we’re going to move on from Justin, and they did, and I think for him, and we talked about this a lot long before what happened in Pittsburgh. I think the season just did not set up in a way to really test him a whole lot. Think about it, he only made one kick over 50 yards, but I think he only tried four kicks over 50 yards, right? It wasn’t as though he had an opportunity to make 11 kicks from beyond 50 yards. He didn’t have a spot to try to kick, make a game-winning field goal, right? Justin Tucker, his rookie year. Go back, I think, what was it, week three or week four? They played the Patriots on Sunday Night Football. It was a Tory Smith losing his brother game, right? Justin Tucker, albeit it was a short kick, but he made a game-winning kick, which, if you remember, everyone was questioning whether he actually made it or not, right? It’s kind of controversial, but the point is, right off the bat, there was an instance where a rookie kicker in the month of September had a chance to make a kick in a really big moment, and Tyler Loop, I’m trying to think over the course of his rookie season until week 18 in Pittsburgh, like what was the biggest kick that he made all season, probably the kick he made in Cleveland with like five minutes to go, and I think it tied the game, I want to say off the top of my head, or maybe made it a one point or one point game, whatever point is he didn’t exactly have a season where it’s set up for him to be tested a whole lot, and I think that’s where the rub is. If he had made two other game-winning kicks as a rookie, and what happened in week 18 still happened, you would say all right, that stunk, we got to keep an eye on this, but he made the kick in week four to win it. He made a huge kick in week 11 to win the game. He just didn’t have that kind of rookie season, and that’s not his fault whatsoever. But I think it just, it leaves you in this position. At least, how I feel about him is, I don’t doubt the fact that he has talent, but I still don’t know what you really have with him, and really the only truly meaningful data point you have on him, thinking about it in those terms of high leverage and a game-winning situation or something like that, he failed, so you don’t want to overreact. At the same time, I don’t, I certainly don’t think you want to leave yourself unprepared, and then he misses a kick in game three, a week three with three seconds left, and then at that point you say, all right, well, okay, Who’s on the waiver we’ll hire right now, like, who’s on, who’s out on the street, what, what, what kicker could we coax out of retirement, like, whatever the scenario, so, so I have been a little surprised that we didn’t see them bring in competition doesn’t mean they won’t come late July and early August, but, but everything they’ve said to this point, every manner in which they proceeded, you know, it’s not as though they spent a seventh round pick on another kicker, right?

Luke Jones 14:34
They didn’t do anything like that, they didn’t sign an undrafted guy like they did Justin Tucker when Billy Cundiff returned for at least the 2012 preseason, so you know, I’ve been a little surprised by that, but going back to Wednesday, he handled himself well, and again, he answered every question, he didn’t roll his eyes about anything, he didn’t try to say, okay, I’ve addressed this, guys, he answered every question, and he didn’t complain. And to Raven’s PRs credit, they didn’t cut him off and cut off any questions after a while, and say, “Hey, like, okay, guys, he’s asked, he’s answered 12 questions about that, the kick, you know, he answered everything, and that deserves some credit, that doesn’t mean everything’s going to be fine moving forward, right, in terms of performance, but I, as him, as a human being, I do admire that, because, as you pointed out, there have been instances in the past where a Ravens player has been in that position and hasn’t necessarily risen to the occasion in terms of talking to fans and answering questions and being accountable.

Nestor Aparicio 15:33
Well, being accountable, talking to the fans, just sort of like talking to the universe in a general sense of professionalism of what the bar is when you’re making millions of dollars doing this, and then hiding and thinking like, like some sort of dismissive avoidant, and like when Mark Andrews comes back, nobody’s going to ask him about dropping the ball in Buffalo, and you know, and then ask him, Where the hell have you been the last eight months, or whatever, and why are you making commercials about the military, and what a stand-up guy you are when you’re not, so I get to ask, I get to say those things, because I don’t have to beg Chad Steele for a press pass to ask these questions, but the mini camp part of this, and where you are in the scope of all of this, if this is the last conversation we have about the Ravens for the next six weeks, and nobody gets arrested, nothing weird happens. Maybe there’s a contract thing with Lamar and they can’t, who knows, right?

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Luke Jones 16:26
Trade for a starting center, you know. Yeah, he’s sufficient like that. Somebody put out on WNSD

Nestor Aparicio 16:30
tech service, brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. Of course, you should get on that. If you’re not, you’ll know when Luke is. It, of course, you’re going to be eating Max Pizza on july 13, when this happens, but Luke will get the text out to you. So, how are you feeling about it? I mean, I’ll say how I’m feeling about it, but I want to give your, you have at it for me, yeah. But, but for me, I’m evaluating where I think they’re going to be. By the way. I was in Los Angeles the other day, and I got in my Uber in El Segundo. I text Joe Ortiz, he was in Vegas, strange, but I was trying to get together with Joe because I was literally in front of the Chargers complex, like literally my hotel was right in front of there, good Rubio’s fish tacos as well, and I took my Uber up to see Rush at the fabulous forum, not going to give you the car dealership, but on the way there, you pass this spaceship going up Manchester, it’s the Intuit Arena. Have you seen this, Luke? It looks like a.. it looks like the sphere in Vegas, crazy. It’s like hanging out in Inglewood, but you go by that and then you pass this enormous spaceship that is SoFi Stadium on the way to this tiny little Coliseum that Rush opened their thing in and played four nights this week with Annika Neils, so I went past SoFi Stadium and I remembered my day there with the Black Crow’s and all the weed in the upper deck and the Rams winning and the Bengals thinking they were going to win and who day and all and that was the, that was the Eminem halftime, that was fantastic. I’m not even an Eminem guy, but it was pretty good. So, I went by there, and I thought, Super Bowl’s here this year. Hmm, NFL Network, hmm, and I thought, Who’s going to be here? And I literally thought this for the second or third time in a row, because I was in Vegas before, and I told John Martin this on our segment this week. I walked around Vegas, and because the Orioles were playing one day, they played at 1030 in the morning, the next day they played at four in the afternoon, because they’re playing 7o’clock games. It’s like I’m wandering around casinos and wandering around Vegas was 110 degrees, and I went into sports books, which are empty because of these, right? Nobody goes to the sports book to bet so much anymore, but they’re beautiful, you know. They have all the lines up, and they still.. you’ll appreciate this as the old fifth-grade school teacher up at Susquehannock. They still have the little dittos where you can take the futures with you on the sheet of paper, so they had the futures for the Ravens, you know, and the futures, I think the Rams are 11 to two, and the Ravens were 11 to one or 10 to one in most places to win the Super Bowl.

Luke Jones 19:12
The Miles Garrett thing has made the Rams the head of the class now, right? Right, they were up there already, but

Nestor Aparicio 19:17
yeah, but like, so as it goes, and I didn’t think about, dude, I spent a day and a half in LA, and think about the Rams, it was all Chargers, where I was in Manhattan Beach, I saw Charger stuff, I didn’t see a lot of Ram stuff, I just didn’t,

Luke Jones 19:30
you don’t hear that, you hear the opposite of that, I did, I but, but

Nestor Aparicio 19:33
I was in El Segundo, it’s like being in Owings Mills and not seeing the Ravens, right, I guess,

Luke Jones 19:37
but

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Nestor Aparicio 19:39
for me I started thinking about the Super Bowl, and whether the Ravens could be there or not. What do you think?

Luke Jones 19:46
Could they sure? Because I mean, this last season illustrated what a season can be, right? I mean, going into the year, Mahomes, Allen, Lamar Jackson, right? I mean. How many times have we talked about those three quarterbacks and those three teams to a lesser extent, Joe Burrow, because his team has lacked right, or he’s been hurt, but and you saw how the year played out, right, Kansas City completely fell off the mountain, and then Mahomes gets hurt late in the season, adding insult to injury or injury to insult, whichever way you want to put it. The Ravens have the season they had, where they get off to a one in five start. Lamar, a number of others, get hurt, they rally in the middle portion of the season, and then aren’t good enough late and miss the playoffs entirely. And then even the Bills, who made the playoffs, but we’re flawed, and the year where you look at it, and you’re Josh Allen, and you’re Sean McDermott, and you say, okay, no Chiefs, which means no Mahomes, who has been the team that we haven’t been able to get by, by the way, he just got paid again,

Nestor Aparicio 20:56
right? Like, yeah, he did. Well, we were talking about Lamar, I mean, Lamar wants to be here, I’m sure they’re offering him a lot of money, but you know, I mean, like, that’s the Mahomes thing, he clearly wants to be there, and they like contract for life there, so that’s what they’re, but you’re gonna be dealing with him next five years, no matter what. So, but

Luke Jones 21:10
the Bills were in this position where it’s like, hey, like, you’re the most experienced team in this field, and they didn’t even get to the AFC title game, right, and we’re talking about the Broncos and the Patriots. No one was talking about the Broncos and the Patriots back in September, right? So, so to say, to look at it through that lens and understanding the Ravens, whether we want to say they’re the most talented team in the league or not, right? I mean, like you and I debated that, but

Nestor Aparicio 21:36
Harbor got fired over because the owner and the general manager, Vegas, thinks they’re talented. Vegas has a favorite, right? Yeah, whether you

Luke Jones 21:44
think they’re number one, number three, number six, whatever, like they’re in that somewhere in that space where they’re a talented team. So, can they? Yes. However, they do have a first-time head coach, they do have a rookie play caller as offensive coordinator, who, by the way, I’m, I’m impressed by what I’ve seen from Declan Doyle. Does that equate to an offense having extraordinary success right off the bat? Well, who’s the starting center going to be? If it does, he’ll be the head coach of the Cardinals next year. Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So, so I just, I do have some, I take some pause, I have some reservations just about how much new they’re navigating and what that means in terms of a rookie head coach, in terms of a first time play caller at offensive coordinator, in terms of issues with your interior offensive line, even if you’ve short up guard, now what about center? Right, it was the opposite last year. So it’s been done before, though. When I think about Tomlin coming into Pittsburgh, coming in a year, took him a championship game. So, like, I like.. I mean, look, look at what Liam Cohn did last year for the Jaguars, a team that, perception-wise, nowhere close. Well, you’re hoping to catch that sort of energy, right? Mike McDonald, we don’t talk about him, but so, so, so to answer your question, can they get there? Yes, of course they can get there. Will they get there? I don’t know. I will say this, though, in terms of laying the groundwork, the work that they just completed when, when they started the offseason program. What was it, april 5 or whatever it was? It was the first Monday in April. They were allowed to start two weeks early. The april 6 teams with first-year head coaches can start their off-season program two weeks early. The Ravens have not been in that position under this current CBA. That kind of set that all up, so throughout April through May through June, I mean, really, since the Max Crosby saga, considering how new everything is, it’s been pretty quiet, actually. And I think that’s a good thing, right? You didn’t want to be in a position where three players suffered season-ending injuries over the last month, like has happened elsewhere. You don’t want to be in a position where you have a couple players dealing with off-field arrests or things of that nature. You didn’t want to be in a position where Lamar Jackson was not there, right? I mean, he wasn’t there for one OTA, he didn’t have 100% attendance, but by all accounts, Lamar Jackson was there regularly this spring. That’s a good thing, regardless of the contract questions that will continue to linger, because they’re questions until they’re not anymore. I mean, it’s just the reality of it, but he’s been there, so for me, despite the fact that there is all this fanfare about a new head coach and new coaching staff, and you know, you bring in someone like Trey Hendrickson, for example, he’s not Max Crosby, but still very high-profile signing, it’s been very quiet otherwise, and that’s a good thing to me, it’s been very workmanlike. That’s good, you don’t want drama this time of year. My goodness, you and I just spent 45 minutes talking about Greg Albernaz and Samuel Bisayo. What self-inflicted, by

Nestor Aparicio 25:08
the way? Self-inflicted drama, you know

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Luke Jones 25:11
the idea of keeping things in house or not, whether you have an issue or not, all that we don’t know exactly what to keep in

Nestor Aparicio 25:19
house. Don’t take him out of the lineup, dude, you know,

Luke Jones 25:22
or just if you have an issue, keep it in house, right? You don’t talk about it to the media, whatever. But the point is bringing it back to where the Ravens are, and this is where I just, I like the fact that they’ve had a quiet spring, considering how much new there they’re actually. Well, they had Justin

Nestor Aparicio 25:38
Tucker last year and a tired head coach, and you know, this off season began with, I don’t know, dude, I’ve got JT the Brick telling you that it’s been, it’s been tumultuous their offseason in regard to Max Crosby. I don’t think that plays itself out into their building at all. It does on third down if Trey Hendrickson doesn’t get to the quarterback,

Luke Jones 25:59
I mean, that that was tumultuous for the organization, but for the players, once they’re actually showing up and in the building a month later, I don’t think anyone’s talking about that. I don’t think there’s a single player or a coach that’s out there on the back fields that has Max Crosby on their mind whatsoever. I mean, I just.. I just don’t.. I don’t think that’s.. I think I do know Lamar

Nestor Aparicio 26:19
texted out eyeballs that night when, when he thought Max Crosby was going to be on the team,

Luke Jones 26:26
and if you recall, we were at Costas earlier that day, and I was wondering at the time, hey, Lamar, just so you know, because I know you’re not looking at everyone’s Instagram and everything incessantly, Lamar texted this out, this feels kind of, sort of like the SpongeBob thing that he did three years ago, before the contract, so just I don’t know if it’s that, I haven’t heard that, but be on alert, and of course it was Max Crosby later that night, although I have since heard, and not recently, it was a few days after that, I actually heard Lamar apparently didn’t even know about the Max Crosby thing, so it might have been something else in his life that was totally.. again, this is why you don’t read too much into social media, because someone might be, someone might be tweeting or posting about the meal, they just.. I tried out the fake

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Nestor Aparicio 27:10
book, exactly what I mean, you know, I mean, you

Luke Jones 27:13
just don’t know. But anyway, point I’m making is, since then, and as much as that looked the way it looked at that point in time I don’t think there’s any fallout that leaks onto the field in terms of other than what you said, other than production and how it looks in September and October and November and December, but in terms of preparation, in terms of team culture, in terms of how players feel about one another, in terms of out of how the players feel about the new coaching staff. I just, in that way, it feels like it’s been very smooth, and that’s what you want, right? You don’t want to be.. we talked about this with nobody’s pining

Nestor Aparicio 27:48
the way for John Harbaugh out there, they’re breathing in the fresh air. No, yes, whatever it is.

Luke Jones 27:53
And look, I do.. I will say this: some of the.. and we’re all guilty of this from time to time, some of the observations out there this spring. Well, oh, you know, this is happening, or that’s happening, or they, you know, because there’s an implication that that wasn’t happening before. Like, for example, I saw some people noted Wednesday, Mark Andrews committed a false start. They pulled him up, they pulled him, and look, I like that, because that shows the coaching staff is holding players accountable, but the Ravens have done that in the past, right? I can vividly remember just a couple years ago when an offensive lineman would commit a false start, they were pulled from 11 on 11 and they took a lap, you know what I mean, like, so there is some of that that goes on that, that for me, is a little fatiguing, or it’s just like, okay, like I heard some people making big mention, let us coach the football team in peace. Well, but it’s for me, it’s also they’re not reinventing the wheel, right? Jesse Minter’s not reinventing the game of football, right? That practices look a little different, but it’s not, not something that I think is all that terribly noteworthy, I guess, is what I mean. Well, I think it’s even,

Nestor Aparicio 29:08
it’s even made less, and I would have been predictive about this. They got Harbaugh’s guy, both this guy worked for both

Luke Jones 29:16
of them, exactly. He’s gonna

Nestor Aparicio 29:17
like the system’s not gonna, they did not want disruption. Eric DiCosta did not want something new, you know. He didn’t, he didn’t want the guy from who, who was the old quarterback, Cliff Kingsbury. I’ve said this all along. I think him sit with his feet up in Phoenix, or you know, overlooking Camelback. I’m thinking he didn’t want that guy. He wanted, he wanted this.

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Luke Jones 29:39
I’ve said this all along. This has been more refreshed than reboot. I mean, it’s just think about it in terms of software, right? You and I are talking on Zoom right now.

Nestor Aparicio 29:50
Well, they all think the players are good enough to win 13 games, and they won eight last year, so they made a change in that department, right? Literally,

Luke Jones 29:57
but think about it in terms of Zoom, every. Often you download a new update, right, and sometimes it looks pretty different, actually, but you’re not switching from Zoom to, I don’t know, Teams, Teams, or something like Terrible, right? Hey, Teams, right, but that’s my point here. This is still Zoom, but it’s the refreshed, updated version, and it’s a little more dramatic than that, because I, I also want to be clear, and you and I didn’t butt heads about this, but we had spirited debate about this when they hired Minter. Like, look, he isn’t just a third Harbaugh, like he is his own man. He, he, he’s not a literally not a Harbaugh. Well, let’s

Nestor Aparicio 30:33
find out. Time will tell.

Luke Jones 30:34
So, we’ll see how he’s different, right? But because I would also say this, I mean, it’s like I said to you, like you and I work together, but very few people would say that you and I are alike in very many ways at all, right? I mean, we both have roots in watching Baltimore sports and talking about Baltimore sports, and we’re from this area. All your damn

Nestor Aparicio 30:53
wrestling stuff shows up on my timeline because of you. I know that. So, I spend too much time with you, and

Luke Jones 30:57
I both love pizza jobs, but like, there are a lot of things that were very different, and that’s okay, like that’s not a bad thing. And I said, look, you don’t want to

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Nestor Aparicio 31:05
go to Boston with me next month, just tell me, all right? I won’t take it, all right. Let’s

Luke Jones 31:09
see how the next few weeks of baseball go, at the very least, right. But, but, but the point is, with that, like, you’re hoping when you make a hire like this, you’re hoping that Jesse Minter is going to take best practices that did work, because look, how anyone feels about John Harbaugh today, and whether it was the right move or not. It was time, in my opinion. I think most people feel that way with how this has played out. Most are not going to sit here, and I’ll continue to reject the idea that the Ravens won as much as they did over 18 years, in spite of John Harbaugh. I’ll continue to reject that notion, but you want to take best practices from him, best practices from Jim Harbaugh, and take some of those molded into your own, and then the things that you, as a coach, said, ‘Hey, you know, if I were a head coach, one. If I’m going to be a head coach one day, I wouldn’t do it like that. You know, everyone does that, right? We can all think some of our favorite teachers or favorite bosses we’ve had in our lives doesn’t mean we agree with everything they’re going to do or everything they do, but you’re going to agree with a lot of things and say, hey, that works, that works. I love that they did that. I never thought about that. That’s helped me a lot as a coach. I don’t like how he handles that, or I don’t like how we do that in practice. I would do it a different way, and that’s what you’re hoping for here, right? I mean, like, it’s not necessarily, you know, this goes back to I remember earlier in the offseason when they, right after the draft, when they signed the Pavia and the other undrafted rookie quarterback, and they have five quarterbacks on the roster. I still say to this point doesn’t make any sense, because you don’t have enough practice reps, and someone pushed back and said you’re thinking about it in terms of the John Harbaugh way. This is Jesse Minter now, said no, I’m not like if you understand how NFL practices work and understanding you only have x number of minutes that you can be out there for various portions of the spring, and even training camp, you cannot get enough reps for that many quarterbacks, that that it’s worth it, and that’s why I fully expect once we get into training camp, they’ll probably be down to four quarterbacks, or maybe even three quarterbacks by then, because especially considering you have one of the best quarterbacks in football as your starter, and you have a an entrenched backup, so where are these other reps going to, other than, yeah, you do want to have another guy or two for preseason games, depending on how you want to do that, so, but, but my, but my point with all that is, I never expected this to look 100% different, and I don’t even know what that would be. Again, like it’s football, like you’re not gonna change

Nestor Aparicio 33:45
the jerseys back in April. They didn’t even do that.

Luke Jones 33:48
Yeah, like they changed, you know, it’s subtle. But well, and

Nestor Aparicio 33:52
it’s like the coaching staff, they made a change, and I, I feel like for now it feels subtle to me. I’ll let you know when it feels less than that.

Luke Jones 33:59
Well, and as expected, ultimately comes back to, are you going to be successful or not? Like I asked Kyle Hamilton this because I thought it was interesting, and you know it was a very broad question, but I wanted to see how he would handle it, not not as a gotcha or anything like that, but just because I think so highly of Kyle Hamilton, and he’s a really smart guy, and he gets it, but I asked them, you know, how different is this defense, you know, not just talking in terms of Zach Gore last year and the year before, but go back to Mike McDonald in 22 and 23 Keep in mind, I mean, those three were part of this process that went back to kind of the end of the Dean Pease, going into Wink Martindale era of Ravens defense, where they really rebuilt the system and revamped it, and they made it in a way that they thought was little more flexible, more complex to the opposition, but simplified in how they teach it and communicate about it as with their players to make it. Easier to learn and easier to communicate and process, and all that. So, I just asked him, I said, “You know, how different is this with it being Jesse Minter’s defense now compared to Zach Gore’s defense, compared to Mike McDonald’s defense, because it’s all rooted in the same system that they all helped design and revamp. It was a system Zach Gore played in. Yeah, yeah, well, sure, but yeah, he said, and I’ll read you Hamilton’s quote, and you know, I’m not saying this is earth-shattering, but it speaks to what we were just talking about. He said, you know, I’m, he said, quote, I mean, in the best way possible, you bring in a new CEO, you don’t want to change the whole structure of the company, well, unless the company was doing really bad, so, and you know, he kind of, you know, brought some laughter there, but you kind of tweak stuff here and there, and say, if you’ve been good in the past, how do we get back to this? If you haven’t, how do we achieve this? You put your own little flavor here and there, and you confront what needs to be confronted, raise up the good, get rid of the bad, so you kind of sift through, like, all right. Here’s what you guys do really well. Here are the things the last couple years that we need to junk, right? And then he continues, or improve,

Nestor Aparicio 36:09
or improve. Sure, of course.

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Luke Jones 36:10
Well, but sometimes it’s sometimes you just say, hey, like a pitcher in baseball, if you have five pitches and that fifth pitch that you throw gets, you get clobbered with it. Do you keep trying to improve it, or if you have a repertoire that’s good enough, get rid of it, right? Like, you just get rid of it, right? If you’re not good at it, don’t do it. So he said, but he continues. I feel like Jesse, along with everybody on the staff, has done a great job of that so far. We’re not coming out here like a completely different team or defense. I feel like we have a lot of the same players, a lot of the same bets that we’ve had. It’s just a matter of kind of resetting and getting to what we know that very much aligns with what we were just talking about, like this. It’s not a 100% new system. Now, Jesse Minter has different things that he’s going to prioritize and different philosophies that he’ll have that will differ from Zach Gore, that differs from Mike McDonald, and keep in mind coaches of all of the

Nestor Aparicio 37:06
reasons they hired these guys, especially with Doyle, would be that they felt like they matched him to Lamar, right, like they picked the coaches around the personnel to some degree, Eric has that latitude in the organization because of his tenure to strategize this better with Steve Bashati and Jupiter when they asked Harbaugh, right, to say what, what do we need for Kyle Hamilton, what do we need for Lamar Jackson at this point, that and it’s been built like that, not, we’re going to create a system and make Hamilton and Lamar play in it, right? Like that, that’s other teams have to deal with that. When you’re doing from scratch, you’re from scratch. This isn’t from scratch at all. This is from Hall of Fame quarterback and Hall of something, something, Kyle Hamilton depends on where you put him, but like this team has established great players that have played great in this system. They didn’t want to junk the system so much, so that they hired Harbaugh Junior here to come in. I don’t expect major changes. I mean, like, on the defense, all of this makes sense to me, and I think offensively you don’t, what they, I mean, monkey got, I got a job out of his, his 10 years OC here, you know, but

Luke Jones 38:30
I do think the offense is going to be quite different now. Again, when we say that we’re not reinventing the game of football, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to line up in formations that no one’s ever seen before. Now, there might be a little bit of that here and there, and if so, then good on Declan Doyle, but, but I, this is where it’s interesting, because I’m glad you brought up Lamar and Declan Doyle, because you know this, this is a way to transition into this. Lamar brought it up on Wednesday that Declan Doyle custom out at one point during practice, now not in, and Lamar was very good-natured in how he said this. This wasn’t something combative. Point is, the point that Lamar is trying to make is, despite that all the talk about Declan Doyle being a first-time play caller, the fact that he’s only a few months older than Lamar Jackson, this was an example of he’s coaching them, and that’s not to say that Todd Monken didn’t. I mean, Todd Monk, and absolutely coached Lamar Jackson, but I think there were questions when you hire someone that young, how is it going to work? Is he going to have the full accountability and full attention of players as a coach, or is this going to be, you know, you end up being a little bit more of a pushover, right? I mean, big job

Nestor Aparicio 39:44
for 29 year old,

Luke Jones 39:45
it is. I mean, he’s 30 now, so you know he’s older than Lamar, he’s 30, and Lamar is still 29 so he’s got that going for him. But by the way,

Nestor Aparicio 39:52
I went into Denny’s late night the other night, and I qualify for the late night meal. I’m over 55 so I just want to point out, first time my life I. Ever had the discounts, throw that in. I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be disrespectful to 29 to 30, but you can sound it better when he was 29 to me. 30 sounds, that sounds so, so you know, Sean Payton, or so, who’s the guy in LA, Sean McVay? It sounds so, you could be a 31 year old head coach, 29 different, you know,

Luke Jones 40:23
yeah, you can go for the early bird special now, but, but no, I just Lamar saying what he did, and look, that dynamic is going to be there in May and June when you know it’s still new, there’s still a novelty. It’s still the honeymoon period, and that’s, you know, I’ve talked about how quiet it’s been this spring. It’s, we’re still in the honeymoon phase, right? I mean, like

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Nestor Aparicio 40:49
seeing your slam. I love how you’re just not even

Luke Jones 40:53
listening to what I’m saying. Just

Nestor Aparicio 40:55
thinking about getting old, and now he’s 30 now, and I’m like, that’s funny to me. I know that’s all. No, no, but

Luke Jones 41:03
I just.. you want that to continue. That needs to continue, and you want that same dynamic to be in place come November. That Declan Doyle is coaching those guys hard when they need to be coached hard, and holding them accountable when they need to be held accountable, and not just calling out Lamar, but anyone on the offense, if they’re not doing what they need to be doing in a certain instance, that is a challenging dynamic that you have to be like, that has to be a thing. So I think Lamar looked

Nestor Aparicio 41:32
happy to me, that’s my observation. My observation is all right, John’s gone, there’s new air, you know, maybe I’ll get my contract, maybe I don’t, but I got a quarter of a billion dollars in the bank. This is my team, I have survived this. They brought a new OC in, I’m going to get my input in. However, he felt about Monken, he probably could feel better about a coach than he felt about Monk in. I think you at the end,

Luke Jones 41:56
I mean, like, let’s keep in mind, and Lamar has even acknowledged this, and Todd Monken, I believe, even said that Lamar texted him when he got the head coach job for the Browns. I’m pretty sure Lamar reached out to him and said, you know, hey, congrats, I’m happy for you all. That you know, Lamar was very successful under Todd Monk in the first two years. MVP 2023 should have been, in my opinion, and I voted for him as PFWA MVP, and he won PFWA MVP in, in 2024 right? I mean, that was a historic offense in 2024 so, and that was a minute and a half ago, right? Yeah, I mean, we’re not, we’re talking about one, albeit very frustrated, Glenn Doyle was seen those

Nestor Aparicio 42:33
plays too,

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Luke Jones 42:34
shores, right? Yeah, so, but it is going to be different, because you said it’s

Nestor Aparicio 42:38
going to be different, I keep thinking to myself, different, better be how they better use Lamar as a decoy to me. How could they better use him without getting him hit in effing up defenses because of him? And I said the other day, and I made this clear, he’s not going to be as fast as he used to be, but he’s still really

Luke Jones 43:01
fast, but he’s still really fair enough. But I think the biggest thing, the biggest talking point, as it talk pertains to that space, is need your offensive line to be a lot better than was last year, right? I mean, that was so much of the problem. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 43:14
that’s still not the case, if that’s, if that’s where we were most, but it needs to be better enough. Then,

Luke Jones 43:19
well, no, we don’t know that yet, but it needs to be better. It does look, man, you don’t need to have the best offensive line in football to win a Super Bowl, but you can’t have the 25th You can’t have the well, Texan

Nestor Aparicio 43:33
Doro would say I can draw them up, you just got to hold your block for seconds,

Luke Jones 43:37
and that’s, and that can be part of it. How many, you can’t

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Nestor Aparicio 43:39
jump offside, you can’t get us into bad down and distances, we can’t have bad first downs, all of those things right

Luke Jones 43:45
there, and some of that might be, hey, maybe, maybe Lamar runs a little more quick game, maybe they run a little more quick passing game at times, right? I mean, and that can be a way to offset some leaky pass protection, right, and and they did that some under Monken, but there are other times where I thought they could do more of that, right? So, but

Nestor Aparicio 44:04
that’s not what it was designed to do. Monkey brought this thing in to have Lamar drop back and become that guy and win MVPs throwing the football, and did two out of the three years. You know,

Luke Jones 44:13
they did have Derrick Henry too. I mean, you know, in 24 not 23 It added up

Nestor Aparicio 44:17
to eight wins, and the coach getting fired, which is why we’re sitting talking about it right now, as a motivation,

Luke Jones 44:22
not in 2024 2025 that was the case, but, but the point with point I’m trying to make here is the Jesse Minter defense is still rooted in the same thing that was Zach Gore’s defense and Mike McDonald’s defense, right, they’re branches from the same tree, or the one that

Nestor Aparicio 44:41
Minter coached him with McDonald’s seven years ago,

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Luke Jones 44:44
whereas now we’re talking about an offensive coordinator that is not this isn’t a Todd Monken disciple, right, whereas Jesse Minter wasn’t a Mike McDonald disciple as much as was a Dean P. Slack. Ash Wing, so all terminology has

Nestor Aparicio 45:01
changed, but a lot of homework for Lamar.

Luke Jones 45:03
Yeah, oh yeah, it’s a completely different, and Lamar even said this. I thought it was interesting. It is a

Nestor Aparicio 45:07
different language, as

Luke Jones 45:09
it’s brand new the way Lamar, because Lamar even said when Monken came in, there were elements of the Greg Roman offense that they kept in place. Now it was much different overall, but this seems completely different, right? And, and this is where we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, because you have Declan Doyle, who worked for Ben Johnson last year in Chicago, albeit Ben Johnson was still calling the place, and before that, keep in mind Declan Doyle was a Sean Payton guy, so Jacqueline

Nestor Aparicio 45:42
Doll never had his own language,

Luke Jones 45:44
no. So, so that’s where, like, this system, like, it’s going to be interesting. I assume it’s going to be very heavy Sean Payton. That’s what I was

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Nestor Aparicio 45:51
going to say. Yeah,

Luke Jones 45:52
and with some Ben Johnson flavors mixed in there. So I’m fascinated to see what it looks like, right? And that’s where it’s.. I mean, we’ve already seen, right off the bat, the Ravens didn’t even try to keep Pat Ricard, like they’re not – they will use a fullback at times, but you know who that fullback’s going to be – it’s going to be one of the tight ends, right? Did

Nestor Aparicio 46:10
John ever step out and hire? I mean, John’s hiring would speak to John’s personality in a lot of ways, I think over 20 years of him hiring old men, to you know, that weren’t threatening to him, that weren’t aspiring to be head coaches again, in some cases of Marty Morning Wig, or, or even Wink, more gritty guys than necessarily,

Luke Jones 46:36
I mean, the Kubiak one was, and obviously, you know, regardless of how it Kubiak arrived, Gary Kubiak had been a head coach, right? Yeah, and became a head coach the next.. no, I’m

Nestor Aparicio 46:48
talking about taking on hot shot young guys that Warren is McDonald’s going to be a part of his trees already won a Super Bowl, McDonald might win three more, but I don’t know, but I’m just

Luke Jones 46:58
for a year, right, and came back, but the notion

Nestor Aparicio 47:01
that you would have a 29 year old OC in the case of Harbaugh, and we’ve talked about this ad nauseam, that Harbaugh was more defensive-minded, but really a special teams enthusiast, never called plays in an offense, never played in an offense, never played an offensive position, probably had a different kind of relationship with Lamar than Gary Kubiak could have with Joe Flacco, right, or whatever, playing the position, or even T Martin, let’s just say, right. So I’m fascinated by the notion that this is the first time that they’ve taken on a boy genius in a while. You know what I mean. Marvin Lewis was a boy genius for March Abroda. I’m just trying to think how many boy geniuses we ever had here, you know. Billick brought in Fossil and Neuheisel, and you know, I’m just trying to think of Rex Ryan, who was younger then and went on to be, you know, like went on to be a head coach, but the Deck Lead Doyle thing very much feels Johnny Bravo to me, like Peyton Johnson, he’ll be a head coach, that’s the pathway for him, and there’s nothing that can make you head coach quicker than an MVP quarterback, I mean, a six tool quarterback, I mean to go back to what you

8

Luke Jones 48:10
said, I mean, what Marvin Lewis, I think, was 38 when the Ravens arrived in Baltimore, you know, when the Browns arrived in Baltimore, and you know, we’re filling out a coaching staff, you know Mike McDonald, but again he was a homegrown guy, but Mike McDonald was very young when they hand the reins to him as the defensive coordinator. I think what’s interesting, and this kind of lends itself to, you already said this earlier in the segment, they hired someone that they know if this works, he’s very likely to be gone in the next year or two, you know what I mean, like they did not. This was not, let’s hire someone who’s going to be Jesse Minter’s offensive coordinator for the next decade, because that’s

Nestor Aparicio 48:52
where John Harbaugh would get criticized for hiring Zach, or in a, you know, I don’t know about Monk, I mean, Monkey’s a head coach now, right? So, like, I don’t know that that’s a McDonald’s. I mean, Harbaugh has,

Luke Jones 49:05
I kind of think it’s a lazy talking point, not that you’re making, but when people say that, because you don’t know, right? I mean, to your point, I mean, Todd Monken, and I granted it’s the Browns, like it’s a Brown. Did Marvin Lewis

Nestor Aparicio 49:16
make Ray Lewis great, or did Ray Lewis and that group get Marvin hired, right? I mean, it’s chicken or egg, right? I guess the

Luke Jones 49:24
point is you can’t be afraid of success, right? Right, you can’t be afraid of success. I mean, so you’re going to hire an inferior guy just because you don’t want to lose him, because he’s going to become a head coach. I mean, man, that’s a defeatist attitude to have, like that, right off the bat, like you’re cutting yourself off at the knees there, you’re cutting off your ceiling there. It

Nestor Aparicio 49:46
doesn’t feel Bashadi-esque.

Luke Jones 49:48
Yeah, so, and Bashadi

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Nestor Aparicio 49:49
is in on all of these conversations, you know. This is the part where he takes this, is his, but, but I think Lean is my specialty, you know.

Luke Jones 49:57
But I think to me it seems very evident. The way this, and Steve said this himself, how this played out. I mean, this is much more Eric’s hire, right? I mean, and Sashi, Eric and Sashi Brown, way more Steve like one in 31

Luke Jones 50:11
I mean, Steve was still going to sign off at the end of the day, right? I mean, like, you know, if Eric hired someone that Steve hated, he wasn’t going to just let him. This was the

Nestor Aparicio 50:20
easiest sign off for Steve, though.

Luke Jones 50:22
Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, the toughest, the tough part is letting go of John, right? I mean, that was the difficult part for Steve. Steve didn’t want to do that. You and I talked about that for years. I mean, but I think he recognized, like, we’ve got a quarterback who’s going to be 30 next year, and he’s not signed long term, and not that it was all about Lamar, but there were enough issues, and Lamar is your face of your franchise. He’s a franchise two-time MVP quarterback. There was an idea of, we’ve got to let someone else try this before we know, you know, if it comes down to it that Lamar is not going to be here for the next eight years,

Nestor Aparicio 51:00
we’ve got to at least try some more. I think it’s different to like what Buffalo did to McDermott and Josh Allen in the middle of that. I never felt that closest with Lamar and Harbaugh, in that they were lockstep in that way, that that I’m not shocked that life is okay for Lamar, and I said this 20 minutes ago, Lamar looks happy, looks adjusted to be here. Um, if Lamar wanted out, it might have been like, yeah, I’m done with him, I’m done with our ball, maybe. But put me, put me at Dolphins jersey owners, because I do think that that can be.. look, we, we spent an hour today talking about Bisayo and Albernaz, and I know Bisayo is going to, going to survive that, because he’s got $78 million in Albert as a team that’s six games under 500 so, but, but in the case of Lamar, Lamar being happy, it’s the only way they can win, you and I can, you and I can talk to her blue in the face about anything else we want,

Luke Jones 51:55
unhealthy, happy and healthy, yeah, it’s that simple, yeah, and again, just, just to clarify, I

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Nestor Aparicio 52:00
don’t like the NBA application of that, that our quarterback has to, but that’s the, that’s the deal that they’ve set up out there, that’s the way that, but I would also,

Luke Jones 52:08
I would also reject any, and I’m not saying that you’re implying this either, I would also reject the notion that, like, that, that this John Harbaugh’s firing was not a power play by Lamar Jackson, no, not this was, this was an assessment of all the dynamics of the entire football team saying it feels like this feels stale, this feels like this is not, this feels like it was in

Nestor Aparicio 52:28
Lamar’s best interest as much as everybody else’s best interest

Luke Jones 52:32
exactly, and look, but but part of the unknown, and this is where we’re going to find out, as much as I talked about how this spring has felt quiet and harmonious and constructive, and all that. We don’t know anyone sitting here with 100% conviction that Jesse Minter is going to be a great NFL head coach. You’re talking out of your.. you know what? You don’t know, right? We don’t know.

Nestor Aparicio 52:56
That’s why september 13 is going to be fun. This is.. this is a little bit more of a delicious off season, and I think that I’m interested to see if the fans are as waved onto it or waved off of it, and again, this has to do with the Orioles being competitive or not, or the Knicks game, and the World Cup, and Ocean City, and what people are into, but the football thing’s going to go away. This, we’re ending this segment right now, and I don’t, we literally don’t know, I mean, the next time,

Luke Jones 53:22
yeah, we’ll talk a few times here and there, but it’s going to be kind of just recent, it’s going to be

Nestor Aparicio 53:26
after somebody gets arrested or they sign a secret, you right, literally,

8

Luke Jones 53:29
while you hope it’s not the former, the latter will see, I mean, they, I would think it’s

Nestor Aparicio 53:34
the only thing that’s going to put them in the news the next six,

Luke Jones 53:36
I would think in terms of if you’re going to add a center, right, in terms of if you’re going to bring someone else, you know what, via trade, whatever it is, I would think you’d like to have that in place sooner in camp than later, because there’s a lot that goes into communication, the dynamic between the center and the quarterback, your center calling out your protection, identifying the mic, making sure every, you are

Nestor Aparicio 54:00
convinced their center is not on the team right now, right? I mean,

Luke Jones 54:03
I just have a tough man. I mean, I want to make sure we get that in before

Nestor Aparicio 54:07
we get started on this.

Luke Jones 54:08
That is a great to me, telling me that Pinter or Gwen or Corey Bullock, you know, those are the three, you know, those are the three candidates, Danny Pinter, uh, Javon Eric’s

8

Nestor Aparicio 54:24
doing his, uh, summer thing down in North Carolina here in the next week or two. What does.. does he think he has a center?

Luke Jones 54:29
I’m guessing not, because,

Nestor Aparicio 54:31
okay,

Luke Jones 54:31
because of how he spoke immediately after the draft. I mean, he was flat out saying

Nestor Aparicio 54:35
we’re not done,

Luke Jones 54:36
we’re not done. He, he acknowledged the possibility of a trade, but assuming they’re going to do that, and I don’t know what the 100% I mean, a deal’s got to be there, right? Like, you’ve got to make, you can’t force it if there’s a starting caliber center that is on the market, then great, but at the same time, if there’s a starting caliber center, how many teams are willing to trade that, right? You know what I mean, like, so, but I would think. If you are making that kind of move, I’m guessing you want that in place by, I don’t know, second week of August at the latest, like that’s not something you want to do after final cuts, right? That, that doesn’t sound, that sounds very suboptimal, especially on top of all the newness you have with the coaching staff in general, so that doesn’t mean it has to be in place for day one of training camp, but I would think that’s something you want to try to have in place as early in camp as you can, because you want, you also have a rookie right guard playing next to that guy, so no matter how much we think of a want you want, a, and how good he’s going to be, and all that, and you’d like

Nestor Aparicio 55:40
to have continuity, just whatever it is, whatever we’re gonna have, let’s have it. It’s an offensive line, it’s the most important part in sports to have continuity. You change hockey lines, baseball’s an individual game, basketball, you know, you sub, you sub in on positions, you know, you know your role. Football on an offensive line, it’s a ballet, it’s a completely different

8

Luke Jones 56:00
exactly, it’s like

Nestor Aparicio 56:01
being in, it’s like being in rush and being the drummer, you know. Literally,

Luke Jones 56:05
and I’ll say this again. I mean, I’ve said this to you before, not in this conversation, but in earlier in the off season. I think Dwayne Ledford, their offensive line coach, beyond the coordinators and the head coach, is the most important man on staff, right? He’s got to have that group playing at a high level now. Again, going back to what we said a couple minutes ago, this doesn’t mean I don’t think the Ravens are going to have a top five offensive line in football, but it can’t be bottom 10, right? It needs to be solid at the very least. Give me a higher floor than what you had last year with ballet and Voorhees as your guards, right? The guards are in better shape on paper. I mean, you’ve got one in, you get, you gave John Simpson a $30 million contract, right? Three years, 10 million a year, so guards should be markedly better. Your center can’t be an utter liability, right? And let’s be clear, I don’t think they’re gonna go.. I don’t think they’re going to be trading for a Pro Bowl center. I don’t think that’s in the cards, but it’s got to be someone that is solid, someone that Jesse Minter and Declan Doyle, when they go to sleep at night, when Declan Doyle’s head is hitting the pillow, he’s not thinking about his center completely screwing up the operation and getting your quarterback killed, right? I mean, you can’t have that kind of scenario, because then to go back to your question from at the beginning of our conversation, then I’d say no, I don’t think the Ravens will be good enough to win a Super Bowl, if that is that big of a problem. So they’ve got to, they’ve got to figure that out, and I’d be lying to you, it’d be disingenuous of me to say that I think that that answer is on the roster right now, so we’ll see again. No disrespect to those guys, but you’re talking about undrafted guys, and in the case of Pinter, someone who has 10 starts under his belt over multiple seasons in the NFL, I mean, just not, he’s a backup, he’s been a career backup, so you, you can’t sell me on the idea that your O line is better when, okay, you’ve upgraded the guards, but you go from a Pro Bowl center, three-time Pro Bowl center, you know, to now having a complete unknown career backup lining up there, week one. I just, that doesn’t work for me, and I think the Ravens privately understand that as well. So, we’ll see what Eric DiCosta can cook up here between now and, you know, first couple weeks of training camp, because once you get beyond that, then then I really start to have my concerns about even if you make a move, is it then too late in terms of wanting to have this thing gelling and cohesive by the time week one rolls around,

Nestor Aparicio 58:42
all right. Luke will be in Owings Mills when the time comes, but for now it’s Camden Yards and it’s Machado Mania over the weekend. We got World Cup fever around here. I’ll be watching the games as well, NBA and Stevie Nicks, as well as the New York Knicks Stanley Cup Finals. Lots, lots of things happening around here, but football, nice and quiet, is the way Chad Steele wants it at Knowings Mills for the next six or seven weeks. He is Luke, I am Nestor, we are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai