For Ravens, Roquan injury and stopping Herbert move to Monday night prime time

Luke Jones and Nestor give final thoughts before HarBowl III as Ravens head to Chargers for Monday Night family showdown in Los Angeles

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the upcoming Monday Night Football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Los Angeles Chargers. They highlight the importance of the game, especially with the Ravens needing to avoid a two-game losing streak and the potential impact of Roquan Smith’s hamstring injury. They note the Chargers’ recent offensive explosiveness and the familiarity between the teams due to shared coaching and player history. Jones emphasizes the need for the Ravens to clean up penalties and turnovers, while Aparicio reflects on the broader implications of the game, including the Harbaugh family rivalry and the Ravens’ overall health and performance.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Maryland crab cake tour, Monday Night Football, Ravens vs Chargers, Roquan Smith injury, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Philadelphia Eagles, Thanksgiving week, defensive challenges, offensive strategy, Jim Harbaugh, John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens, Chargers offense

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

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Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We’re Baltimore. Positive. We’re getting ready for Some Football, Monday Night Football from Los Angeles, California. Last time my favorite Monday night game ever was in LA at the Coliseum. I don’t know that SoFi stadium could ever bring that on, but we’re going to be bringing the Maryland crab cake tour to you. Happy Thanksgiving. Everybody out there celebrating. Don’t spend too much money on Black Friday, because beginning next week, we’re going to begin the Maryland crab cake tour be Cocos on the fourth. We’re going to be moving around Gertrude on the fifth. We’re going to be at faintly on the 12th, we’re going to be at amicis on the 17th. We’re going to be Acosta on the 18th. All of it brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery have Raven scratch offs to give away. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care powering us up for the Maryland crab cake tour, and getting Luke back and forth. What in what will be a short week in preparation for the upstart Philadelphia Eagles, who are still score I think saquon Barkley still running from Sunday night. Reed’s going to run from LA back to Baltimore for the game. 3000 3000 mile, 3000 yards. We’ll see how it goes. Luca, we watched a lot of football over the weekend. We’re going to watch a lot of football this week. You know, three games on Thursday, there’s a game on Friday, there’s bowl games getting set up and the other thing and all that. But we’re the last of the last year before Thanksgiving and horrible three, and maybe the row Quan Smith. This a challenge for the ravens to fly out there Saturday and play Monday night. It

Luke Jones  01:33

is. It is. I mean, obviously, as you just mentioned, lots going on. It’s the holidays, it’s football, it’s the stretch run really picking up. The Ravens got a reminder in the very stadium that they’re going to be playing in tonight, on Sunday night, that it doesn’t get any easier six days from now when the Philadelphia Eagles come to town and they’re playing at an extremely high level. So it’s a reminder of you better take care of business tonight, because one you just want to win and keep pace with the Steelers who lost on Thursday night, and you want to maintain or you would have the opportunity to be in the top wild card spot with the win over the Chargers. But it doesn’t get any easier, and you don’t want to be in a position. We talked about it last week. Seven and four doesn’t sound as elite as the Ravens feel and look at times anyway, but seven and five even more so. And then any thoughts of, dare I say, you’d be seven and six going into the bye week. So I’m not predicting that, but it certainly can happen. I don’t think there’s a path that’s unreasonable in thinking that. So

Nestor Aparicio  02:40

teams, four weeks ago, six weeks ago, all summer, with a better team, right? You know, Philadelphia, maybe chargers, you know, like it’s a game out there, it’s short rest, we knew all of that. Now I look at these two games and I think to myself, same as you, you better not be seven and six, because these are tough games the and you’re not playing well, and you’re not a great team. You’re certainly not a great defense. So I think this is a little more treacherous than we thought it was when it came out on the schedule. We just said, w, w, I don’t know that. Feel that way to me. Yeah, well,

Luke Jones  03:14

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and Philadelphia, obviously it was so complicated for them because of how they finished last year, and they started out not so great, but if you see your coach was jumping in the stands yelling at their fans in Philadelphia, feels like five minutes ago. Beautiful. And a big part, I mean, that part aside, I mean a big part of it was their defense wasn’t playing particularly well early in the season, and now it’s played at a high level. And saquon Barkley has, I mean, he’s got more rushing yards than Derrick Henry now, and we were talking about Derrick Henry, or not me specifically, but talking Derrick Henry being talked about as an MVP candidate, the fact that you’re even throwing that out there talking about a running back speaks to how great Barkley has been for them. But yeah, let’s, let’s keep the focus on the chargers for now. This is a team that, through the first four weeks, defense looked, I think, how people expected it to look. I think people thought they were going to have a good defense, certainly a Ravens, ravens footprint or fingerprints all over it. Jesse Minter, their defensive coordinator, is a former ravens assistant, and you know, certainly has some ties to to the both hardballs, but you look at that offense, and you said, okay, you know Justin Herbert’s this guy that at different times has been anointed, certainly has talent, but hasn’t necessarily lived up to the hype in terms of whether you’re talking about his individual success or certainly the Chargers success or lack thereof, Over the last 345, years, but since the bye week, that offense has looked way more explosive. I think they’ve taken the governor’s off Herbert a little bit. I mean, Jim Harbaugh has even talked about that. I mean, this is a guy who’s playing at a really high level. He’s not in that top tier as far as MVP favorites, where right now, Lamar. Josh Allen. I think are, you know, I think Josh Allen’s become the betting favorite for this week anyway. And obviously things can change. But you look at Herbert, he’s only thrown one interception this year. I mean, think about that, and Lamar only has three. How often do you see two starting quarterbacks who’ve made every start for their team, and it’s Thanksgiving, and they have a combined four interceptions between them. It speaks to taking care of the football at a really high level, in addition to what they do for their teams, which is be very productive, high level quarterback play. So this chargers team that the Ravens need to be ready for, and I think for as much as there was cautious optimism about the defense coming out of the Pittsburgh game and the changes in the secondary, is roquan Smith going to play tonight. He didn’t practice all week. It’s a hamstring. I’m not going to say he he won’t play, but that’s generally not a profile of someone that’s ultimately going to go especially knowing that you’re going to play another game in six days right after that. So we

Nestor Aparicio  06:04

did a half an hour before the weekend began. On what it looks like without him. Roquan sucks. He’s fat. He’s eating too much this that he’s not as fast. He’s not a good play without him. See how you just play without him. See if you don’t like him exactly. I think you’ll appreciate roquan Smith a lot more at midnight on Monday night.

Luke Jones  06:21

Well, and look, I don’t think it’s even a matter of fans or anyone not appreciating them. Bro. Quinn’s had his issues in past coverage. That operation has had its colossal issues when you’re last in the league in passing yards. But

Nestor Aparicio  06:33

we’re not sure who to blame, except everybody, because clearly, when there’s been as many breakdowns as there is not Marcus Williams fault in weeks that even play, or Eddie Jackson, who’s gone now, or whatever it was, a communication issue, maybe a scheme issue, and certainly a spacing issue that you brought up on Friday. Yeah.

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Luke Jones  06:49

I mean, and look, I’m even fine with someone saying Marcus Williams was the biggest issue, or Eddie Jackson was the biggest issue. I can out. Hear that right?

Nestor Aparicio  06:58

Kyle Hamilton just not playing safety. Well, like they they moved him back. He played, they lost the game. But you know, like he looked more like a safety instead of whatever going to the Hall of Fame. You think he’s going to the first two or three years into this, there is that position back there that was glaring, that he was rarely a part of that communication problem on the back end, right, right?

Luke Jones  07:22

But even with that, even if you’ve cleaned up the back end by having art areas Washington replace Marcus Williams and Kyle Hamilton playing more deep safety, it’s not as though he’s not playing closer to the line of scrimmage, just not doing that as frequently. But there’s a hidden cost to that. And when you look at what the Chargers do test the they’ll test the middle of the field, at least. I expect them to test the middle of the field more than the Steelers did, even though the Steelers tried to do that as the game went on and they hit a couple couple plays to the tight ends. But will disley, they’re tight the Chargers. Tight End is playing good football. And lad McConkey. I think one of the big matchups of this football game is lad McConkey in the slot lining up against Marlon Humphrey, who’s playing even more slot corner now, because Hamilton, we assume, will be back at Deep safety more frequently. But again, the hidden costs there, if there’s no roquan Smith, can you afford to have Kyle Hamilton playing further away from the line of scrimmage for 65 plays. And, you know, obviously they’ll move him around. They moved him around in Pittsburgh. It’s not as though he was back there exclusively, but between play action, the options that the Chargers have over the middle of the field their run game, which, you know, we haven’t talked a whole lot about the Ravens run defense, because it’s been so elite all year long. But that math changes a little bit if roquan Smith isn’t there and if Kyle Hamilton’s not playing in the box quite as often. So you know, this is going to be a really interesting test. And look, I want to be very clear, I don’t think the Chargers have an absolute juggernaut of an offense. I’m not suggesting that, but I think they’re going to be, to me, they’re going to be a much more telling test, legitimate test, than what the Steelers did offensively. For me to really be convinced that, okay, their defense, their past defense, is on the right track here, because I think they’re going to be tested with play action and the tight ends in the middle of the field, all those things we’ve talked about over the course of the season. And again, roquan Smith, he’s officially questionable. I’m not saying he’s not playing, but he didn’t practice all week, and it’s a hamstring, and if it’s a hamstring that kept you out of the finish of the Steelers game, and then keeps you out for the entire practice week, how, what’s the confidence level that he’s 100% that you can put him out there and he’s not going to be limping around 15 plays into the game, and then suddenly he’s not available for the Eagles game next week, and you better you certainly want them on the field next week, if possible, with saquon Barkley coming to town. So there’s a lot that goes into that. And. We know that a hamstring injury, that’s something that generally you’re not going to be able to play through if you’re less than 100% so it I don’t know this Nestor, but generally that’s the kind of thing you need to err on the side of caution with. So if they don’t have him, then Trenton, Simpson, Malik, Harrison, Chris board, maybe even Christian Welch. I think you’re going to see an ensemble cast of characters trying to mix and match and different sub packages. But to your point, if fans and media weren’t confident in roquan Smith dropping into coverage, who in that group are you going to have any confidence in So, and that’s where you know, you don’t necessarily think of a Greg Roman offense. They’re going to throw to running backs very much. But even that part of it could be a factor if they try to throw to JK Dobbins out of the backfield, anything like that. So it’s gonna be really interesting. Again, the defense was the silver lining, the bright spot coming out of Pittsburgh. And look, I wrote about that too. I’m not saying that I wasn’t encouraged by what I saw, but I need to see it again. You know, keep in mind, this team shut shut down Buffalo and then what we saw in Cincinnati the following week was anything but that same thing when they shut down the Broncos. Cincinnati comes to town look nothing like any of the potential progress we thought they had made. So this defense at this point, it’s show me territory, and yeah, some of the tweaks they made, it paid some dividends in Pittsburgh, albeit in a loss, but I need to see that carry over. And easier said than done, when you’re talking about roquan Smith, you know, if not very likely being out, very strong possibility that he’s going to be out of this game just knowing he hasn’t practiced all week. Luke Jones

Nestor Aparicio  11:48

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is here. He is Baltimore. Luke, he was out of practice last week before tonight’s game. And you, one of the players said it’s, it’s like playing the Ravens West, right? Yeah, and, I mean, I’m reaching for my phone right now. If it weren’t early in the morning, I would text Joe Ortiz and give him some words of wisdom that I’ve given him throughout our lifetime of baseball fandom and political discourse that he and I have had over our time. But JK Dobbins, I mean, players that are out there, much like Patrick Queen last week, not to mention the brother versus brother thing that I’m sure Scott Van Pelt will have you aware of by 635 tonight, in preparation for the game, they’ll be all over John versus Jim and Michigan and cheating and all of that stuff, and the Super Bowl and but the players on the the charger side, who know what the Ravens do This has got a little extra steam for JK Dobbins, I would think. And if there’s no roquan Smith tonight, I’m not saying it’s a turn on game, but Steelers ran for over 100 yards last week. Yeah.

Luke Jones  12:52

I mean, I don’t think the Steelers had a dominant performance on the ground against the Ravens by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not sure. I mean, saqu Barclay is going to be the test next week, right? I mean, the way he’s running the football right now, but I think you just, you look at this, and I think the horrible, you know, that whole narrative, I think there’s that’s much more of a national interest story than it is locally. I mean, John faced Jim in the Super Bowl 12 years ago. I don’t know if there are any Ravens fans this week that are really amped up for that part of this game, but you just said it. I mean, go down the roster right now. I have the Chargers roster right in front of me, Gus, Edwards, J K Dobbins, Hayden Hurst, who’s out tonight, but another former Raven, Bradley Bozeman, is their starting center. You go down the list of players, especially on the offensive side of the ball, but then you look at the coaching staff, not not just the Jim Harbaugh thing, but Greg Roman on the defensive side. You have Jesse Minter, their defensive coordinator, who has ravens ties and Michigan ties. You have Andy Bischoff, who was with the Ravens at one point. Mike Devlin was the Ravens assistant offensive line coach the last couple years before he went and joined the Chargers. So you mentioned Joe Ortiz. Mark tressman is a senior offensive assistant. So I mean, you’ve got so many ties here, and there’s a lot of familiarity that works both ways. Certainly, I think if you look at the Chargers defense and Jesse Minter and their staff, that they certainly have more familiarity with trying to figure out how to slow down a Lamar Jackson offense, right at the same time, the Ravens have plenty of familiarity with their coaches and their personnel. So it’s a really interesting game on that front that again, the horrible the Harbaugh brothers. You know, that element, I think, is, you know, the bigger national story. But I think for these two teams, for these two fan bases, and specifically for the ravens, yeah, there’s just a lot of urgency here to you. Not not lose two in a row, and not be in a position where you’re coming off a Monday night road game, traveling across the country, not getting back to what 6am Tuesday morning or something like that, and and before you know it, the Eagles are here, and you’re playing another game. And you know your bye week follows that, but you don’t want this to to snowball, and certainly you want to bounce back defensively. You want to stack another promising performance and the offense and Lamar Jackson look, the offense has been so brilliant this year that they’ve more than earned the benefit of the doubt to expect that what happened in Pittsburgh is not suddenly their new identity or anything like that. At the same time. So offensive line has to clean up the penalties, and they’ve got to be ready to handle this chargers front that should have Khalil Mack back. He’s officially questionable, but he practiced all week. I know he told reporters in LA on Saturday, saying, Look, I didn’t practice all week. Got to play on Monday night. I’m going to be ready to go, but he’s dealing with a groin injury that kept him out last week. So how effective is he going to be? Of course, they have both something they you know, it’s a good defense, and it’s the kind of defense that I’m going to be fascinated to see. If they keep to their tendencies, or do they break them? Because where Lamar has had more issues this year has been against more cover one man to man coverage. Chargers run a heck of a lot of zone. I mean, they run i i think i saw Warren sharp site said they run as much cover four zone as anyone in the league. Lamar does very well against that, and this offense does well against that. Same thing there. They’ve got a rock solid run defense, but they’ve run some of the highest percentages of light boxes. You know, they tend to keep only six guys in the box. Good luck with that, if that’s your strategy against Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson. So now I think if you’re Jesse Minter and this chargers defensive staff, you got to take a long look at what you do well, but also have some humility and look at the Ravens offense and say, Okay, what do the Ravens do best and what, what is typically the best way to attack them? I think they’re going to have to take a few more chances. We know when Lamar is playing the peak Lamar ball, he can tread you no matter what you try to do. We know that. But that said, I do think the Chargers defense for as talented as it might be and as good as it might be, I mean, heck, they’re number one in scoring defense. I want to give them their flowers at the same time. We all know short of the the AFC North teams and Kansas City, let’s say if you’re a team that doesn’t go up against Lamar Jackson in this offense as often, you’ve got to really think carefully about what you do. I think coaches are very prideful individuals that, but I think that the Chargers are probably going to have to break some tendencies tonight to really give themselves the best chance to to try to slow down this offense. So I’m fascinated to see how that works. Again, their strengths compared to the Raven strengths. You know, that that’s interesting. But, you know, I think this is a really fascinating game, because the Ravens wanting to get back on track, and the chargers, and I’ll throw this out there as well. Nestor, according to DVO way, so Aaron shots, you know, his analytics metric, and with ESPN football power index. Chargers have played the easiest schedule in the NFL to this point in the season, so that doesn’t mean the ravens are gonna have a cake walk, let’s be clear, but I think it does mean for the chargers, this is their chance on a national stage, on the heels of of holding on and beating the Bengals on Sunday night this past week, to really show that they’re a legit, serious contender in the AFC, they beat the Ravens tonight, then the discourse for them beyond Jim finally getting one on his brother after the Super Bowl 12 years ago. But this is a huge opportunity for a statement win for the chargers for the Ravens. You just you want to get yourself back on track. You improved eight and four, and then you had the Eagles come into town before your bye week. It’s a great opportunity to to go into the buy on a high note, if you can take care of business these next seven days. But if it doesn’t go that way, it’s a much different conversation we’re having going into the bye week. So again, beyond the horrible and Jim and John and all the national Talking Heads mentioning that, I just think there are a lot of tentacles that make this a really interesting matchup in so many other ways, beyond just the hardballs.

Nestor Aparicio  19:33

Well, not just that. I mean the fact that they’re both appear to be what bad, good teams, as you would like to say, right? Bad, good teams, seven and four, eight and four. Look, if the ravens are nine and four going into the buy, they’ve done what they’re supposed to do. They’ve held their water. If they’re nine and four going into their buy, and they win on the West Coast, and he beats his brother, and they come back here and they beat the Eagles, who are sort of surging. That’s a different kind of not. And four two for me. Um, then it would be if they stumble in one of these games, or both of these games. I also think with roquan Smith and injuries this time of year, that there’s a point where you feel like we’re going to get some rest. We’re going to get some downtime. If you can’t make it these two games, get him back right as to not lose him and get him back like fresh, fresh. I don’t know what their philosophy is going to be on this. I don’t know that there’s ever been a real philosophy with a star football player like roquan Smith. I mean, they didn’t play a lot of games without Ray Lewis through the course of their history. They played a lot of games without Ronnie Stanley, but playing a lot of games without the center of the defense who wears the green, green dot, most

Luke Jones  20:39

likely Kyle Hamilton, because, because he’ll be on the field every play he he’s practiced with the green dot. You know, he was even asked that this week, Zach Gore didn’t confirm it with 100% certainty. Because, of course, even if, even if they know roquan is not playing, they’re not going to broadcast that with certainty at this point. But it would be Hamilton, because what I said, I mean, even Trenton Simpson, who has started every game and has played a whole lot, it’s been very rare that he’s played 100% of the plays. And I don’t think this is necessarily going to be the time where you hand the green dot responsibilities to a second year linebacker in his first year as a starter. So it would be Hamilton, and because, like I said, I mean, Malik Harrison, Chris board, maybe Christian Welch is in that mix. I think you’re going to see a lot of rotating. I mean, even last week we mentioned this, even with Trenton Simpson, there were some plays. It wasn’t too many, but it was a handful where he came off the field and they actually put Chris board into the game when it was some of the the more obvious passing situations out of nickel. So I think it’s going to be interesting on that front. But you know, the best comp I can think of, and obviously, Ray had some years where he was injured, including his final year when he had the triceps and the miraculous return for the playoffs and all the talk of deer antler spray and all that. But I go back to 2011 the year before that. Remember, he hurt his toe in Seattle. He missed, I think it was four games, but before he came back and the Ravens, I know they lost at least one of those games. You know, I think what the chart they played a Sunday night game in San Diego and lost that year. But you’ve got to be careful with this. And I think, you know, Dak Prescott probably the most recent example of this, of someone who, you know, he was dealing with a little bit of a hamstring issue, and tried to play through it, and then you saw what happened. He’s out for the year, and had to get surgeries. So not saying this is exactly like that. I have no idea, you know, because there are different types of hamstring injuries, but you got to be careful. I mean, you do as much as you don’t want to be in a position where suddenly you’re seven and five, or, dare I say seven and six, it changes drastically. If you say, if you’re only thinking about that, and then suddenly roquan tears the hamstring off the bone and is out for the rest of the year. And then then you’ve got a major issue at inside linebacker. So

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Nestor Aparicio  23:00

Chris board is your linebacker? Yeah. I

Luke Jones  23:03

mean, you got to be careful here. You want this game. You absolutely want this game if, if this is the kind of hamstring where they look at it and say, you know, this was much more a case of it, they were very cautious this week with the idea that he’s not going to practice all week and he’ll be ready to go, oh, then fine. And if that works out, and you and I reconvene 24 hours from now, and we’re breaking down a Ravens win, and roquan Smith has 12 tackles, then great. Then that’s what it was. But if he’s held out, you got to be thinking about the big picture. I mean, these hamstring injuries, again, it’s really difficult for someone to play less than 100% and be effective, and to not be in a position where you’re putting them at risk to make it worse. So this is, you know, this is a test again, for as much as there was an encouraging signs with what they had done on the back end of their past defense and what they were able to do against the Steelers. I mean, Steelers didn’t score a touchdown. Obviously, you know, you still have to be thinking big picture here. It’s still only late November. Yeah, it’s not early anymore, but it’s not January yet, and you need to have a 100% row. Quan Smith for

Nestor Aparicio  24:13

the stretch, great physical fortune this year. I mean, overall, talking about whether they’re seven and four, whether they be nine and two, even if they were lousy. They have, you and I have discussed injuries less as my wife has the turkey in the fridge, and we’re getting ready to make the turkey on Thursday that I think we I’m less interested in the injury reports that I’ve been in most years, because most weeks, they’ve been as healthy an outfit as any team in the league. I would say, I mean, Lamar has played every snap. You know, most of their better players have played most of their snaps. Um, it smells and feels good as we get up on the buy. Knock on wood, with 120 minutes of football left, yeah.

Luke Jones  24:53

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I mean, you really, you can’t ask for any better, especially to your point, because they have such a late buy, which on. The other side of that, I think can be advantageous, and I think could really be good for them. But when you’re looking at the schedule, when it comes out in May, and you see that your buy is not until December, you’re just thinking, oh my gosh, how are we going to get to that point with our health intact? How many guys are going to be on IR at that point in time? And if you look at their injured reserve right now. I mean, I’ll read it to you word for word. Deontay Hardy, TJ, Tampa, Trayvon Mullen, Owen Wright, Christian, Matthew, Michael Pierce, okay, there’s one. And Malik ham, I mean, you have one truly notable player on IR. And even Michael Pierce is expected back. He’s not expected to be done for the season. So they have been fortunate on that front. I can think of one game all year where the injuries were notable in Cleveland, when Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins were both out, and they lost that game. But that was even a game, even with the injuries, they dropped three Jameis Winston interceptions in that game, so they they had their chance in that game. So I can’t just put it on the injuries, but to your point, they have been very fortunate in that way. And again, that’s even more reason where, if you look at the row Quan Smith situation, and you say, All right, we think maybe kind of sorta, he might be able to go tonight, but we think it’d be way, way better for him and for our long term well being, for him to sit this one out, and we’ll see about Philadelphia. We do have the bye week the following week. You have to have those conversations. You know, it would be naive to think that a team’s not thinking about that in, you know, to some degree, right? You’re not holding them out just for the sake of doing it. But if it’s the kind of thing where the training staff’s looking at it and saying, you know, John, he’s had treatment all

Nestor Aparicio  26:49

week, if he can’t play it 100% then why play him?

Luke Jones  26:52

I mean, and that’s just the thing. I mean, how effective is he going to be again? You know, like Travis Jones here. The contrast there is, you know, he’s had an ankle issue that he’s played through at times. He’s played through through it at a high level. I’m guessing it’s the kind of thing that, you know, they’ve said that, short of him blatantly getting rolled up in the way that any player can, he isn’t necessarily going to make it worse at this point. So, you know, he puts a brace on it. He plays maybe. I mean, some of these guys still take shots, you know, all that in terms of whether they play or not, and pain time, oh, I

Nestor Aparicio  27:27

can confirm North Dallas 40s a real thing, if anybody watch that. And maybe

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Luke Jones  27:31

that’s not as prevalent as it used to be, but it’s still there. I mean, it is, and I’m not, it’s not you already mentioned deer

Nestor Aparicio  27:37

antler spray here. Yeah,

Luke Jones  27:39

look these guys. But let’s also not make it out that that these teams are tyrants or anything like that. Players want to play too, like

Nestor Aparicio  27:47

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especially on planes. Nice to the people that are flying to Cleveland to provide fluids and put needles in. These guys on Saturday nights in hotel rooms, like they the the amount of I mean, you talk about Derek Henry saying he spent a quarter of a million dollars, yeah, just on his physical. I mean, I get all of that, but that doesn’t mean that a guy who’s got a bad hamstring should be after running around trying to chase JK Dobbins tonight, right?

Luke Jones  28:09

And again, that’s typically not the kind of injury where those kind of things work, right? That’s usually

Nestor Aparicio  28:15

strap your arm up and play like Peter bolware with one arm for a season, or if you can’t run anything below your your groin, if it’s your knee, your ankle, and it involves speed in this game, you know the margins, you can’t play hurt, like that. You can’t you can play injured a little bit. You can play Gympie a little bit. You can’t play hurt. Yeah.

Luke Jones  28:37

I mean, you know, there’s all. There’s always a saying that, are you hurt? Are you injured? If you’re hurt, you can try to play through it. If you’re injured, then that’s a little bit of a different story. Again, it’s not a pain tolerance thing with a hamstring, like it might be with certain other

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Nestor Aparicio  28:52

little thing. Yeah, exactly so. So again,

Luke Jones  28:56

my expectation, and this is more me just making an assumption here, roquan certainly fits into that small category of veterans who hypothetically could play without practicing all week. You don’t say that about more than maybe a half dozen guys on your football team, typically. So he’s in that category. But I don’t know. I just think you look at this and you say you’ve got a game, it’s on turf. You know, that’s another consideration, typically, for these having

Nestor Aparicio  29:25

him in there at 80% helping you win or not. And that’s, that’s right, the question, right? Yeah, yeah. I

Luke Jones  29:31

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mean, okay, maybe you can make an argument that that your run defense at 80% he’s still helping you pass coverage. I don’t know. Although, again, the problem is, if roquan Smith’s The best you have, and he’s less than 100% and hasn’t been great right away, they’ll

Nestor Aparicio  29:47

send a running back across the middle and have him run, and you’ll find out whether he’s limping or not. He’s limping, he shouldn’t be on the field, you know? And if he’s limping, he ain’t going to catch anybody who’s not

Luke Jones  29:57

right? And that’s why i. Going back to what I said a little bit earlier in our discussion, I do wonder if they’re going to have to shift gears a little bit with how they handle Kyle Hamilton as a result, because you might need him playing in the box, playing the run, or whatever is happening from a pass covered standpoint. So really interesting. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention at least in passing. I don’t think you and I neither. No one was shocked at this at this point, but they did officially wave Eddie Jackson. So he’s done, you know, is Marcus Williams going to be in the picture in sub packages at the very least? You know, will they have to rely on some three safety alignments? Because if they do, you know, unless you’re talking about someone like Beau braid, the rookie out of Maryland. You know, you don’t have that obvious third safety option right now, unless, and I will throw this out there as well. So this is more food for thought because we saw this in Pittsburgh a little bit, maybe with what tredavius White did in Pittsburgh. Do we see Brandon Stevens moved around a little bit? Keep in mind, Brandon Stevens is someone who’s played safety before as well. So there are some chess pieces to move around and some possibilities to kind of sift through, if you’re Zack or in this ravens pass defense that, again, took a nice step in the right direction in Pittsburgh, but Justin Herbert’s playing at a high level. I mean, better than Russell Wilson. Let’s be let’s be clear, so

Nestor Aparicio  31:20

one the Greg Roman thing’s kind of interesting to me too. Yeah, it is.

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Luke Jones  31:24

I mean, look for as disappointing as the ending was. Look Lamar Jackson won his first MVP with Greg Roman as the coordinator. The Ravens rushed for over 3000 yards two different times with Greg Roman as their offensive coordinator, guy did something right? Was it time for the ravens and Lamar Jackson to graduate from Greg Roman, so to speak? Yeah, I think in hindsight, that’s obvious, but hey, he’s still and the thing I’ll say about Greg Roman with the Chargers is Jim Harbaugh is not standing on the sideline. And I don’t mean this in a disparaging way towards John Harbaugh, but Jim Harbaugh is very hands on with his offense, so it isn’t as though they’re just running whatever the Ravens ran with Greg Roman in Baltimore. I don’t

Nestor Aparicio  32:10

want to insult John, but you never stood up under center for 15 years in the league and played quarterback in

Luke Jones  32:16

the league. Jim did Right, exactly, and again, for all the good things and other qualities that John has as a head coach, Jim does provide that part of it to a little bit of a different degree. So I think from that standpoint, again, if you look at the splits, I mean, Justin Herbert, early in the year, they were relying on the run game more heavily. They weren’t really pushing it down the field since their bye week, they’re tied with the Ravens as far as average number of plays of 20 or 20 plus yards, you know, they’ve been a big play offense since week six. So I think this is a, again, really interesting. And again, the familiarity factor on both sides, you know, and it’s not charge advantage chargers or advantage ravens, it’s, we’ll see who really has the advantage. Because these coaches know each other. These players know each other. Front offices know each other. So they know what kind of players they like or don’t like, or maybe what the relative weakness they

Nestor Aparicio  33:10

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like the same coaches. They’ve all shared the same code. They all like the same players. They’ve shared the same players for a lot,

Luke Jones  33:15

right? Exactly. So, so again, for me, and look, if you want to say that, all starts with John and Jim Harbaugh and the horrible fine. But again, for me, it’s much more, you know, the human element of that I was, you know, we lived that in 2011 when the 40 Niners came to Baltimore for that Thanksgiving night game. And we lived that certainly for a week in New Orleans with the Super Bowl and all that. So, so this matchup doesn’t interest me as much in that way, but it’s all the other tentacles that that stem from that you know, it’s all the other elements of former ravens players and coaches and front office and and all that. So it’s really interesting. And as I said, this is obviously a huge game for the ravens, wanting to get the bad taste of Pittsburgh out of their mouth tonight, but for the chargers, I mean, this would be their signature win of the season so far if they take care of business. So again, I think it’s gonna be a close game. I Raven certainly can’t turn the ball over like they did a week ago, and they haven’t turned the ball over this year. It’s reason why they’ve been as as great as they’ve been on offense, but they’ve got to clean things up. Can’t have as many penalties. And I what, what I think for me, is what swings it as far as me picking the Ravens in this game. And you can see my 12 ravens thoughts and prediction at Baltimore positive.com as we speak. But Lamar Jackson’s been so great this year. He’s been so great on Monday Night Football. He’s coming off of his worst game of the year. I think that’s evident. Is he going to have a down game two weeks in a row with the way that he’s played throughout this season? That’s where I look at this thing and say, Hey, Justin Herbert’s playing great football, but Lamar Jackson’s played MVP football this year. And that’s where I still look at this and say. Are the Chargers going to get enough stops? You know, as I mentioned, the things that they like to do defensively seem to match up for the Ravens very well from the Ravens perspective. So we’re going to see. We’re going to find out, and again, we’ll see how much of that familiarity really comes into play over the course of 60 minutes tonight. Couple things,

Nestor Aparicio  35:18

I checked the ticket prices out in LA, and I’m like, How much could it possibly be to go to a chargers game where there’s 80,000 seats now they’re good, right? And the Rams aren’t, and the Rams played last night, literally, right with with half of the half of the stadium being Philadelphia fans, at least, right? So half of Philadelphia goes out there. Our fans aren’t out there this week, and if they were, they went last year. And, yeah, there’s a West Coast they’ll be, there’ll be couple 100, whatever. It’s not going to be a sea of purple. And I went, the ticket prices were kind of like expensive. I thought the last time I saw Lamar play in LA was the memorial coliseum game back in 19 that was the freight train purple Barney outfits against the yellow bananas of the of the Rams, and they were selling Lamar shirts out in front of the Coliseum off the USC campus. Now so far is over in Inglewood by the airport, near the near the water. I would think that there are just football fans in LA that want to see Lamar play. Lamar is like that big of a star, and Lamar playing in LA on a Monday night would make it not a $22 ticket. I don’t know, but I don’t think there are a whole lot of think I know there are not a whole lot of chargers fans in LA I know there’s none left in San Diego to come up. So I was interested in all of that, but the Jim Harbaugh thing hit me last week because had some guests on different ideas and things, and thinking about John Harbaugh’s texting me a few weeks ago and just seeing all of the horrible stuff come back and writing Purple Rain three and all that, I went through archives and doing all this music Classic that I’ve been running. And I thought to myself, How many times did Jim Harbaugh call my show? And it was like a lot. And what happened was we befriended each other. 9899 he played here, goose, all of that. He went off and played for the chargers for five minutes. And then Ray Bachman, who was getting better. By the way, he was battling cancer, but doing okay. I texted him again yesterday. He’s been a smart ass on my my Facebook threads as usual. So Ray had this period of time as my producer at the turn of the century after I was syndicated. So I’m talking like oh 1020304, where I came back before I got married in oh three and and I could get the date of this, because I’d have to, I have to listen to it better. But I found the tape of Jim Harbaugh, and it was my anniversary show, I think. And Ray got into this thing where he would he I would say to him, I’m tired to know who the guests are. Ray, just surprise me. Don’t tell me who the guests are. Book them. Put them up on the glass, bring them in. Welcome to the show. Who’s my surprise guest? And it was Jim Harbaugh, but he was playing along. And I did. I had no idea who it was, and I had to be like, Alright, have you been on my show before? Yes, um, have you been to the barn? Yes, and then we played this game. And I’m like, it’s Jim Harbaugh, what the hell are you doing calling me, and he had just gotten the job coaching San Diego. And I’m like, San Diego, San Diego State. San Diego Chargers, what? Sandy? No. San Diego seagulls. They division one double A. Josh Johnson was his quarterback, right? 20 years ago, and I have this tape of him calling me, talking about how he wanted to get into coaching. Turned out okay, he made, he made a little bit of money coaching, yeah,

Luke Jones  39:02

just a little bit, little bit, yeah. I mean, and again, I when I’ve continued to say that the horrible, horrible brothers thing is much more of a national story. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good story. It’s just I don’t have a whole lot else to say about it. I

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Nestor Aparicio  39:14

mean, I remember Jim Harbaugh being with me at the barn, like offering to come on a Monday night. And he’s like, What time is your show? And this is what Monday Night Football was, at nine o’clock at night. And Jim’s like, Hey, your show’s 407, at the time. He’s like, I can come over four o’clock and hang for like, an hour, but I’m going to Philadelphia. My brother’s a coach with the Eagles, and he’s like, I’m going up to Philly for the game on Monday night. So I can stop by and do the show for a little bit. It’s right by 95 I looked at the map. You know, Jim. It’s Jim, you know. Like, Jim’s gym, you know. And he’s like, I looked at the map. I can stop over about four o’clock tomorrow for a little while be your first guest, but I gotta leave before five. Okay, Jim, you’re the quarterback of the Ravens. Stop by. So Jim was in Jim is a much better guy than John. I’ve told you that as long as I’ve known you. Like knowing them, being in cabs with them, being on airplanes with them, flying around. Jim was a much more normal dude than John, like, not to the media and all of that, but as a dude, Jim, Jim. Jim’s a different dude than the media as portrayed him or Michigan, I would just, I think you saw that when he stopped me at 11 o’clock at night in Florida. Because you’ve never spent five minutes with Jim our ball except seeing me with Jim our ball, and you’re like, wow, he’s different to John. Well, I

Luke Jones  40:39

just, and I also think for the OG Ravens fans, right? I mean, you think back to 98 Jim Harbaugh was the Ravens quarterback against Indianapolis, when a rookie, Peyton Manning comes to town, we all remember. And look the picture

Nestor Aparicio  40:53

him holding his little starting figure, number four. Harbaugh, a fan, brought it out and gave it to him, a little b helmet flying, bl, but

Luke Jones  41:02

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I think one of the and this was, you know, this was before the Ravens even had a winning season, let alone talking about Super Bowl or multiple that moment when he handed the game ball to John Unitas after the win over in the Indian 98 that was one of the really cool early moments of a franchise that, let’s face it, the first three or four years, not a whole lot to write home about in terms of success. So you know that, even though that’s not you know, since then, there have been many moments to surpass that at that moment for for old colts fans, and for you know, teenagers like me who knew about the Colts history but didn’t live any of it, that was a neat, living, breathing moment for the Ravens quarterback at that moment in time, albeit only for a year, to hand the game ball to Johnny you, and just to see that exchange, knowing what it meant in 1998 to beat Indianapolis, right? So

Nestor Aparicio  41:53

in 1995 I went to the championship game in Pittsburgh with the girl I was dating at the time, and we drove up to the confluence. This is before we had a team. You know, we did not have a football team. And I drove up there, and that passed that he threw at the end to who was it? Floyd Turner, who was underneath of the ball that could have grabbed it, that if he grabbed the ball, the Colts were in the Super Bowl, not the Steelers in that Super Bowl that Neil O’Donnell was in. That was literally a Hail Mary, go back for the kids that don’t remember that. And you were 11 years old at the time, that ball that dropped at the feet in the end zone of Three Rivers. I mean, that would have made Jimmy Super Bowl quarterback at that time, right? And to think that he would have this kind of legacy, and his brother, and when he’s out at the barn with me, saying, I gotta leave my brother, John’s a special teams assistant up in Philadelphia, that that, that the word hardball would become synonymous with our franchise, really, you know, the brother quarterback here, the coaches could probably go into the Hall of Fame, certainly going to the Ring of Honor, and won a Super Bowl. You know, the hardball name here has really been a big, big part of our franchise, as much as up there with Lewis and Reed and Flacco and Ogden and the rest of them. Our ball is part of that, Lamar, too. Yeah,

Luke Jones  43:13

no question about it. The name you were searching for. I had to google it. I didn’t know Aaron Aaron Bailey. Aaron Bailey, yeah, because he played here later. But yeah, he was kind of a journey. Journeyman. He he was when it with Indy for like four years, and then Oakland, New England, Chicago, and go back

Nestor Aparicio  43:28

and watch that play, dude.

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Luke Jones  43:32

Yeah, I rivers. It was crazy. Yeah, those Steelers fans were holding their breath for a couple seconds. Like Crazy, right? I was

Nestor Aparicio  43:38

with a girl who was southern I was dating a girls, 1995 96 and when we were there, she wanted to, like, stay in Pittsburgh and party. And I’m like, I gotta get home. I got a radio show on Monday morning, A, B, we were about to steal the football team, the ravens, right? Like at the time, like all of that was going on was all swirling at the time, and more than that, like, I’m like, I don’t like these people. I don’t want to see these people happy. We went up there on Saturday night, and we’re, we’re partying in Pittsburgh, because I’m 27 years old. It was a good time, and they had a football team, and we didn’t, and they had in the Colts. Man, I was there to hate on the Colts, believe me, I do not want the Colts to win. That’s what’s funny. Like, you

Luke Jones  44:21

think about this now, and you’d say, oh my gosh, the Steelers.

Nestor Aparicio  44:25

8

That was like Satan going but it was like, Trump getting reelected.

Luke Jones  44:29

Oh, that was rooting for Pittsburgh in that game because, because they didn’t want Indy to go to the Super Bowl, absolutely. So, yeah, I

Nestor Aparicio  44:36

mean, it’s Jim Harbaugh, ah, Captain, come back. I love you. That’s a real deal, alright? I think Luke’s out of things. We’ll say plenty on Tuesday. We’ll say plenty on Wednesday, with plenty of Turkey on Thursday, plenty of leftovers on Friday, we’ll play football again on Sunday. It is a huge week around here because I’m still releasing music classics. All the stuff that I’ve released before now has played on. The air. People know about it. It’s been on the website. I’m now going into the the zone where all the modern ZZ tops and Joan jets and hearts and all of these different people I’ve interviewed, also some deceased musicians. So you’re gonna get some of that this week. You’re gonna get some Jim Harbaugh classics with Tony Sarah goose and Steve on Moore out at the barn from 1998 as well, as well as Jim Harbaugh’s first ever appearance at the barn, which was egged on by goose, because goose loved me, even though he hated me. And goose said that to Jim, you got to do Nestor show you come to town. So Jim came out and did my show the minute he signed, like he signed in March, he was out before he ever threw a pass. He came out, told me his whole life story. I gave him the whole Captain comeback thing. So all of that is available as well. At a Baltimore positive we’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour as well as the Maryland oyster tour, which is up right now. I think we’re on like day 14 curio and our friends at at foreign daughter have made that happen, as well as liberty, pure solutions, one 800 clean water. Making that happen. I’ve been drinking a lot of the water in my water bottle here. I have to replenish my hydration for two football games this week. Crab cake tour is the fifth. We’re going to be at Gertrude. The fourth, we’re going to be at Cocos two weeks from now. The 12th, we’re at fatales. The 17th, we’re Costas. And the 18th, we’re going to be doing 17th, we’re amicis eight. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. We’re trying to play football on Monday night in Los Angeles. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. Stay with us. We’re Baltimore positive. You.