Laud and fraud: The hot seat of high expectations and low returns for John Harbaugh

When you’re expected to win the Super Bowl every year and somehow find more ways to squander the best talent in the NFL in crunch time than any other head coach in modern history, well…statistics somehow find you. The hideous Baltimore Ravens’ loss in Buffalo got John Harbaugh into stat memes for all of the wrong reasons for blowing games. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the laud and fraud of his tenure and oversight in the aftermath of the another Bills debacle in Orchard Park.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ recent loss to the Buffalo Bills and the upcoming game against the Cleveland Browns. They highlighted the frustration among Ravens fans, citing the team’s history of blowing leads and the high expectations set by preseason hype. Luke emphasized the need for the Ravens to start fast and maintain momentum, noting their recent struggles with two-score leads in the fourth quarter. Nestor criticized head coach John Harbaugh’s leadership and the team’s accountability, while Luke defended Harbaugh’s role in setting game strategies. Both agreed on the importance of a strong performance against the Browns to regain fan confidence.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Wear Derrick Henry Oilers jersey for good luck.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Find 1975 New York Jets ticket and Baltimore Colts belt buckle/hat.
• [ ] Monitor social media and continue discussing Ravens-related topics.

Ravens’ Loss and Fan Frustration

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the recent loss to the Bills and the upcoming game against the Browns.
• Nestor emphasizes the importance of a strong start and a good performance to avoid fan frustration.
• Luke highlights the need for the Ravens to avoid repeating past mistakes, such as blowing leads and turning the ball over.
• The conversation touches on the high expectations for the Ravens, fueled by preseason hype and recent success.

Fan Frustration and Accountability

• Nestor expresses his frustration with John Harbaugh, calling him a fraud and criticizing the franchise’s lack of accountability.
• Nestor mentions the high expectations for the Ravens, given their past success and the recent struggles of other teams like the Orioles.
• The discussion includes the impact of fan frustration on the team’s performance and the potential for booing at home games.
• Nestor reflects on the historical context of the Ravens’ success and the current state of the Orioles.

Harbaugh’s Leadership and Team Performance

• Nestor and Luke debate the role of John Harbaugh in the team’s performance, with Nestor criticizing Harbaugh’s leadership and Luke defending him.
• Luke points out the Ravens’ recent history of blowing leads and the need for better decision-making in critical moments.
• The conversation includes statistics on the Ravens’ performance in games with two-score leads in the fourth quarter.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the impact of specific plays and decisions on the outcome of games, such as the decision to punt on fourth down against the Bills.

Historical Context and Team Dynamics

• Nestor and Luke reflect on the Ravens’ past performances, including notable games and moments of success and failure.
• The discussion includes the impact of injuries and player performance on the team’s overall success.
• Nestor mentions the importance of the upcoming game against the Browns, given the significance of the matchup and the high expectations for the Ravens.
• The conversation touches on the dynamics between the coaching staff and the players, and the need for better communication and strategy.

Expectations and Future Outlook

• Nestor and Luke discuss the expectations for the upcoming game against the Browns and the importance of a strong performance.
• The conversation includes the impact of the Ravens’ recent losses on fan confidence and the need for the team to regain momentum.
• Nestor reflects on the historical context of the Ravens’ success and the current challenges they face.
• The discussion concludes with a focus on the importance of starting fast and maintaining a high level of performance throughout the game.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Ravens expectations, Harbaugh criticism, fan frustration, Buffalo loss, Browns game, Joe Flacco, defense issues, fourth quarter leads, mental block, play calls, Josh Allen, Derek Henry fumble, John Harbaugh accountability, team performance, Super Bowl hopes.

SPEAKERS

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Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 15 70,000 Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positively into a week two of the NFL season, and we’re already jumping off the purple cloud into the Hey. You know what’s going on? The Browns are happening. Flacco is here. The Lions are around the corner, and we got the chiefs in a couple of weeks. Luke Jones has been out of Owings Mills all week long, picking up the purple therapy after, I don’t know, I called it an unspeakable loss in the aftermath, Luke, I don’t even know what to say about a couple days later, as we get ready on Sunday here for the Browns to come in, but they better write the ship. They better come out and play well this week, and they better come out early and play well. Home crowd, 30th anniversary. Ozzy, all of that stuff happening. Joe Flacco, coming back. So certainly a big thing for him, for sure. Although Joe generally handles his emotions pretty well. This can’t be a, you know, 1613, game at halftime, man,

Luke Jones  01:02

yeah, well, I mean, first of all, you just need to win, right? I mean, just win. I mean, you can’t have another, you know, can’t have a repeat of last year where you come home after a tough loss and loss in Kansas City, a loss in Kansas City that was in no way like this Buffalo game on Sunday night, but a loss nonetheless. And then you do what they did against the raiders in that fourth quarter, where, again, they had a two score lead. And then, if you like Gardner Minshew, make a couple plays, and before you know it, you’re somehow losing that football game. So they need to come out, start fast, keep their crowd in it. I think another, you know, the other tentacle to this is got a fan base that’s really frustrated, and I think it’s the recent history of the Ravens having done this. I think there’s a an element to what’s happened with the Orioles this year where, you know, you go through a baseball season, we’ll get to the Orioles. They played better recently, but they’re still in last place, and we know what that season’s been like. So you get to the start of the football season, expectations are sky high. Everyone and their grandma’s picking the ravens to win the Super Bowl. All of that, right? All that hype, best talent, best roster, or best quarterback, such a talented secondary, right? I mean all of that, and it looks great for 50, if not close to 55 minutes on Sunday night. Wasn’t perfect, but looked great. You’re up two scores at Midway through the fourth quarter, and that just happened. So the last thing you want is to start slow, turn the ball over early. The defense gives up a big pass play to Jerry Judy or something like that, and you’ll hear boo birds. I mean, there’s, I would not as much as I don’t necessarily know. Well, if condone is the right word. I mean, I’ve always thought it’s just kind of, you know, you boo your your own team at home, I think, if anything, that just pumps up the the opposition. But I think that’s the level of frustration. It’s a little bit more than not a little bit it’s more than usual. I mean, it absolutely is more frustration than usual. Uh, directed at John Harbaugh, at Zach, or at this defense. Well, everybody

Nestor Aparicio  03:21

knows how I feel about Harbaugh, right? Just as a man without character, I just think he’s a fraud of a human being that has been my and I will say that out loud, I’d say to his face, we had the guts to face me. But all that being said, 17 of these now, the dozen over the last couple of years, how it sticks to Marlon Humphrey, who spoke out how it sticks to Derek Henry fumbling the ball the other night, but at least stood in the middle of that buffalo locker room and said it’s on me which Mark Andrews couldn’t do right, which pashati doesn’t show up. The accountability of the franchise in a general sense, whether it’s acknowledgement of the kicker, whether it’s just drafting a kid that had some problems off the field in the second round, and just being a tone deaf inside outside organization to the community is one thing. That’s why I boo them. Now, that being said, the anger of the fan base here for we’ve had two Super Bowls. Cleveland’s had none. Buffalo’s had none. You know, Ozzy’s going to get honored this week. This has been 30 years in they’ve been a competitive team far more than the baseball team that I’ve had to sit here and and literally just watch wilt before my very eyes since the Cal Ripken 2131 game, not much as good has happened in 30 years to this baseball franchise or its fan base, or their wallets or the downtown Business District, any of that, and I can, I’m Baltimore positive, and I can look at that without having to look through some lavender colored glasses to talk about what is and what isn’t the reality of the situation, but the reality of hardball getting piled on by everybody but me. I haven’t said ish this week. Other, and I again, my feelings about how a white guy has a press credential and the Hispanic guy doesn’t, and somebody that’s been here 30 years that gets outlawed, and I get all of that. I’m three years way past that. I had a way better week last week than I would have had in Buffalo with you, although the beef on whack in the wings were delicious. And of all the trips that I don’t regret taking you and me going to Toronto and Buffalo for opening day. I went to two baseball games this year. I went to Toronto opening day, Baltimore opening day. I wanted to go see Skeens pitch on Wednesday night, but nobody would give me any of their excess Birdland insider money to go down there in the rain. My wife’s like, it’s raining now. You don’t want to go. I’m like, but it’s Paul skiing. Someone to go because I’m a sports guy, just like I’d like to go this week, on behalf of Flaco. Flacos family took me. I go sit with his family and watch the game, but hardball is getting piled on, not by me,

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05:52

for

Nestor Aparicio  05:56

a lack of character and integrity. That is biblical in my mind, and should be in his mind as well. When I talked to him about what his funky Donald Trump was saying about our city, he’s down there, canoodling with, with, with him, should be asking about his scribblings and his birthday cards to Epstein. But in regard to Harbaugh, I just piled on for, oh, I don’t know, 90 seconds, and pissed everybody off with shame, shame that you mentioning all of this, that he’s hanging out either way, he’s blown a lot of leads, and no one had a problem pointing that out in the post game, except me.

Luke Jones  06:35

Well, couple things here. First of all, I’m unmoved by the since 1991 stat. Give me more context than that. Is it? You know, because a 10 nothing lead in the first quarter is not the same as what we saw Sunday night, right? So for me, let’s stick with recent history, can we? And I’m not saying I’m saying in a general the eyeball tested it, let’s say the last two, three years. Yes, yes. Let’s talk about when a team capable of winning a Super Bowl. And I’m not talking to you individually. I’m just saying when we’re talking, when we’re happy, we can have this conversation. Believe me, I’ve been critical of John Harbaugh at times, and I mean, at this point, I think this franchise has a mental block in these situations where I think it’s the coaching staff, I think it’s this core group of players, I think it’s they get out to these leads. And let’s be clear. And Mike Sando from from the athletic, longtime NFL reporter, had this statistic the other day where he was talking about leads with, you know, two score leads in the fourth quarter. Since 2022 the Ravens have six losses, no other team has two. However, let’s also look at the flip side of that. The Ravens have 31 instances of games where they’ve had two score leads in the fourth quarter. The next highest team on the list that I saw was the Eagles at 28 Kansas City has 24 buffalo the mighty bills have 21 so some of this is also they jump out to a lot of big leads, right? So I don’t know, would people feel better if the Ravens lost Sunday like the lions did going to Lambeau, where they just kind of look listless, and, for lack of a better term, got their butts kicked. I don’t know, right? I mean, and it’s weird, right? I mean, this

Nestor Aparicio  08:19

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harbors team came back from with a yard on fourth and four plays of losing the Super Bowl, right? I mean, Joe Flacco had to throw a miracle to the Jacoby Jones for Harbaugh to be this decorated Super Bowl winning guy you mentioned in a previous conversation this week the 2014 playoff game where Belichick confused him and completely out coached him, out coached him in that game, like, and to your point, Ozzie Newsome gave him Rashawn Melvin in the secondary. Sean has had, there’s more horses. John has had the best football players the last three years. He really has, like, I don’t think he would dispute that, because he sits in the press conferences and winks at Eric. And they do all the and they meet each other on the farm, like it’s a like it’s Brokeback Mountain or something, you know what? I mean? Like, I don’t they have the best players now the expectation is there, not with nasty Nestor being a dick or John Harbaugh lacking integrity, which he does. This is about the fan base ready to boo the team if they go three and out on Sunday for Hall of Fame, John, Hall of Fame, running back, Hall of Fame, quarterback, Hall of Fame, General Manager, coming back like all of that, the fan base is so gassed up about having spent $600 and lost an AFC Championship game in front of Taylor Swift and then having an ouster last year in Buffalo and having to go play on the road because they lost These kinds of games earlier in the year, last year, at home to the Raiders, that if something goes awry on Sunday, nasty Nestor from 1998 with the Go Raven signs isn’t there to tell the fans, don’t boo the home team. You shouldn’t boo the home team. It’s a bad idea. I mean, I thought that when they cheered. Al bowler being injured, and that was two decades ago now. So I mean, for the controlling the zoo and the animals, we’re not that much different than Philly in that way. But I would say this, the expectation level is off the charts. Sure, it’s off the charts for all of them, and when you blow a 15 point lead to your rival on the road, pissing the game away in every conceivable way, and the head coach has been in the front of this several times. It’ll be rough week for John Harbaugh around here before I even get to it on Thursday afternoon.

Luke Jones  10:33

You know, yeah, and I’m not going to push back on that. I mean, he deserves criticism. They all deserve criticism. I mean, look, is it, is it? Is it John Harbaugh’s fault that Derek Henry got stripped of the football and that was the biggest play of the game? Are we blaming John Harbaugh for Mark Andrews dropping a two point conversion that he’s caught 99 out of 100 times in his career? I guess I don’t know what

Nestor Aparicio  10:52

you can blame John Harbaugh for. I’ve been around him 18 years. He doesn’t call plays, he doesn’t call defense, he doesn’t call offense. I don’t he’s he’s a morale leader. He’s a cheerleader. Because he didn’t, he didn’t pull zay flowers onto the field and say, take the ball on second down and do an end around when you have a pull Derek Henry off the field on second down. He didn’t do that. I mean, so he’s gonna get blamed for it. So, I mean, I’ll take his side in that that he doesn’t have the play calls, but it does say it has his name above the desk, even though, when he sat in front of me and bullshit me about Chad Steele, he’s a liar. But all of that being said, it does say John Harbaugh, head coach on it, but I can’t blame him for stuff that I know is not like that’s monk and that’s Zach, that’s probably Pagano, to some degree at this point, with play calls late in the game like that,

Luke Jones  11:39

I see I would disagree a little bit in the sense that the head coach is going to going to give direction of where you are in the game and how you want to proceed right now. Todd monkin, in the micro Yes, is making each play call. But when you get to a certain point, you talk about this throughout the off season. You certainly talk about it throughout the week, throughout the summer, knowing that you’re playing buffalo week one, you’re going through scenarios. All right, we’re up 15 midway through the fourth quarter. We we’re going into our four minute offense where we want to run clock. What are our best play calls here? What are we going to do? What are we not going to do? The head coach sets the expectations in that way, regardless of whether he’s actually calling the play. So so I would disagree a little bit with that, but, but at the same time, the buck stops with the head coach, right? The head coach is the leader of the players on the field, the coaches on the sideline, I think, as it pertains to Sunday night, for me, number one is punting on fourth and three. I mean, I’ll continue to go back to that. And it’s almost unthinkable in my mind, when you think back to where they were week two, 2021 Kansas City in town and the Ravens went for now it was fourth and one. I get that fourth and one is much different from fourth and three. However, this defense was playing at a way lower level then that. And you know, not as though that defense was great that night, let’s be clear. But you know, they, they, at least, you know, made a couple game changing plays. I mean, OA had the play all that. But when it’s fourth and three and you haven’t stopped the opposition whatsoever, and Josh Allen is on a Josh Allen kind of heater, and you have three timeouts in your pocket. So even if you don’t get it, Buffalo takes over. Yeah, I hear John, they’re in almost in field goal range, but you’ve got three timeouts then, and you can make the argument that, hey, you’re not stopping them anyway. Giving them a shorter field is probably going to improve your chances of getting the ball back and having a chance. Having a chance to answer and win the game with your offense anyway. So for me, that was that was not that was below the ball.

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Nestor Aparicio  13:51

They like to think that they that they can make three yards from anywhere on the field anytime, and that’s part of it to win a game. They’d like to think that they could do that to win a game, one play, three yards, win the

Luke Jones  14:01

game, and I’ll hear it that Lamar was kind of cramping up. I’ll hear that. But at the same time, Buffalo had called time out there, if you need to, you can call a timeout there, right? Even though you want to keep those timeouts if you don’t get the fourth down. But that was, that was poor. I mean, that that was an uninspiring decision. And I know John, even on Monday, was still trying to say I believed in our defense. Well, you weren’t watching the same defense as everyone else, because that defense was awful in the fourth quarter. So that’s the thing about

Nestor Aparicio  14:32

John. He’s unbelievably incongruent. But you know what I mean? He’ll say, he’ll say one thing and and fans eat it up like what used to eat it up now fans, I want, dude, I see the post game threads that they have on their defense, under the bus, though they should wish all these people aren’t on the radio. Take I’m taking calls from these people because, like, it’s John’s not popular here, not just amongst me. Maybe he’s popular with Len Stoler, but that’s about

Luke Jones  14:58

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it. I mean. He’s he’s not going to throw his defense under the bus publicly. I mean, he’s just not what coach there are very few instances where that’s going to be control.

Nestor Aparicio  15:07

I mean, he says, I believed in my defense, so he bet on his defense. You didn’t believe in his defense because you had watched it. He did believe in his defense. He put him out there. So, I mean, I’ll give him conviction for that. He at least said, you know, I thought our defense could make the stop. Okay, well, you were the only one, bro, yeah.

Luke Jones  15:24

But so, so that part of it he has to wear, right? I mean, he does because, because he’s the head coach, and the overall collapse he has to wear. Now we start digging deeper into it, and okay, monkins, play calls, Zach Gore’s play calls the players on the field. I think what’s so frustrating for me and again, to bring it to pull back out and look at the last few years, specifically with these games, is with each one, you can kind of look at it in the micro and not that you explain away and excuse it like that’s not at all what I’m saying, but you can kind of understand some fluke. I mean, even in this game, I mean, can’t Coleman catches a fourth down touchdown off a deflection, there aren’t too many defenses that can, that you can account for where a ball is going to go after it goes off someone else’s hands, right? You know, you go back to some of the the Miami game in 2022 I mean, Marcus Peters wasn’t right, Marlon Humphrey got hurt in that game. They had Kyle Hamilton playing deep safety before he was ready to play deep safety. They had Jalen armor Davis on the field right. And you had this Miami team with a hot shot, offensive minded coach and Tyree kill and new toys, and they kind of just, it was like an ambush all of a sudden that they just, and that’s not to excuse it, but they were also playing with three days rest, right? Uh, not, no, no, no. That was different year. I’m sorry, thinking of the Thursday night game the year before, yeah, um, so, so and again. This isn’t me excusing this, but like, you can look at each of these games and say, okay, part coaching, part players, some bad luck involved, some injury, things that happened in game like so you look at each one in the micro and you can kind of contextualize it and rationalize it to say, all right, that was a bad loss, but it’s not necessarily like the systemic issue or a trend, but then, but then you do step back and you look at the fact that, yeah, okay, I get it, they’ve had 31 games since 2022 where they’ve had a two score lead in the fourth quarter. That’s more than any other team. So like, kudos on that. That shows what kind of chops, what kind of chops you have as a football team, but you have six losses. Kansas City doesn’t have any losses in that category, the Eagles, who have won a Super Bowl recently last year.

Nestor Aparicio  17:51

Well, and those six games are the difference between them being 15 and two and 13 and four, right?

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Luke Jones  17:58

Literally, I mean you, and you look at it, and here’s the exact breakdown for those specifics. Six, right? I mean, there’s some other games that they’ve, you know, they’ve had a one score lead late. I mean, it’s the NFL, right? I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  18:08

they’ve also lost some games, like the game to the Giants and stuff. I mean, and that’s one

Luke Jones  18:12

of those six, because they led by 10 in that fourth quarter, right? The Meadowlands. So, but at the same time, and this is what’s frustrating to me, and this is where context and nuance is necessary. They’ve also had some games where they’ve come back and won, right? I mean, think back to that Colts game in 2021 that Monday night game. They were getting their butts kicked in that game, and that was the that was almost really the first game where they they let Lamar Jackson be Dan Marino, and he did it brilliantly. I mean, he threw for a ton of yards. Now, granted, the Colts secondary was banged up like again, you can always talk about these types of things. So they’ve had some games where they’ve staged comebacks. And generally speaking, there are games where they’ve trailed from almost from Jump Street, and then they make a comeback in the second half the Cincinnati Thursday night game last year. Remember, they were down 14 Points. It what late in the third quarter? I think it was, and they came back and won that game. So when I see that, just in terms of trying to, like, figure out what’s under the hood for this football team and this core and this coaching staff, it’s not as though they’ve never overcome in game adversity. They’ve had examples like that, but it’s this, and they’ve had, they’ve had a ton of games where they’ve jumped out to a big lead and they’ve never looked back, right? We’ve seen games where they’ve won by five touchdowns, even against good teams. I mean, Detroit, a couple years ago, Seattle, any game where the backup quarterback played well, but even, but even. I mean, look what they did to San Francisco on Christmas night. I mean two years ago, that second half, they stomped them, right? I mean Miami coming in with the number one seed on the line in week 17, two years ago, they stopped them, right? So it’s not as though they’ve never done it, or it’s not as though they they can’t protect any leads, but it’s very these, very specific. Instances where they build a comfortable lead, but it’s not mathematically, it’s not over yet, where it’s like a five, four or five touchdown lead, where you’d say, All right, yeah, this is done, but it’s comfortable enough where

Nestor Aparicio  20:13

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I said it to you and Derek, two mistakes and a drive in the game’s close. I mean, I said

Luke Jones  20:18

it to you. I for you know, it’s one of those, fool me. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me six times. Shame on me. When Derek, when they had the Lamar scramble and the Derrick Henry, touched down in the fourth quarter, I thought it was over there. I thought that. I thought those two plays back to back had completely killed buffalo spirit, and I thought it was over there. So I think the Ravens thought the same.

Nestor Aparicio  20:40

I thought it was over in the third quarter when buffalo guys are watching the ball bounce at their feet, and they look like they didn’t want to be there. And when they look like they didn’t want to tackle Derrick Henry, most of the night, they look like they didn’t want to tackle there. So but I

Luke Jones  20:52

think what you’ve seen in these instances, yes, some fluky, weird things have happened as well, and generally speaking, that’s what happens when there’s a comeback. Think back, way back when one of the greatest comebacks in ravens history, that Seattle game, back in oh three, Ed Reed blocking a punt was really the play that got that going. I mean, I get it, Anthony. Yeah. Anthony Wright, to Marcus Robinson, you know what? Four touchdowns in that game. But, like, some fluky things generally happen that allows a team to stage, I

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Nestor Aparicio  21:24

said, two mistakes in a drive, right? The mistake can be a shank, punt, it can be a fumble, an interception, of this, of that, whatever. It can be a 15 yard pass interfering. It could be anything, but then you just see momentum take over. And we’ve been watching this sport for 50 years. That’s kind of the way this goes, right?

Luke Jones  21:43

And I think these specific games we’re talking about, I feel like they get in their mind that, hey, we can relax. And I think it’s I, to me, it’s akin to putting a car in cruise control and you’re set at a certain you know, cruise control doesn’t mean you’re going 15 miles per hour. It means you’re set and you can take your foot off the accelerator. I think what happens then is these teams that don’t just roll over and, look, we’ve seen it plenty of times. How many teams roll over against Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, when they jump out to a big lead, they just say, well, we’re done.

Nestor Aparicio  22:18

They’re usually NFC teams. But, yes,

Luke Jones  22:20

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but, but, but it happened. It happened plenty of times. Like I said, they they jump out the leads all the time, and they protect most of them, but in these instances, a team has the resolve to punch back, to punch them in the mouth, and that’s where then they reach to the accelerator pedal, and either they can’t find it, or it’s not working, and they just, they just spiral. Then everything spirals, right? Everything, they all go down with the Sunday.

Nestor Aparicio  22:46

That was astonishing. If you would have told me that Derek Henry would have been the goat, right? You’re right, getting the ball punched out. Like, well,

Luke Jones  22:52

just how about the fact that they scored 40 points. I mean, this was the first time in franchise history that they had scored 40 points in a game and lost. And that’s not shocking, because you know that the defensive history of this team, and also before, before Lamar Jackson came around, this wasn’t a team that scored 40 points of the game very

Nestor Aparicio  23:08

often. In my own defense, I did not put my Derrick Henry Oilers jersey on before the game. So had I been wearing that? Maybe it would have brought some better Juju

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Luke Jones  23:16

to the Yeah, but, but you mentioned Derrick Henry and I felt

Nestor Aparicio  23:20

funny wearing an Oilers Jersey against the bills. I just didn’t, it didn’t, that didn’t add up for me. I’ve done that once, but,

Luke Jones  23:28

but that’s where I look at this again, where it’s like, Yes, John Harbaugh, he’s got to wear it. He’s He’s the head coach, and he’s ultimately responsible for what happens. But at the same time, there’s nothing about John Harbaugh’s failure as a coach, that explains why Derrick Henry fumbles in that spot. And look at Ed Oliver made a great play. Like, you know, part of this is also Josh Allen and buffalo, right? I mean, in this instance, now the Raiders last year, or talking about the Giants a few years, like, okay, that’s, that’s a different but there’s also the element of Josh Allen’s a Hall of Fame quarterback, just like Lamar Jackson and buffalo as was at home, and that’s going to be on his highlight reel. No question, no question, and we’ll see what what it brings for the rest of this year.

Nestor Aparicio  24:12

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Doesn’t win him a ring, but, you know, might, might win him a home game in January again, yeah, sure. If they’re going to get there, they better take care of business this this week against the browns, no doubt, so, but, but

Luke Jones  24:22

again, it’s, there’s multiple things at work here. There absolutely is. And that’s where I look at this and say, yeah. Is it John Harbaugh, yeah. Is it Todd monkin in the final couple drives? Yeah. Is it Zach or over the course of the night? Yeah. Is it at this core of players that, you know, when I hear Marlon hopefully say that, you know, they still need to mature as a defense. And I think that he means that in the way of the 2025 group as it’s now constructed, and newcomers coming in, responsibilities, changing all of that, yeah, I think that takes some time to gel for any team. But they’ve not only been on the field for 60 minutes, they don’t even they. They barely practice. You talk about this all the time, like they’re part of it. You know, that was part of it for teams are not prepared, yeah, and I think that was part of it for Buffalo’s defense being as horrible as it was, until the final couple drives where they made some plays. So, so there’s all of that, but this happening after an entire off season of hearing about last year’s buffalo loss, and this team being, quote, deliberate and intentional with what they want to do, and this grading system that they did in practice, which I will continue to say, was an attempt to quantify, something that’s qualitative and something that try to make something science that’s more art, because I think it’s between the ears. I think it’s a mental thing for this team as much as anything now, but, man, I mean, just, you know, you’re so excited for week one, and you have, here we go again, right off the bat. I mean, that’s tough, you know, and that’s why there’s a lot of pressure on Sunday against an absolutely inferior team, but a division rival that beat you last year, they beat you two years ago, and no one expected that to happen in either case. So you better come out and start fast and play well on both sides of the ball and leave no doubt. And you know what my message would be to if I were John Harbaugh talking to this team now moving forward, guys, we’re going to start fast and we’re not going to let up. And you know what, we’re going to have people criticizing us for running up the score on teams. But until we learn how to truly finish out and close out games, we have no other choice but to just play it that way. And if we get called for sports because we’re running up the score on lesser teams. And so so be it, because we can’t let this happen again. You know that that would be my message, part of my message to my football team at that point, and say, We’re we’re not going to change a darn thing when we get to the fourth quarter. We’re going to continue to just, you know, completely stomp and boat race these teams, and if the media doesn’t like it, or if the opposing head coach doesn’t like it, I don’t care, because we can’t let this happen again, because this is embarrassing and it’s unacceptable and it’s below the bar, and it’s costing us opportunities to improve our seeding for January and to try to win a Super Bowl. So we’ll see what happens on Sunday. I expect the ravens to win. I expect the ravens to to win by a couple scores. But that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to happen, that you just roll the ball out, and it’s automatically going to happen. You need to go out there and start fast and do not take your foot off the accelerator. But because, you know, if it’s anything like Sunday night, you weren’t able to find the pedal again when you needed

Nestor Aparicio  27:33

it. Well, they are the better team walking onto the field Sunday at one o’clock. They better win. And all that being said, Joe flack goes homecoming, the Aussie Newsome thing, Schwartz coming back here, division rivals, miles, Garrett, all of that happening here on Sunday at one o’clock. Luke will be at the ballpark. Will be monitoring all things on social media, the way we always do jibber jabbering and chatting and strategizing and doing all that stuff. You also got a lot of looks from the Cleveland side of things. Dave zest joining us this week. We had the 75 colts reunion over at Union brewing on Saturday. Light on Mitchell’s coming on with me this week. So have you found my 1975 New York Jets ticket from game Week Six of that that campaign where Burt came in through three touchdowns, 52 to 19 suck it? Joe Namath, anyway. Kidding me, it’s 50 years ago. Man, that’s how long I’ve been loving football. So I gotta get my Baltimore Colts belt buckle off the wall here. I’m going to strap that on this week. I never really had a Bert Jones jersey. Back in the day I had, I think I still have my colts hat, my little colts hat with a pom pom on it. So I’m going to try to find that. I also have my ball cap. So, you know, I’m rummage around here. Ain’t nothing wrong with them, Baltimore Colts. So Baltimore Colts and the Baltimore Ravens all being honored all weekend long. We’ll see if the Cleveland Browns can put up a fight at one o’clock on Sunday. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, D, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.