Five touchdown passes, 41 points and 500 yards of offense for the reigning MVP Lamar Jackson. Just another Monday night at the NFC road office for the Baltimore Ravens, who showcased their offensive prowess and the hammer of Derrick Henry in a statement win over the Bucs in Tampa. Luke Jones and Nestor give initial thoughts in the aftermath of a beatdown on the turf of Super Bowl XXXV.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens win, Lamar Jackson, offensive explosion, defensive issues, MVP race, Derrick Henry, Todd Monken, offensive line, quick strike, penalties, blitz strategy, Mike Evans drop, Chris Godwin injury, playoff expectations, Baltimore positive
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
8
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We call ourselves Baltimore positive. We hope you set a spot out on your radio dial if you’re driving around, or you find us out on the YouTube, or you find us wherever you find us. 26 years into this, it’s all presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Have Raven scratch also be giving these away on Friday at mamas on the half shell we’re going to be in Owings Mills with my man Finn got some, got some big news. I think Mike Warren’s going to come out after 27 years. Be the first time I see him since our television show, the things that this radio show inspires, certainly on Monday night, the Ravens played mostly inspired football down in Tampa. Extra day, lot of sitting around, lot of heat on national television for this, this matchup as well. Luke Jones joins us now in the aftermath, you can check out his work at Baltimore positive and his free game thoughts, and then post game thoughts. And dude, if I was going to bet anything, I would have bet the over in this one, I think I was pretty clear on that. One might have been wrong last week on how many points, but we got some points out of the game on Monday night. But strange ending the goblin injury, how good Lamar was, where Derek Henry had disappeared, and they insert him, and the next thing you know, you’re trying to catch him again. Um, this thing has become a well oiled machine, and more than that, they might be the best team in the NFL right now. Luke, I don’t think the chiefs would want to play them this week. Well, consider
Luke Jones 01:29
the fact that Lamar Jackson threw five touchdown passes on Monday night. And Kansas City to their credit. Hey, they’re the two time defending Super Bowl champs. They’ve won three in the last five years, like all that, right,
Nestor Aparicio 01:41
against the Ravens the most important thing, but
Luke Jones 01:47
Patrick mahomes has six touchdowns all year long. I mean, it just speaks to where this ravens offense is, where Kansas City is. Look, that’s still the asterisk. That’s still what looms in January, presumably, but in the meantime, the defense is another story, and we’ll continue to talk about that. But Lamar Jackson in this ravens offense left no doubt, even after the first quarter where they did not score and they concluded the first quarter with 22 yards, and most of those came on the completion to Charlie Kohler, literally on the last play of that first quarter. They end up amassing 41 points over 500 yards of offense, five touchdowns for Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry, who late in the third quarter hadn’t really been much of a factor. He ends up having Derrick Henry like numbers and finishing things, or as close to finishing as you can call what we saw in the fourth quarter, with some of the weirdness, but I mean, this is if it’s not the best team in the NFL right now, it’s certainly the best offense in the NFL, and I think the Ravens left no doubt on that front. And as I’m writing at Baltimore positive.com right now the the MVP race is on. The race to January is officially on. I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen enough out of this football team that that’s where the expectations are. That’s how great Lamar Jackson has been through seven games. It’s how great this offense has been through seven games. And it’s not a perfect operation, but boy, it is explosive and multi pronged. And whether you’re Todd Bowles or an NFC team or an AFC team, or you’ve got a good offense or a great defense or whatever, I don’t know how you look at this ravens offense right now and have any level of confidence that you’re going to stop them, that’s how good they’ve been. And it was on full showcase on Monday night football for the world to see, and the Ravens on that front again, left no doubt as far as where they rank, at least on that side of the ball, and there’s not another quarterback playing the kind of football Lamar Jackson is right now. Yeah,
8Nestor Aparicio 03:55
I was going to put my selfie up from Super Bowl 35 and say my selfie at Tampa is better than your selfie in Tampa, we had some fans down there, and we don’t play there much. And anytime I see it, I think of that moment and those moments and Brandon Stokely and Ray Lewis, who was talked about during the broadcast into the evening, but all these years later, I think to myself, alright, they were owing to to start the season. If I’m writing a Purple Rain three there were oh and two to start the season, and they’re doing what they’re doing at this point. The Owen two thing is a terrible cross to to bear in regard to making playoffs, in regard to winning Super Bowls, in regard to all those statistical anomalies. And then you point out like, oh yeah, in the first quarter, they didn’t do anything, and they still scored 41 points, and it wasn’t off of interception returns for touchdowns. It was on, we’re going to run a play, and you might stop it at the line of scrimmage, and you might be looking up 80 yards later at our running back in the end zone, or you might catch him at the five yard line. Could you take an angle? But I. I, you know, I would think, and I’m going to talk to a lot of people in Cleveland this week. I don’t, well, why? Because I like Cleveland’s misery. That’s why I don’t. I don’t know why else. But I’m going to talk to some brown fans. I think the perception for the ravens and the reality, in regard to speed, in regard to this NFC thing, where you can’t prepare for them. The thing that I was not prepared for, and I don’t think you were prepared for, either seven weeks into this, and certainly not when they were owing to, was the offensive line and the scheming part of this as things work or don’t work. Monkin is going to push buttons. Lamar is going to push buttons to say, this is working. This isn’t working. Mark Andrews wasn’t working the first month of the season, right? I mean, there were three things that just were like, that seems a little broken right now, Ronnie Stanley looks like he just got drafted, and has he given up a sack? Is he going to pressures? His health is back? We don’t talk about his health anymore, after spending three years of talking about his health. But that being said, he’s a blue chip player. You know, it’s like he was a lottery pick. He was expected to be almost as good as John Ogden. So somebody, I mean, Linder bomb is a first round draft pick, despite holding calls, jumping a little bit penalties on the offensive line, the actual execution part, even when there are penalties, and I’ll bring up McCary playing left guard, and what happened to Voorhees and where and I saw Big Ben Cleveland on the sideline at the end of the game, but the names of the players and the concern we had for the offensive line, to me was the operation, And I think Monken is moving closer to genius level in calling these plays. Course, having Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson will and say flowers and weapons will make you that. But the execution part of the offensive line in being able to execute what they wanted to do, there was a lot of question about that in the off season and seven games in, it’s not anymore. It’s not the offensive line is a question mark. The offensive line is built to do this. It’s, it feels to me,
Luke Jones 07:09
it’s certainly good enough, right? I mean, and we talked about that before the season, we talked about the fact that they don’t necessarily have to have the 1993 Dallas Cowboys, right? They don’t have to have the best offensive line in the NFL because of Lamar Jackson and because of Derrick Henry now being added to that mix, just be good enough, and they’ve been more than good enough, right? I
Nestor Aparicio 07:33
mean, it’s not perfect. If your pass protection sucks, Lamar will just move around well and you have going for you. Joe Flacco, they
Luke Jones 07:40
8can do that. That’s part of the equation, right? I mean, it that’s the thing. I mean, going into that, that’s why it was so jarring early in the game, Lamar gets sacked on back to back plays when he had been sacked seven times total over the first six games of the season. But that’s, that’s part of the math here. That’s part of the equation. That’s part of what any great pass rusher, whether you’re talking about someone like Crosby in week two, or Chris Jones in week one. We’re going to see TJ watt here in the coming weeks. Miles Garrett this coming Sunday. Any, any of those guys on down? It’s not just, Oh, you have to beat your man. It’s also, I need to get Lamar Jackson down, or I need to be disciplined in my rush lane that he doesn’t just take off and run for 40 yards. I mean, there’s just an answer for everything. And you just said it. I mean, whether, whether we’re talking about the offensive line or Todd Monken or the running backs, you know, throw Justice Hill in there too. What he continues to do, think about some of the the chunk plays, you know, that chunk play that allowed them to get a field goal when they had a drive that was literally going backwards. But, but, you know, the tight ends, the wide receivers now, I mean, not just say flowers. How about Rashad Bateman, and what he’s become over the last three or four weeks, at the very, very least, looking like a really good number two wide receiver. So they just have answers across the board. And you know, you mentioned Mark Andrews over the first month of the season. Was it that he was broken, or is it just there’s one football, right? I mean, there’s literally one football to go around. And that’s part of what also has made this so impressive, is how selfless everyone is, in the sense of, okay, if you’re running the ball, go look at how the wide receivers and tight ends block downfield if you’re throwing the ball
Nestor Aparicio 09:24
quarterback or the quarterback blocking downfield, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. I
Luke Jones 09:29
mean, I’m not sure how many times you’re gonna see I don’t know that I like that, sure, sure. But you love it. You love the effort. You love the mindset, though. But you just look at everything they do what the passing game. It’s not just the offensive line. I mean, how about what Justice Hill has done in blitz pickup by and large over the course of the season? So I mean, whatever they decide to do, whatever the play call is, whatever the adjustment is, pre snap, it is just such a scary operation for a. Opponents to try to defend and okay, it can still get sloppy from time to time, to your to your point, they still need to cut down on the penalties that. That’s something that has been an issue this year. There’s no doubt about it. You know, putting it, putting aside what’s going on on the defensive side of the ball, there’s still those occasional moments where you scratch your head. I mean, think about the lead that they have, and then they they throw a backwards pass that turns into a turnover. And you know, ever so briefly, not that I really felt that Tampa Bay was going to come back at that point in time, but they do things like that that’ll leave the door cracked for the opposition. At times, we’ve seen that. But beyond that, when you look at it, just straight up, when you look at them, just trying to operate, whether it’s the passing game or the ground attack. I mean, I How do you stop them? I mean, how do you stop them? I mean, that’s the thing. And Todd Bowles is the latest to try to blitz and Blitz and Blitz and Blitz. Go look at lamar’s numbers against the Blitz. You know, a few years ago, we think back to that Thursday night game where Miami did the cover zero thing and completely overwhelmed this offense under Greg Roman at the time. You know, that was three years ago. Look at what Lamar has done against the Blitz, largely since then, and especially this year. That’s not a that’s not a best practice anymore. I mean, statistically, it’s certainly not paying off for the opposition. So, you know, they they played a lot of zone. We’ve seen other teams play man against the Ravens. I mean, you can stack the box and then while they’re going to throw the ball over your head, and how about the fact that Lamar threw a beautiful deep ball to Rashad Bateman in stride, which you know that that’s that’s been the perceived weakness the last couple years in terms of deep ball accuracy. So they just have answers for everything. And again, it begins with number eight, begins with your quarterback, but it’s across the board. It’s a collective effort. What they’re doing on offense right now, and even when they get off to a slow start, and even when their defense gets off to a slow start, you know that that opening drive was not pretty, and then the Ravens didn’t score. You know, only the second time all year they haven’t scored on their opening drive. Tampa Bay scores again. It’s 10 nothing as the first quarter concludes, and you’ve barely had the football no problem, right? I mean, literally, it was no problem. And the ravens, before you know it, they they had control of the football games. So, I mean, I just look at this football team right now and again. The defense is another story, and we’ll continue to talk about that. And for as well as they played for the middle portion of that game, they didn’t finish it very well. I mean, Ed Reed was on the Manning cast, and I happened to go back and look, and he made the comment that they thought they had had it the game over, and they still don’t understand the other side of finishing and being a championship team right now. So that’s part of the overall narrative for this team. But again, Lamar Jackson in this offense, it’s just, it’s a it’s better than it’s ever been, because they don’t have the defense doing the kind of heavy lifting that it’s done in the past in 2019 especially as the year went on, the defense played at a very high level last year, as great as the offense was, and it was a great offense, you know, AFC Championship game performance aside, go look at what the numbers were. They were right there with the very best offenses in the NFL, and Lamar won the MVP, of course, but their defense was doing very heavy lifting as well. This has been much more of offense, and the defense looks okay at times. They stopped the run, but they’re giving up points, and they’re giving up a lot of yards through the air and all that. So this offense has had more pressure on it to score, score, keep scoring, and they’ve been up to the task. So, I mean, it’s seven weeks in. We’re still over a month away from Thanksgiving, and I think what happened at the end of that football game, not just what happened at the end. Look at what happened to Tampa Bay with Mike Evans dropping the ball that such a turning point, when he drops a touchdown and gets hurt in the process, and then what happens unfortunately to Chris Godwin at the end of the game, whether he should have been in there or not. That’s a discussion for Tampa Bay that market to have, but it’s a reminder of just how fragile this thing can be, knowing that on any given play, this can be a very cruel game, knowing just the violence and the brutality of it. So from that standpoint, that’s where you look at this ravens team right now, and you just say, Don’t waste this. I mean, this is, this is a special offense. We’ve known this is a special quarterback for years now, and he’s doing everything at this point in time. There’s really not anything you can point to that Lamar Jackson is not doing as a quarterback or as the leader of this offense. So keep this thing going, and now it’s a matter of continuing to keep it going and trying to stay as healthy as you can. And you know, we’ll talk about Marlon Humphrey at some point here, and we’re. Find out what’s going on with his knee, but, boy, it’s just it’s a heck of an offense. It really is, and that’s on the heels of being someone who has made clear that they’ve had some amazing offenses here in recent years. You know, this isn’t something that’s brand new, but it is more dynamic, more complete than it’s ever been, in my opinion,
Nestor Aparicio 15:21
and a little bit more quick strike than anything we saw in 19 or even the success of last year, where I prefer the Raven 14 play 81 yard nine minute drive games get over at 340 in the afternoon when they’re at one o’clock. That’s not what this was. And the strangest part at some point, I tweeted after the third score, I’m like, they’re winning and they’re getting outplayed, and it’s just one play, one mistake. And in the case of Tampa, may feel throwing the interception in the corner, which was just unthinkable. I mean, easiest interception in Marlon Humphreys career, before he the second one. And I thought, Man, that’s something that the Ravens don’t do much of, drive the field, get down to the 10 yard line, and Lamar throws a dumb pick right into the hands of the safety. He’s done it over seven years. But I can’t even count it on one hand how often that’s happened and the Tony banks play, as we would say back in the day, I the care that they have for the football and their ability to strike at any point, very quickly throw the ball over your head if they have to which he did again on on Monday night. There isn’t anything he can’t do, but there’s nothing Baker Mayfield can’t do, except execute when they’re down on the goal line when they have a touchdown, except Mike Evans dropping the ball in his hand and pulling his hamstring. And I mean, there were a couple of really key plays on the Tampa side that would have won the game for them. And we might not be talking about it the same way, but when you can’t tackle Derrick Henry, and when you can’t get them off the field in four plays, they don’t need to go 14 plays down the field if they can do it in five or six.
8Luke Jones 17:15
Yeah, and that’s you just mentioned that. I mean, you kind of think about Derek Henry, and in the fourth quarter, you think about your four minute offense right where you want to milk the clock, and I’d say, Well, I guess the problem would be, don’t block quite as well on those toss plays. And someone you know, Derrick Henry, go down when someone tries to tackle him. I mean, you know if the 80, if the 80, if an 80 yard run is going to present itself, you’re going to take it right? So, so, yeah, I mean, it’s just so quick strike in so many different ways. And you said it, I mean the Mike Evans drop and hamstring injury, but later on that drive, I mean, on the interception itself, and by the way, that was a good play by Marlon Humphrey there, where he kind of peeled off to be underneath to make that play you may feel didn’t see him. I mean, right, not, not excusing Mayfield, but it was a good play by Marlon Humphrey. But what was really striking to me, go look at the beginning of that plague. Irving was was open in the left flat for a touchdown. I mean, he was wide open and Mayfield didn’t throw in the ball. I mean, that would have been a touchdown there. Look, I the way the Ravens offense was humming after the first quarter, you know, after the first drive. I mean, they didn’t, it’s not that they had a bad first quarter offensively. They didn’t have the ball, right? I mean, they had the ball for a handful of plays, and that was it. You know, any team is going to punt occasionally, but that, would that play have made that a closer football game over the course of the night? Maybe, probably may not, have turned into a blowout the way that it was. I mean, I know the final score, for anyone who didn’t watch it say, Oh, it’s a 10 point game. It wasn’t that close. We know that, but, but
Nestor Aparicio 18:55
the thing that made it that close was the pick and Evan’s dropping the ball and not getting points. So at that point, they left 14 points on the field and then turned around and got that was up their ass. Yeah, that was the same drive, though. Keep in mind, direct. Remember that? Directions? No, but, but exact, but one possession in a game like that.
Luke Jones 19:15
I mean, you can’t, you can’t waste possessions. I I’ve made the point. And obviously this was a bad example of it, because Tampa Bay actually did run the ball fairly well against them. They didn’t gash them, but, you know, they ran for over 100 yards, first time anyone’s done that against the Ravens all season against their run defense. But this is the kind of offense when you’re going up against this team and its ability to score points, you obviously cannot turn the ball over. You can’t punt. You’ve got to be willing to take chances. I I thought another underrated turn. You know, it wasn’t a turning point, because the Ravens had kind of taken control instead of trying that 55 yard field goal, I think Tampa Bay should have gone for it on fourth and four. I mean, I really do. I mean, I because. You’re at a point where field goals weren’t going to cut it against this ravens offense, in my opinion, at that point in time where you’re you’re chasing the scoreboard at that point. And I felt as the game went on, and I, if you remember, I mentioned this about the Washington game as well, I think you get to a point where, if you’re down seven or 10 points to this ravens offense, I think running the ball is kind of a wasted play. I mean, I just think you’re you run the ball on first and long, or, you know, first and 10 or second and long. I think you’re just putting your yourself in in peril, quite frankly. And that’s one thing, I guess. That’s a compliment to the defense, but also just it speaks to how tough it is going up against this offense right now, because it feels, you know, I would assume Baker Mayfield over the course of that game, and Tampa Bay over the course of that game, it’s just like, man, we have to be perfect if we want to be if we want any shot against these guys. If, if I’m Cleveland right now, if I’m Denver, who’s going to play the Ravens after that, you know what? If I’m any of these teams coming up, Cincinnati is a great example of this. I mean, look how well the Bengals played offensively in that game, and they still lost because their kicker didn’t make a long field goal. You have to, you have to play nearly perfect football to beat the Ravens right now and hope that the ravens, as I said, they’re still apt to do some head scratching things over the course of 60 minutes throwing the ball backwards. You mean, like throwing the ball backwards, or a penalty where you just kind of scratch your head and say, although I will say this, a couple of those holding penalties. I mean the one on FAU le. I that one. And you know me, I don’t complain about officiating much. They still score. They overcame that, but, but, but beyond those, those types of plays where the Ravens kind of beat themselves, or there’s something self inflicted, I mean it, you have to be just about perfect. And this defense certainly is far from perfect. And as that is, its issues, had its issues early in the game and then late in the game, closing this one out, but is the defense so bad that you can score every single time you touch the ball? That’s kind of what you need to do if you have much hope of beating the Ravens at this point in time. So it is a very, very, very difficult formula for the opposition right now and again. It starts with what Lamar Jackson and Todd monkin are doing the offensive line, this group of wide receivers. I mean, zay flowers hurt his ankle in that game. You can kind of tell it wasn’t a big factor. You know, tough through it. I mean, I’d really commend him for that. I know some of the, you know, the David Chows of the social media football Doctor types were kind of wondering if he was going to be able to finish that game, and he did, to his credit, but yeah, they’ve had guys step up and to this point, you know, again, we’ll wait and see about Marlon Humphrey on the defensive side. But, you know, they’re very healthy, and it’s just for me to sit here and try to say, Well, I’m really concerned about this, or I’m really concerned about that. I mean, offense is just absolutely cooking to a degree that it’s rarely found, even in some of Lamar and some of their most recent best seasons. It’s just incredibly difficult to stop right now, and it’s the big reason why the ravens are five and two and that Owen two starred as a distant memory at this point. Imagine
Nestor Aparicio 23:23
if Pat Ricard could just catch the ball, right? You know what I mean, right, right. But I mean the the embarrassment of riches, they throw the ball to Charlie Kohler, right? Like Luke Jones is here. He is Baltimore, Luke, we’re going to be gathering on Friday over at mamas on the half shell And Owings Mills celebrating the ravens, getting ready for the Browns game, getting ready for World Series game one, all of it brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Ever even scratch offs to give away? That’s been a pretty lucky batch. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care getting Luke back and forth after Owings Mills for a short week. This week, the Maryland oyster tour is up and running. That is brought to you by friends a curio wellness as well as liberty, pure solutions. One, 800 clean water. They take care of my water. They take care of my well water, as well as all of my plumbing needs. That’s what they do. At Liberty, pure and of course, our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter, I have the move product on my back right now. Not everything there, it has psychoactivity. A lot of things there have real, decent health benefits that we have been trying to express to you. So find our friends over curio wellness and far and daughter. They’re always doing daily deals and always there for adult use and educate folks. That’s what we’re here for as well. Luke’s trying to educate us on football. We’re going to get educated on a short business week with the Cleveland Browns and the residue of the Cleveland guardians. I have Munch Bishop and some of my my Cleveland mafia, my goons. Darryl writer, amongst others, red guy has he’s busy this week. He’s calling a whole bunch of Mac football this week. So red guy is not going to be here, but has promised me that he’ll be here for the requiem later in the year. I actually talked to Dave zastle the other day. He had a little little eye surgery here this week, so he can’t join us this week, but he’ll become. On before it’s all over, because we need to get special teamers in here, left hander who could throw the ball a little bit out in Ohio. Uh, he is Lou Jones. Find his work out on Instagram, anywhere, social travels, anywhere we travel. It is our 26th anniversary, and we’re going to be out doing crab cake tours, having fun throughout the holidays as the Ravens continue to win games, we’re going to continue to talk ravens football and a big victory over the Tampa Bay Bucha ears, the yuck and ears. I called them after a couple of penalties. I was waiting for the cream sickle and the swashbuckler to come back. We’ll have more on the bucks in the Ravens. I’m Nestor. He’s Luke. Stay with us. We’re wnst. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
