While the Ravens continue to wait on Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Williams to get healthy, the remainder of Mike Macdonald’s stout unit shut down the Cincinnati Bengals and provided a warning shot to the rest of the division that the pass rush is coming. Oh, and the linebackers will chase you down.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ravens, played, year, week, bengals, patrick, defense, sunday, queen, penalties, player, maryland crab, burrow, baltimore, bk, coco, oriole, 25th anniversary, marcus williams, football
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Looking back at W N, st Towson, Baltimore, and Baltimore positive it is our 25th anniversary cupcake out in front the fireworks should tell you so brought to you by our friends at curio wellness had a great conversation with Wendy Braun fine this week about cannabis and cannabinoids and terpenes and all sorts of educational stuff. We’re gonna have an educational series around here curio is sponsoring our 25th anniversary. And if you haven’t found some of the pictures, and some of the old school stuff, we’re counting down our 25 stories of glory time will not dim the glory of your deeds. And of course, this week will be purple live shows and barn memories as well as our community and charity work that we’ve done here that some people have forgotten about, but I haven’t forgotten about it. We have pictures and evidence so we’ll be doing that the next couple of weeks. We’re going to be a Coco’s on Thursday celebrating the Maryland crab cake tour from two of the five everybody’s at Coco has got a great crab cake. Yeah, they got great coconut shrimp to get great burgers. Great margaritas as well. We’ll be giving away the Raven scratch offs last time I had them. The Maryland lottery scratch offs, because we had $100 Winner Coco’s maybe again on Thursday. Good luck down in laurelville. We’ll be there from two of the five my buddy was saying who lives in the neighborhood is going to stop by for a playoff edition playoffs for baseball, as well as John Morgan who wrote a book a longtime Baltimore Sun, business and sports reporter who wrote a book on the Ravens stadium being opened back in the late 90s. He is in town from Bloomberg. He’s gonna stop by for crabcake as well. It’s also brought to you by our friends at wind donation. 8669 donation, make sure you’re taking care of them. Certainly the windows need to be shut on these cold mornings, a very big appreciation for whether they should take care of me and my family last year they can take care of you 866 90 nation and Jiffy Lube. They’re right around the corner you hear after Oriole games Jiffy Lube now sponsoring us here for the next couple months football season and our 25th anniversary as well. Luke Jones joins us after double double duty on Sunday I triple duty because I think Kics quadruple duty if you count Childsplay being a Dundalk guy with John Allen and I have so many friends. I mean, look Thursday night, Oriole game, Friday night Oriole game Adam Jones. Nobody hits the ball Saturday, Grayson Rodriguez, we come back. And then Sunday, this incredible remote control day where you kind of wanted to be at the ballpark for clinch miss. But you knew you needed to watch the Ravens game I was. I wanted to be in Cincinnati because it’s what I do. And Chad still won’t let me. So I stayed at home and once he kicks and I had to game on remote control back and forth. I forgot that the redzone even existed. I had to say to my wife literally in the car, on the way back from kicks at 11 o’clock at night who won the four o’clock games we even played I don’t even know. I mean, what a day, what a weekend and Sunday, a lot about baseball. But on the football side, this win and Cincinnati really puts them in the basement. It puts the Ravens in the catbird seat as they’re trying to get healthier. And we talked a lot about Lamar we talked a lot about ball distribution and Todd Monken Hey, defense played okay to and clowny for all the signings I mean, do Merville and Justin Houston and whatever Ozzy was doing and now Eric does to go and get that gray beard pass rusher from somewhere to come in clowny two weeks into this looks like maybe the best of the pack.
Luke Jones 03:22
Oh, I’m not ready to put them in Elvis. Elvis Tuberville had a heck of a run for the Ravens. So far, so good. No question about it. He’s He’s played a lot. He had to play a lot on Sunday, but with OA going out, and he’s been disruptive in the pocket. There’s no question about that. Now the sack that he had on Sunday, go back and look that was a covered sack. And I think it really speaks to how well they played on the back end when you consider no Marlon Humphrey when you consider no Marcus Williams, and I get it I mean the Bengals eventually, they score a couple of touchdowns in the second half. But when you look at how the Ravens came out and played defensively, three and out, three and out, Cincinnati finally gets a feel goal and the second quarter, but they had to drive like six minutes, 14 seconds to do it. And they were able to hold them to three, and even their touchdown drives, especially that one in the third quarter. I mean, they had to possess the ball again over six minutes, they had to convert third down after third down after third down and you can look at that one or two ways you can say one ravens couldn’t get off the field in those situations. That’s fair. I’m not gonna say that. This was a 2000 Ask ravens defensive performance, but considering the injuries that they had, considering, even at Oh, and two, I think we all still acknowledge the Bengals are very talented on the offensive side of the football even if they’re certainly not firing on all cylinders. They made life very difficult. They sat back in two high defensive looks. They pressed on the outside of their corners, which I was surprised to see, given the fact that you don’t have Humphrey there and you have these questions. Things about Rockies scene and Ronald Darby and Brandon Stevens, but they played very well. And when again, the final score is a little deceiving considering seven of those points came on the punt return for the touchdown, which is a special teams issue, not a defensive issue. You have to be really pleased with how Mike McDonald’s defense played. And this is a continuation of what we saw against the Bengals last year. I’ll be at those you know, a couple of defeats. But we have seen like a mike McDonald defense, give Joe burrow more trouble than he has against just about anyone making life difficult for him in this Bengals offense that is all about wanting to throw the ball down the field and make big plays and score quickly and we saw them do that against wink Martindale is defense a couple years ago, a point out the Ravens were very injured that year too. So I don’t want to pick on Martindale too much there. But it has been a different approach. They have forced Joe burrow to check down and to throw underneath and settle for those types of throws. He’s gotten the ball out quickly. So that has the it’s not as though the Ravens have gotten after him and gotten a ton of pressure on him. Yeah, they had one sack on Sunday. Again, it was a coverage sack. It was Davey on clowny. Who I agree with you played well. I’m not I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s just it’s a philosophy that the Ravens have taken against burrows specifically in this Bengals offense, and it’s worked pretty well. Now. You need your offense to play well, in turn, you know, which they didn’t get enough of that late last year. That’s why they dropped the last two games in Cincinnati and week 18 in the wildcard round and no Lamar Jackson, of course. But their defense has come to play and they’ve given the Bengals fits, you know, going back to last year. So it was considering the circumstances considering some of the questions we had in general about this defense. And certainly considering the injuries they had in the secondary. You have to be very pleased with how Mike MacDonald’s group played. And as I said, in our previous piece talking about the offense, I think it was a Ravens performance that special teams aside, They complimented you know, both sides of the ball complemented each other very, very well. And it’s a reason why the ravens are now to know, oh, Kyle
Nestor Aparicio 07:17
Hamilton and the safety position and Marcus Williams and the safety positions a very sliding scale here. Because sometimes it’s a corner sometimes it’s a slot, sometimes it’s more of a linebacker, I mean, a total hybrid look on the defensive side, the drafting of him definitely in you know, and we talked about all these wide receivers, they picked up the draft at a center in the first round. But when they picked him and they spent all the money on Williams, I think we were all sort of scratching our head a little bit and knowing you can never have enough deep depth in the secondary. But now without Humphrey and without Williams. He’s their best player on the backside. And it’s happened kind of quickly. And they really asked him to do a lot.
Luke Jones 08:03
Well, he moves around a lot, you know, without having a chance to rewatch the game and really seeing how much he moved around. I mean, just going off a week one going off of what we saw last year when he asked him to do a lot. He’s the kind of player who can blitz he can play the nickel we saw him play the nickel works almost exclusively the second half of last season. But now with Chuck Clark on now with Marcus Williams, which Marcus Williams is replaced by Gino stone, and we’ll get to him in a moment. But you know, they do ask Hamilton to move around and wear different hats so to speak in this offense and, or in this defense and he’s someone who has after a slow start and his rookie year, I think he’s been up to the task. So it’d be interesting to see how this goes, you know, week to week with what they asked him to do and what it means for their, you know, their safety tandem. Knowing that Marcus Williams is out for a while at the very least, as far as not knowing when he’s going to be back. It does make you wonder if they can move Hamilton around as much as they would like to because you are in a position where you don’t want to leave Geno’s stone in single high too much. But you know, for what they did yesterday and what their approach has been against the Bengals where they’re in a lot of too high and they’re just, they’re gonna say to Joe burrow, hey, you’re gonna have to dink and dunk it all the way down the field and you have to be efficient doing that not make mistakes. And well, he made the mistake and Gino stone came away with the interception at the goal line, which was one of the big plays of the game. But, you know, for Kyle Hamilton, you know, I think there’s still some improvement to be made. I think he’d be the first to tell you that but you know, this is a young player who has all the tools. Now he’s six foot four. You know, again, we’ve seen him play and thrive closer to the line of scrimmage. So we’ll see how it looks if he is playing more of a deep safety role, which again, they were in a lot of too high and so it wasn’t necessarily seeing him Flying around at the line of scrimmage even at the snap, as we’ve seen at times, but, you know, he’s a player that they have very high expectations for and to your point, one of many guys who had to step up this past Sunday with the injuries that they had on the back end. And, you know, I think you have to come away impressed with how that entire group played in that secondary knowing that you were without your help at least two of your three best players and thrown Hamilton in that conversation as far as what I expect him to be in his second year.
Nestor Aparicio 10:32
About the Mad Dog mad at BK trying to make a splash as a pro bowler that next level of the Brandon Williams School of pretty good in replacing all of that little aggressive. But you notice him? I mean, he is, you know, he’s a guy they brought into the program that you don’t say they need to go out in the free agent market. And I honestly don’t sit around and and think about Calais Campbell. I mean, we’re only two hours into the season. I haven’t thought about that much. They’ve been decent.
Luke Jones 11:03
Yeah. And again, it’s early. I mean, that’s the requisite that, you know, at least until we get to October, it’s early, right. And then you look up and you say, Oh, we’re a quarter of the way through the season. But I mean, just the matter. BK I mean, the issue for him or this season so far has just been the penalties. I mean, he’s got a knock that off. I mean, three penalties in week one got fined for a couple of them. And he had another one on Sunday. I mean, you just look at those kinds of penalties. We talked about this a lot. Several years back with Matthew Jude on as good of a player as he was and continues to be in New England. He was the kind of guy that for whatever the reason, it wasn’t every week, but it was way too often. He’d have a penalty where you just scratch your head and say, Why did you do that? Man? I mean, you’re better than that, you know that the kind of penalty where you say that’s more of an IQ test, then a physical error, you know, where, where you get called for holding, you get called for pass interference. Those types of I mean, that happens, you know, it’s football, you know, you just even guys after the plays, it’s just dumb. I mean, when you’re talking about that, or in this day and age, I mean, I know, for years, we said, well, you get two steps in hitting the quarterback we know in reality now you really don’t even get two steps. You get maybe one, right? I mean, that’s just and it’s it’s how it works now, and we can sit here and complain about it. And want wanted to go back to the way it was in 2000 or 1990 or 1975. That’s not happening. I mean, the league wants to protect its quarterback. So you know, if you’re just a matter BK or anyone trying to get to the quarterback, you have to recognize that you have to be careful. But to go back to what matter BK is you know where he wants to be? I mean, this is the kind of guy that is absolutely playing for a massive payday. Yeah, I thought it was fascinating that the Ravens paid Broderick Washington during training camp, albeit not the kind of money that Mata BK could get on the open market. So, you know, he’s playing for a contract, whether it’s in Baltimore or somewhere else. So it’s, other than the penalties, he’s off to a good start, but it’s committed for penalties and two weeks. I mean, that’s unacceptable, you know, you can’t have that. So it really is a case of you need to get himself under discipline a little bit more, he needs to play within himself and do what he’s capable of doing. He’s a very talented football player. No one, no one denies that. But you got to cut out the flags. I mean, that’s, it hurts your team, or hurt your defense, big time. So the Ravens in general, you know, on the defensive side of the ball should say offensively, the offensive line that was kind of the one blemish, they did have a handful of flags. But defensively, they were able to cut that out. And again, it goes back to what I said, you play a clean brand of football, on defense, you can bend and you can bend and you can bend some more and you’re going to make life difficult for Joe burrow and the Bengals because they have to go extend drives and 14 1516 plays a score a touchdown, they have to convert third downs. They’re taking up time, and oh, yeah, they also know that the ravens are sustaining drives and taking up time. So it really does limit your posets your possessions in a football game. So you kind of look at how that game played out. I mean, Cincinnati and and they had the punt return in the first half. So you know, that kind of skews it a little bit, but they had three possessions in the first half. And they had four in the second half. I mean, seven possessions in a football game. It’s not a whole lot. So if you’re not sharp, if you’re not perfect in what you do, it’s gonna be really difficult to score points. So yeah, they had 24. But they needed a punt return to do it. So again, it just speaks to the style, the philosophy that the Ravens VAT against the Bengals, and it’s worked out really well for them against an offense that is very much capable of hanging 40 on you. And we saw them do that against the Ravens two years ago, and it’s why they shifted their approach.
Nestor Aparicio 14:53
Our partner Brian Billick always had the line about it’s a time for PE and a time for play. And now it’s time for play. but all of the offseason talk for Dobbins and money and all the oxygen it took off and he’s gone now and God bless him. Patrick queen is the guy who just got, you know, jump roped with ro Quan Smith in the middle of the year last year, Ro Quan gets all the money. He sort of knows he’s not getting the money. He knew that going in. He had a talk with his Creator and His agent and his coaches. And he has been maybe since Jarrett Johnson and I go back to a Delos Thomas a little bit. And Hartwell. These were all guys who knew by this time, in the last year there was that they weren’t coming back here that they literally were playing for 31 other teams in the league. Patrick queen is clearly that guy like and is and the better he plays, the more gone he is because the more gone somebody else is going to give him money that the Ravens won’t be able to afford him or keep them around. I mean, Jared Johnson, there was a period where like, maybe, but you should go get paid. We’re already there with Patrick queen and two weeks into this thing. He is he’s, he’s playing for a contract. And it looks like he’s playing for a contract. He looks very, very hungry.
Luke Jones 16:12
He’s been terrific. I mean, as someone who three years ago, even two years ago, even early last season, someone who has been critical at times with Patrick queen, I mean, this is a guy who has gotten better every single season and with ro Quan Smith arriving and we talked about this last year, we’ve talked about this, over the course of the offseason, row, Quan Smith being that force multiplier that reminds you a little bit, I am not ready to put him in the same breath. But remind you of the impact that Ray Lewis had a deposition because of what you just mentioned, guys that played next to him. Adam Hartwell is Bart Scott, you know, guys like that, who were good players, but were paid like great to be great player somewhere else. And then as it would tend to play out that other team that paid that guy to be the next Ray Lewis, they would find out that oh, they’re good, but they were better because they were paying playing next to Ray Lewis. I mean, Patrick Queens benefiting from that. And let’s be clear, I’m not saying that to disparage him. He’s playing the best football of his career over these first couple of weeks. There’s no question about that. And he played very well. Well, on Sunday. Getting back to what I was saying about the the approach that the Ravens have taken defensively against the Bengals that only works if you tackle and we saw Patrick Queen tackle Of course, we see ro Quan Smith tackle Geno’s stone tackled on a number of occasions on underneath these underneath throws that you break a tackle and a guy’s often running and your compromise then but queen has played so well. And it really is a credit to him and we talked about this over the summer. Everything that Dobbins Did you know his approach and look not even getting into the injury because that no one deserves that whether you like a guy whether you’re not whether you agree with his approach or not, no one deserves to to go what what he’s gone through, you know, to go through that from an injury standpoint, but the way that queen has conducted his business, he’s flat out admitted he was he was ticked that not that the Ravens paid ro Quan Smith, but that they turned down his fifth year option because he knew that meant Okay, well I’m not getting my fifth year option and they’re kind of telling me what they think of me at that point in time. The Ravens like Patrick queen, they like Patrick Quinn a lot but when you have a 5050 plus million dollar quarterback you’re not paying two off all the linebackers, you just can’t it would be irresponsible from a cap standpoint to do that. So he’s playing for a big payday elsewhere. And to your point, every strong game he has decreases the likely hood of him remaining in Baltimore on some kind of reasonable contract, which I think was probably the only way he’s going to be back. But he’s putting himself in position for a really nice pay day so and let’s be clear, the ravens are gonna benefit from having him next to row Quan Smith this this year. You know, there’s no doubt about that. But with Smith being there, they are able to use Patrick queen in a way that augments his strengths and covers up some of his weaknesses. And he has responded so well. And he’s been a total pro about it. Look, he had every right to feel to not be happy about his fifth year option to being picked up he had every right to while be happy for ro Quan Smith understand what that meant for him. When the Ravens gave Smith a $100 million contract. It’s guys are human beings. You know, they’re not robots, you know, it’s not as though they’re just puppets that that Eric Acosta and John Harbaugh just manipulate these guys have feelings, this is their livelihood after all. So he had every right to feel a little ticked off. But he channeled that in such a positive way and he was there for OTAs and he was there for many camp and he was healthy throughout the spring and summer and he He’s playing the best football of his career and boy, you’re gonna play the best football of your career you want it to to occur in a contract year and Queen is very much putting himself in good position but in the meantime, the Ravens love having him next row Quan Smith and it really gives them that much of an advantage at that in that portion of the of the football field and I think that clearly is one of their biggest strengths, especially right now. With them being banged up in the secondary and a Patrick queen, another strong showing for him on Sunday in Cincinnati.
Nestor Aparicio 20:31
He is Luke Jones. He is Baltimore Luke out on the social media places and you can find me on social media all week as well. You can also find us a Coco’s we’re going to be giving away the Raven scratch offs. I have them they’re fresh, they’re big cards. Hopefully they’re lucky cards. We’re going to be cocospy two of the five doing the Maryland crab cake tour this week also brought to you by our friends at window nation 866 90 nation as well as Jiffy Lube. I’m wearing my drugs city shirt years since 1954. picked up some candy and some liquor. It was you know it was quicker. Over the weekend got a little Keela going down to drug city to liquor store there. Were going to be at the fountain for my birthday next month during the Maryland crab cake tour at Coco’s this week with received as well as my dear friend John Morgan, but a little while for John Morgan. He’ll be coming on talking about the Raven Stadium and the Oriole stadium and playoff madness here we have a playoff fever with the Orioles in first place fever with the Ravens. About as good a week around here as we’ve had and quite if just kicks told me they’re coming back and playing one more show and Amberjacks on New Year’s Eve. It would fix everything I don’t think that’s happening but quite a week big appreciation everybody who has said hello at the nest or at the Orioles games or anywhere Merriweather anywhere we’ve been out in the community just been out and about I was a Costas me the other day as well. Odors to carry out there and the city’s getting a little orange. mixed a little bit of purple. Look we’ll be up late watching Orioles games from Houston this week and then on to Cleveland through the weekend as well as being out in Owings Mills. Follow him if there’s any breaking news you get that first on the wn S T tech service that is all brought to you by coons. Baltimore Ford Dennis will be here on Thursday driving you home from three to five. It’s a sports time the weather’s changing, the leaves are changing, and we’re back that playoff baseball and hang the bunting at Camden Yards. I’m Nestor he’s Luke we are wn St. am 1570, Towson Baltimore. We never stopped talking ravens except to talk a little Oreos in Baltimore positive
