Who is managing the clock and replay challenges? Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the coaching decisions and itchy red flag of Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and how to use the new leg of Justin Tucker.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
years, ravens, justin tucker, week, game, kicker, oyster, kick, coach, long, talking, yard field goals, mike mcdonald, john harbaugh, making, overturned, dallas, cowboys, luke, challenge
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Music. Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are AM, 1570 yes, we’re still 26 years now, plus running into our am radio station. So we’d love for you to place us out on your dial our friends at the Maryland lottery send us out to do the crabcake tour on Friday, we’re going to be down at fadelies in Lexington market. Congressman John Sarbanes is going to be there with us, our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care, powering us up and liberty, pure solutions at one 800 clean water, keeping our well water clean your well water clean, as well as really good plumbers. They service the entire area. Doug’s a good man. They’re right here in Northern Baltimore County. They’ve taken care of me for years, keeping me nice and healthy. They can do that for you too. That’s liberty, pure solutions. And certainly last but not least, I’m wearing my curio wellness shirt. It looks a little roquan Smith ish. I don’t know what it is. It’s a zero. It’s not a double zero like but it’s the O and curio for our 26th year, as we celebrate with 26 oysters in 26 days, 26 ways, all around the bay. I was slated to be in Ocean City this week. I’m not going to be there. Had some family issues going on. It’ll keep me back on the homestead here this week, but we will be eating oyster after oyster. So if Conrad’s I’m coming libs grill, you’re gonna see me pepper mill. I’m I know I’m too young, but I’m coming anyway, once they get the oyster oyster stew in the oyster chowder over there. So all week long, we’re gonna be eating oysters. We are sharing them now out at Baltimore positive with John shields on day one, as well as my sojourn to the shucking oyster shack in Frederick last week, where I had a shooter. Had an oyster shooter. It’s delicious. Who knew oysters could could just taste this good. I might never go back to shrimp and scallops once this whole thing’s over with Luke, we’ve done a couple segments here, and those who listen or follow along, I don’t know our YouTube channel or they follow along on your Instagram or our Twitter or our ex or our Facebook, wherever it is, but I am known as the Harbaugh killer. Now, you know, after 16 years of him trying to end my career, literally, that I would be fair with John Harbaugh, or I’d just be a jerk, because he’s been an absolute jerk to me. But either way, we’re here. I’m not here to talk about the past like Mark McGuire. I’m here to talk about what’s going on and when you start to stack stuff up. So if I’m going to write the the coach killer piece on hardball the day after, he shakes hands with bashati, and bashati changes his mind and finds his next Mike McDonald and says, I shouldn’t have let him get out of here whenever all that happens, Harbaugh is blown, been the coach of not him blown, but has overseen because he is in charge, whether he thinks he’s trying to convince me Chad Steele is when he’s not, but, um, but John’s in charge. I mean, the double digit fourth quarter leads blown is enormous. He’s had a two time MVP quarterback that they have not navigated the playoffs well at all. They’ve won how many playoff games since the Super Bowl? Three. Now is it three? Lamar won one and then one last year, right? So they’ve won three playoff games. Two with Lamar has won two playoff games. I think is a number. Correct me. If I’m wrong, I might be wrong by one or two, because I’m old, um, oh, and two, this gauntlet, pulling the red flag out 16 years into this like there is no system. Because if there is a system, everybody in the world saw the ball hit the ground. Everybody did you see it in the press box? Can I ask you that? Were you seeing it when he threw the flag, because I am assuming in the stadium, and I’m going to say this from what I used to know, because they threw me out. I don’t know how it works anymore, but I’m just assuming that it hasn’t changed much. Brian Billick and Larry Rosen had a very troubled relationship, right? Because Larry was a media guy. Came from Philadelphia, and he controlled the scoreboards for many years, many, many years. And Larry’s done that job in Jacksonville. He’s done that job in Atlanta for the Falcons. Done that job for the league. Larry’s done that job at a dozen Super Bowls. He does the Super Bowl every year, like the actual what people see inside the stadium as as opposed to what CBS is showing me with five replays, as opposed to what New York is seeing where they’re trying to get the call rights, everybody that gambles on it wins or loses their bets. Um, and I went through that with Chad Weasley on Friday and Cooper’s about what a scam the NFL is. Gambling system is when they really are the judges and the referees for whether you win or lose money, it’s really you think about it. It’s really shady. But all that being said, back to hardball and back to officials and throwing red flags, there’s just so much of this 16 years into it that would be sloppy if Mike McDonald were making these mistakes and weren’t. Two and, oh, in Seattle, as he is, um, to say, are he just getting the hang of it, the challenge flag thing, dude? I mean, I’m not. He’s a Super Bowl winning coach. He’s probably going to the Hall of Harbaugh before it’s all over with, right? And I will have the rest of my as long as I’m fogging a mirror around here. I’ll have the rest of my life to talk about John Harbaugh’s integrity, and you know, his God, fearing God, following Christian integrity, about how he treats other people. I’m case a that you have a press pass, and I don’t, and he’s a part of it, whether he wants to say he was the part of it, according to many people that said he’s not doing a very good job of coaching this team right now, and I just took my shots at him. And you can have at it, because you look at him three times a week, four times a week,
Luke Jones 05:49
well, I mean, it comes down to this. And I mean, we’ve, we’ve spent a lot of time in this post game, aftermath of Sunday’s loss, talking about the offensive line, right and its struggles. We spent a lot of time talking about the second half falter of the defense. You know, the defense was so great in the first half, not very good at all in the second half. You know, collapsed in the second half. So those are the big issues, right? And we talked a lot about the offensive line throughout the offseason. We talked a lot about the transition from Mike McDonald to Zach gore and, oh yeah, Dennard Wilson and Anthony Weaver and the coaching attrition. So these are big issues that we talked about. But when you have big issues, when you have big problems that, look, every football team’s going to have some of that, you better do the little things well. And this is something that I want to be very clear. There are lots of coaches around the league who aren’t necessarily great with challenges, even other veteran coaches who aren’t great. There are lots of teams around the league who are not good when it comes to clock management. Andy Reid was notoriously known for that for years and years and years and years before Patrick mahomes came along. So that’s the caveat that I’m providing here, that the ravens are not unique there, even with a veteran coach. However, that does not completely absolve you when you have some challenges that are made that are kind of head scratching. My general rule of thumb, and I try to do this to be fair, because again, sitting there and watching 12 angles of it on in high definition TV, a television in your living room is not the same as having precious number of seconds to make a decision there on the fly, and yeah, you’re consulting with some of the people you have upstairs, but ultimately you’re still, you know, it’s a calculated risk. So the general rule of thumb that I have, and this is just Luke, the sports media guy, that isn’t a head coach anything like that, but when I look at the first replay, and if I look at it and say, I don’t think that’s being overturned, not throwing the flag like it’s just that simple, it’s clear and irrefutable evidence to overturn the call on the field. And the call on the field in each case was, in the first case was a flowers ball hit the ground, and in the case of the Devonte Adams toe tap on the sideline, it was a catch. So you’re already swimming upstream when you’re challenging this to try to have it overturned, right? I mean, this isn’t like you got
Nestor Aparicio 08:11
the guy making the most money with the least amount of information, literally there, if he’s making it in a vacuum, if he takes his headset off, and he’s just making it. What he has are the scoreboards, the fans screaming his own jocular virility and manly macho ness and his piss and vinegar that you can ask Brent Harris about. I just what he’s seeing on the scoreboards is K fame. You’re a wrestling fan. I talk a lot about K fame. They’re a K Fabe organization, just the fact that I’m not in there and that they’ve thrown me out, and they’re willing to lie about it to everybody, and I have to go write the truth to everybody about Eric decost and show off my text to show that I have evidence that they lie, and they lie a lot, that if, if he has a system, and there’s a guy upstairs, a coach upstairs, a VIC Fangio, a Marvin Lewis, who’s running around the sidelines with, by the way, Marvin says, Hello, Luke, he missed you to meet you the other night. I told him it was a victory meal. Um, the black and gold, black and silver people think I’m shaving, you know, I’m catching on to the Raiders, but I’m not. I’m just lazy, um, the the notion that he would throw it based on whatever he saw when everyone in the world saw the ball at the ground like and look, that didn’t cost him the game. But let’s just talk about process here for $15 million a year, guy who’s supposed to be running the place, and it’s supposed to be the grown up, and it’s supposed to not make egregious mistakes with timeouts when the ball hit the ground and everybody saw it, did you see it in the press box? I’m only asking from a delay standpoint, that in real time and. Other teams getting up to the line and trying to I get all of that, but that ball hit the ground from jump, that ball hit the ground in real time, in every way the ball hit the ground. And I’m thinking to myself, and I don’t pay $350 for my seats in Section 513, row, one seat, seven and eight, like I did for 27 years. But I always, when I was in the stadium, as a fan, knew about the Larry rose and Brian Billick thing. I know how horrible is, I don’t say was. I know how he’ll be the rest of his life, that any he controls everything. You know that? I know that we’ve been told that by everybody, as did Billick. And Billick would tell you that if he were here, he’d say, I, I I ran the place. I was the coach. This was my building. Um, no matter what anybody’s title says, my building. So until they throw me out, right? And the case of hardball, there should be a system for this, and there should be something that he trusts that’s a buzzer that says it is, or it isn’t, or somebody’s going to be screaming down the line, the ball at the line, the ball at the ground, the ball hit the ground. The ball hit the ground. How can somebody anybody not see that, to relay that to him when everybody in the world has seen it, even if they’re fudging the televisions in the stadium, because they don’t want to show the whole world in the stadium, it’s like they want cheers or something. It’s K fade. It’s like the Hulkster, you know, doing the ear out like, get the call right, John, get the play right. Get your look right. If you’re going to play God, if nobody else is going to look at it, let’s make sure the head coach sees it. And I’m telling you, philosophically, for 30 years, their whole idea about those television boards is to make it K fame show the angle that gets the fans pissed off, to get down on the referee, yelling bullshit, like all of that, so the referee gets shook to make the wrong call, which it doesn’t work that way anymore. It doesn’t work that way anymore. It works that the coach has a flag and has to have the real information, not his fee fees, and John’s throwing too many flags on Fifi 16 years into this, not to mention whatever the offensive line is. You can blame that on to Costa and personnel and salary cap and and coaching and attrition and Greg Roman. You can blame it on him if you want. Blame it on cam Cameron, you blame it on anybody you want. But there is a long history here for John Harbaugh that he should be better at this. They should be better at this. And this whole notion that I always knew about, about trying to dupe the crowd by not showing the good replay on the screen because the referees might see it. It’s insane. Muse running that place. Chad Steele,
Luke Jones 12:48
I mean, the cave. I don’t even know what to do with that. I mean, I I think you’re taking it way too far in terms of that part of it, because, like, this is a decision you have to make in seconds. I hear what you’re saying about that. I don’t think that I don’t think that had anything,
Nestor Aparicio 13:01
but everybody in the world saw it. They didn’t put it on a scoreboard, right on a scoreboard, because they demand that the scoreboard has to
Luke Jones 13:11
I mean, I think they showed, I don’t think they didn’t show a replay. I mean, for one thing, I’m looking at the TV and in the press box and to see it in real time. And as it happened? No, I couldn’t tell, because press box way further away than it was at one point in time. But, but the point, the point I’m trying to make, and again, the case, I don’t, I don’t even know what to do with that Nestor. I mean, I I hear the point you’re making. I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 13:32
think, did they not show it in the stadium and have everybody go, oh, because that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for that. Oh, the ball hit the ground. John puts the flag away. If John doesn’t see that, and the fans don’t see that, and the fans are like, Throw it. Throw it. He caught it. John gets his testosterone up, and boom, there comes the flag. Meanwhile, you’re in the press box, watching the television. I’m sitting eight miles away, locked out, and I can see it, the announcers, everybody’s like, Oh no, we’ll go to break we’ll come back. This ain’t gonna go well, you know. And I’m just saying, if everybody in the world can see it, they should stop the K Fabe nonsense inside the stadium and put the real replay up so the freaking coach can see it. If that’s their system, if that literally, because it that’s their system, dude, I’m here on Monday morning. They lost again. That is their system. That’s how they’re running this. It’s John’s fee fees in the moment in the heat of this and that I want to hear John in the post game say I’ve got Lou upstairs, hitting a button and telling me, hey, he caught the ball so, but that’s not the way really work. It’s fee fees and his view of the video boards. So then let’s get the video board operator getting the best view. They got people upstairs. Okay, and then why would they listen to they do have
Luke Jones 14:49
people upstairs. Well, look, I mean, you’re going off, way off, on the tangent here. I think you’re making it way more complicated than. Needs to be. I think they obviously wanted to overturn that play. I think a lot of it oftentimes has to do with the player on the field directly involved in that play. I That’s a that tends to be, and I’m not saying specifically, zayde flowers, just in general. I think that tends to be way more problematic than what they’re showing on the scoreboard. They do have people upstairs who look at this same way the Orioles have people looking at it with Brandon Hyde and Freddie Gonzalez is on the phone and trying to get a you know, again, understanding that this is a very quick process. What I was saying to you, my general rule of thumb, how I view it as a media member, or even this as a fan watching a game at home that I’m not even covering, is if I look at the very first replay, and I can see that I’m not going to get that overturned, not challenging it. I mean, if I can see that, oh, that’s not going to get overturned. Remember, it has to be clear and irrefutable. It has to be indisputable evidence to overturn it. And you could see on the very first replay, Jose flowers that that wasn’t a catch, yeah, and I’ll hear what he says. Okay, is that the play is that? Does that decide the game? No, it doesn’t. However, look at the end of the first half, Nestor the Ravens had to settle for a short field goal. They were within striking distance that they had another time out. They would have improved their chances of scoring a touchdown there. So it adds up. You know, seven points is more than three in the fourth quarter with the Devonte Adams play. Same thing. Very first of all, that was one, even though it was far away in real time, I thought he got his feet in then when you see the first replay, it’s clear he got his feet in it. So again, if you’re getting at least one look at it and you’re not like it doesn’t look like it’s being overturned, don’t throw the flag, because, again, there’s, there’s a timeout that they really could have used on that last drive. And I know John talked about the fact that maybe it gave the defense a little bit of rest. They did end up holding them to a field goal there. But these timeouts can’t be thrown away like potato chips. I mean, look at, look at the second early in the second half of in week one against Kent city, they had the defensive substitution problems. They had to burn too early, timeouts. Timeouts would have been nice to have late in the game. So these are the things that add up, whether you’re talking about wasted challenges, clock management penalties at the wrong time, these are little things that no none of them, in isolation, directly caution the game. But when you have some big things that are plaguing your football team, like their O line, or like their second half defense, fast defense through two weeks has not, you know, as I said, last of the league in passing yards allowed going into Monday Night Football in week two. You know, if you have those things happening, Boy, you better do the little things right? Or, yeah, things start to snowball, and that’s how you blow a 10 point lead in the fourth quarter. So I’d be disingenuous. Nestor a sat here and I knew off the top my head what the Ravens track record, what horrible as track record looks with the challenge system compared to his 31 peers currently and over the last 15 years. But, yeah, there are definitely instances, and we’ve seen multiple over the first two weeks, where you kind of look at one and say, you know, is this a, is this a calculated thing, or are you just, you know, you’re just throwing up, you know, not, maybe not Hail Mary. That might be a little extreme, but I will confident Hail Mary, but I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 18:23
want to be a jerk. Josh dubo of the Associated Press wrote a piece on the Associated Press. John Harbaugh now has most blown double digit leads in fourth quarter of any coach since at least 1991 after losing to ravens, after losing to the raiders for his ninth blown lead, 9/4 quarter double digit leads blown as a head coach. Now, he’s been around a long time, right? So, but yes, tied with Andy Reid, by the way, if that matters and he’s going to the Hall of Fame. There’s a little there’s a Earl Weaver reference for you there too. But there was just that was a thing that hit my timeline. I did not reshare it. I can, matter of fact, I’m gonna reshare it right now, just to just so everybody can see that, okay, and you can read up on it. But that is a stat. It’s weird. But the weird part for me is just decisions, just it is decisions under fire. When you’re one of the best in the world at what you do. You’re making $15 million a year doing this. You have more experience than anybody else. You have an unbelievable arsenal to have analytics, statistical this, coaches for that, you know, video coaches for this. They have all of this going on, and in the heat of battle, he’s making poor decisions. I don’t know that that’s, that’s all that the second one, if you’re trying, if that the second one I can I’m okay with almost, because it was a big play that was going to decide. Game at a point where the first replay, it looked like his feet were up. And if you saw that in the stadium, and I go back to the cafe, but what they’re going to show them what they’re not the first replay, I said to my wife, I don’t think he caught it. I think that’s a decent shot. And this is after John threw it. And then they showed the other replay from flat and you could see that his feet were on the ground, and I thought the second one was game changing, and I didn’t have a problem. I would like that to time out, but the first one was just dead. Ass wrong. Everybody in the world saw it was wrong. The broadcasters were aghast, because it came kind of late, after such point where the home crowd had already seen like the ball hit the ground, the ball hit the ground, the ball hit the ground every and then the flag was 1015, seconds later. And I’m like, Oh my God, how does this happen? How do they in this $5 billion operation where they might need that time out to kick a field goal with Tucker at the end of the court. Like it’s just, it’s just terrible. It’s, it’s an unforced error to use. It’s like, hardball gets crappy with false starts and Derek Henry moving his back leg before and the Ronnie Stanley being off the line last week, unforced errors. This is a coach with a really unforced error in real time that I just don’t understand how it continues to happen. That’s all and and this would look if they hired Mike McDonald, he were doing I’d say he’s two weeks into it. He’s got to get better at this. Johnny never going to get better at this, because it’s about his testosterone. It’s about the highlight they show. And I’m telling you, they didn’t show it. You weren’t seeing in the stadium what everybody else in the world was seeing at home. And this is where you’re being penalized for having a press pass, because you’re not even seeing the game as well as I’ve seen it at home. It’s crazy.
Luke Jones 21:57
Well, I mean, I I was looking at the TV in the TV in the press box. Again, the part on this, I hear what you’re saying on that. I I’m still not seeing that connection to the degree that you are because, again, they, they have people upstairs who look at this. I, I don’t know where the breakdown was there, but I agree with you. It was a bad challenge. I, I totally and John said this in the post game about the second, you know, the Adams completion that put the Raiders inside the red zone. Yes, it was a high leverage play. It still has to be a play you think is going to be overturned, otherwise you’re just wasting the time out. And I disagree with the first replay I saw. I thought it was his view. We’re in now, again, at some point in time, this just comes back to you’ve got to value your timeouts. And this is where John Harbaugh isn’t alone. Most of the league is really bad at this. So this is where I will defend John, but not defend John in the sense that just because everyone else is bad at it doesn’t mean you have to be either, especially when you’re talking about some of these instances where you look at it and you scratch your head, or you’re just burning timeouts early in the second half the way the Ravens did in Kansas City last week, and it cost them later in that game trying to conserve more time. So I mean, at the end of the day, you’ve got to value your timeouts. I mean, you just do timeouts are important. Timeouts are the difference between having a chance to kick a fuel goal compared to a chance to score a touchdown, or having a chance to kick a field goal compared to having to throw a Hail Mary at the end of the half. I mean, these things add up and again, when you have bigs that are concerns for your football team, like the O line, like right now that I still think this defense is going to be really good when it’s all said and done, but right now, it’s not, you know, you’ve got to do the little things. Well, if you’ve got some big issues, if you’ve got big issues and little issues, yeah, that’s how you end up blowing a 10 point lead to a team that’s inferior to you on paper. So, you know, I mean, I’m not going to sit here and stick up for John too much because I didn’t like the challenges, either the process, you know, whoever’s getting a look at this, or whether it’s reacting to how your player reacts to it, you know, whether it’s zay flowers saying he caught the ball, or, you know, some of your defensive players saying, Oh, he was out of bounds, you’ve got to, you’ve got to be able to block all that noise out. And you know who, whatever your process is in terms of upstairs people looking at and it, you know, it’s varied over the years. Matt Weiss was the guy years and years ago, and he’s longer on their staff. They tend to keep that close to the vest in terms of, you know, what their exact process is with that, as far as names and who’s looking at and communicating with him. But point is, I mean, if you’re going to challenge something that has that’s dead on arrival, I mean, all you’re doing is just wasting the time out and again, timeouts matter. Timeouts really matter in close games. And that’s something where the ravens, like many other teams around the league, like many other co head coaches around the league, have issues with that, and that’s not to excuse them for that, because, yeah, you do have a 17th year head coach who. Should be better in that regard than than other teams. But you know, you just, you just cited the the blown lead stat Andy reeds are right there too. So you know, some of that is just, if you’re around long enough, you’re going to be high up on the list. So on, on different statistics and and different variables like that. But it cost them on Sunday, I mean, a time out at the end of the first half and an extra time out at the end of the second half, sure, would have helped big time. That could have been the difference there. So you know, whether it’s that, whether it’s Justin Tucker missing from 50 plus yards, again, we can make get into that for a few minutes. You know, these are the things that in close games, these things will kill you. I mean, they will, and all those things added up to a pretty inexplicable loss on Sunday afternoon. Well, it’s how
Nestor Aparicio 25:47
empires fall, right? I think at Tucker and I think of Super Bowl 47 I think at Jacoby Jones and his family and what they’re going through. I think a Super Bowl 47 I walked into a room on Saturday night. I went out to dinner with Marvin Lewis, my wife and I went down to Fells Point oyster festival. They served 26,000 oysters. They shucked 26 including my my childhood friend Ronnie Harris, who was down there shucking for fun. We had a Chow Hound. Chow Hound oyster, roasted oyster with butter and garlic. Oh, my God, I want one right now. I gotta go back out to Cooper’s north and get some this week. So we’re doing this oyster festival. And Saturday night we we walked through the city. It was lovely, and until there was a murder out in front of the building. I was at in front of the Marriott. It’s a murder on Saturday night while the raiders were sleeping in the hotel in front of the building. So, but I was in front of that building. I was in that but I met half the Raiders team. I met Gardner Minshew in the lobby, and just, you know, wander in this the streets of Baltimore, I guess on a on a Saturday night, and I think for for me, walking up and down Eastern Avenue where I grew up, and living downtown for 19 years, my wife and I just stuck our head into the Black Swan, and that’s the restaurant that Jamil McLean owns. I’ve done a crab cake tour from down there with Jamil about two years ago. Jamil and his wife and I are very close. I mean, we’ve, they’ve been in my home. We’ve had dinners together, not lately, but, but Jamil and Keisha are we’re Facebook friends. We’re close. We walked in, not I said to my wife, you got to see this black swan. We walked in. I said, You got to check it’s beautiful. We walked into. The first person I saw was Bryant McKinney. He’s not hard, you know, he’s at the bar. He’s six foot 11, and I saw him. And then I looked to the left, and I saw Anthony Allen, and then I looked center, and I saw Vontae Leach, and I saw Super Bowl 47 coming back. And then the Dallas Thomas walked in. I saw Super Bowl 35 and it was I walked into a tribute to Jacoby, into a happy hour with all the players. Brian Hall was there. He says, Hello, so I, you know, I felt that connection to the old thing and the new thing. And when Tucker’s missing kicks, and you say 50 yard field goals, and you’re like, why? How? I remember when Matt Stover could still make anything inside of 48 but really struggled at 52 or 55 he was 30 something. You know, Matt Stover was as well. And I think, man, the Super Bowl was a long time ago. You know, when I look at Levante Lee, I started seeing humans. Brian McKinney, I showed him the picture. My mother told him, my mother had passed and we had a drink. It was beautiful. I mean, I I visited with with players. It was kind of like, neat, but it was also like, Tucker still there. He’s still kicking.
28:41
How?
Nestor Aparicio 28:42
How long do you expect 5456 58 to be automatic? It was never automatic for any kicker in the history of the game. Then Jason Elam, maybe I’m, I mean, at length. I’m talking about, um, this guy named Tony Franklin, they kicked 100 years ago that could kick long field goals with his barefoot and like, like, gusta kicking mule. But Super Bowl was 12 years ago, dude. I mean, we’re now getting up into and we could have used Sam Cook on that last punt. I’ll throw that. We could have used Kyle Richardson, for crying out loud. But, but how long do you expect this to last with Tucker? That’s my long way of saying. I saw Jamil McLean, who’s now in coaching retirement and doing whatever and running restaurants. I saw Avante Leach, who’s living his life. I even saw um Bernard Pierce and his goat beard. He was there. So I’m seeing all of these people who were teammates of Justin Tucker that feel like they got a lot more gray going on than me and and I’m thinking this isn’t going to last forever with Tucker. He’s not kicker for life, and I don’t I don’t know what that means. He’s we’re not getting rid of them, but I think when you start to think about him making 55 and 60 yard field goals and making three of them in a game, and relying on them, and they’re automatic, and you’re just getting six and nine points every week that you that. Other team just can’t get they have to either go punt or figure out fourth down. You know, games change for Justin father, times undefeated dude.
Luke Jones 30:10
Well, I mean, you just said it. I mean, he’s 34 years old right now. And let’s be clear, we need to have some nuance with this, because a 56 yard field goal is not the same as a 50 trying a 60 yarder at the end of the half, which he’s done that in the past, and missed is not the same as missing from 50, but he’s missed from 50. He missed from 53 last week, he missed from 56 wide left on Sunday, uh Carlson did not hit from 56 but he had from 53 and 51 you know, you look at that right there. There’s the difference in the game. So Well,
Nestor Aparicio 30:44
you say, do you stop trying those because, I mean, because he’s making him in pregame from seven, he still, he still has the leg. I mean, his leg hasn’t diminished, right?
Luke Jones 30:55
And that’s where you made the it’s funny, you mentioned Matt Stover, because I was actually gonna bring that up. I don’t think Justin Tucker’s at that point by any stretch of the imagination. I think we need to recognize that not all 50 plus yard kicks are created equally, like I just said. And I think it was in 2015 I mean, this was nine years ago. Justin Tucker. Go look at his his his makes and misses from 50 plus that year. That wasn’t a great year. He wasn’t washed then. I’m not suggesting he’s washed now, but he is. And I think after his miss from 56 on Sunday, I think that put him at 10 for 21 from 50 plus since the start of 2022 you know, that’s a, not a huge, giant sample of decline, but it’s two plus seasons now, so let’s be honest.
Nestor Aparicio 31:46
When he’s kicking those field goals, they’re in fourth night, something unmanageable, you know? Because if they’re in fourth and three or four or five, John will just go for it, right? Unless it’s the end of the half and it’s situational, right? And the Lamar, yeah, just the fact that he’s kicking those says that they’ve really failed the first and second and third down to do anything to get themselves into a manageable fourth down, because they wouldn’t be kicking 55 and 56 yard field goals. So the question is, do you want to kick it? Do you want to go for it? Is fourth and 6/4, and seven from the 38 more of a play than or punting to get 15 yards. If you know, if the ball goes into the end zone, I don’t know, but zero and give it on the ball at the 50 yard line half the time. That ain’t good. That ain’t good.
Luke Jones 32:38
Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, it definitely. It changes up some of your process, as far as your decision making and looking at that and trying to accurately assess where he is. And let’s be clear, this is not remotely about all the Ravens better find their successor to Justin Tucker, right? Because he is still as money as it gets inside 50 yards, and that’s still, you know, that’s still going to be what’s most important to me. However, when you were talking about what he’s been for the better part of the last 12 years, which is the best kicker in football, and at times, by a very wide margin. If he’s going to continue to be less consistent from 50 plus. It is tough to put him into that category, because I saw this, you know, I mentioned 10 for 21 from 50 plus since the start of 22 when he missed that kick on Sunday. And now I did not go back and look at this, but I saw CBS, you know, NFL and CBS, their their Twitter account said that kickers from 50 plus yards this season. At the point that Tucker had missed on Sunday, he was over two the rest of the league, 26 for 27 which is just kind of crazy when you think about it. And I don’t think, I don’t think that’s going to continue at that rate over the course of the year, but the point is, you’ve got some good young kickers around the league. I mean, Harrison Butker, look, made it. Made a long kick for Kansas City on on Sunday. You know, made a game winning kick. The guy that the ravens are going to see in Dallas on Sunday, Aubrey, their kicker. Guy’s got a heck of a go. Look at his numbers the last couple years. I mean, he might be the next guy that he has to do it for the next three years before you really, truly anoint him that way, he might be the next best kicker in the league, you know, as Justin Tucker gets older, so you know. So it might just be as simple as this has been a couple year hiccup, and Justin Tucker is going to get back on track. And maybe he’s not going to make kicks from 64 yards anymore, but he’ll get back on track in terms of making from 51 from 53 from 55 and then anything beyond that, you know, they’re, again, most kickers around the league. If you’re talking beyond 55 then you know that’s still, you’re not going to find a very high percentage. But at the same time, this also could just be that he’s 34 and he’s not going to be as consistent from. Um, from beyond that distance. So that’s where then you need to look at it and say, okay, it if we’re down one point, and we need to try a 59 yard field goal on fourth and 12, or something like that, then, so that’s still probably going to be our best chance, rather than trying to convert there. But if it’s the second quarter, you might find yourself in a position where, if a 56 yarder compared to fourth and five, let’s say you might have to say, well, we might need to consider going for that a little more frequently than we did in the past, or potentially punting, you know, in certain circumstances. So I don’t of all the things I’m concerned about with the Ravens right now, you know, I don’t think Justin Tucker from 50 plus is that high on the list. But just like hardball, with the challenges, these are the things that are adding up. In addition to big time concerns with the O line or this defense, need to find, needing to find its footing and its cohesiveness and traction with Zach or leading the way compared to Mike McDonald, you got to do the little things well. And you know, again, I don’t want to put to make too much out of a miss from 56 that that’s 55 plus, I think is still really a challenge for any kicker, you know. I don’t think you know. I think that stat is probably based more on like 5051 5253 but Tucker missed from 53 last week. And, yeah, he’s missed some from 50 or 51 or 52 that normally felt like automatic. So I, you know, nothing hasty here. This isn’t about, oh, they need to work out kickers. I mean, no, get out of here with that not, and I’m not, you’re not suggesting that either, but it is something that in the back of your mind, think about where Matt Stover was at his career at age 34 you know, it was Stover. It kind of started with what, you know, and this is a different time, because now we have the dynamic kickoff. But it started with Stover that the Ravens had a kickoff specialist, and then it got to the point where, okay, you didn’t really trust him from 50 and then it was Oh 48 and then it got to the point where it was kind of 45 was was his Max. Remember, he ended up making that long one against the titans in that oh eight playoff game that is really on the edge of what he could make at that point in his career. So, you know, there is some of that that is at work here that you know doesn’t mean Justin Tucker’s bad or washed up or anything like that, but he is older, and he might not be the Far and Away best kicker in the league at this point in his career. Or it’s up for debate. He might need to, you know, he’s got to prove himself a little more again, in that in other situationally, it
Nestor Aparicio 37:44
changes there. Doesn’t
Luke Jones 37:44
mean it changes trying from 50 plus, sure, sure. I mean, that’s part of it. I mean, I mean we, we talked about the back half of the Flacco era, where their offense, collectively, really got to a point where it just was not very good. Let’s call it what it was for, however you want to explain why it wasn’t good. Justin Tucker making 56 yard field goals saved you because you couldn’t drive the length of the field to score touchdowns in the Lamar era, we even saw it. I mean, go back to 19 when the Ravens were absolutely humming. Justin Tucker didn’t make a lot of field goals that year because they were going for so many of those fourth and ones and fourth and twos and all that. So but when you’re in a position where your offense isn’t fully calibrated and they’re struggling to run the ball the way that they are through the first couple weeks, then yeah, Justin Tucker missing some of these kicks from 50 plus that he would have made in the past. Yeah, that gets magnified. That’s going to be amplified a little bit more. So I again, I don’t want to draw any Stark, you know, rash conclusions here. But at the same time, it is now going back a couple seasons where he hasn’t been great from 50 plus and again, look at each one of those kicks. I’m not talking about a 59 yarder with two seconds left in the first half. I’m not talking about trying to what was it? Tried a 68 yard, or whatever it was in that Jacksonville lost two years ago. Remember, he tried at the very end of the game, something like that. You know that that gets counted in these stats, but that’s where you need to actually look at, break it down and look, but yeah, if you look from 50 to 55 which is always been very, extremely makeable for him, yeah, he hasn’t been quite as consistent in that regard. And, and that’s where you hope that he can overcome that. And I think he still can. You know, kickers, someone like him, who keeps himself in great shape, should be able to kick until, if he wants to, till age 40. But that said, even if he does kick to age 40, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be set in 66 you know, set new records for the longest kick in NFL history over the next five, six years of his career, because he is older. You know, he we all slow down as we get older, and it might just be that that’s part of what’s going on here with Justin Tucker. Or he’ll go on a roll, and six weeks from now, we’ll completely laugh about this, because he’ll end up making a 56 yarder at the gun. Know, to beat Cincinnati in week five, or, you know, he’ll, he’ll make a big kick in Pittsburgh in December, or whatever it is, or November. But until we see that, until he, quote, snaps out of it, then, yeah, there are going to be a couple questions there that, frankly, we’re just not used to asking, because Justin Tucker has been that incredible over the course of
Nestor Aparicio 40:19
his career. How about them cowboys? This week we had an afternoon, late afternoon game in Dallas for everybody going down there, hit your heart, a barbecue and get the hell out of there. I oh and three next Monday to talk about, you know, you know, I don’t know what the line, yeah, I probably should check the line on this, because certainly the feeling about the Cowboys has to have changed just a little bit based on what the saints did to them, right? But I’ve always been a Derek Carr guy in a running game, and they play some defense. The Saints might be good, but we’re going to be assessing this Dallas implosion as well this week.
Luke Jones 40:58
No question. I mean, that’s a team that got spanked on Sunday. I mean, they went to Cleveland week one, and, yeah, they made the Browns offense look terrible. Deshaun Watson looked absolutely awful. But by
Nestor Aparicio 41:10
the way, one point favorite is this second.
Luke Jones 41:16
This is going to this is going to sting a little bit for Ravens fans, but tell me that I’m completely off base. The Cowboys, in some ways, are kind of the Ravens of the NFC, and now they haven’t been quite as dominant as the Ravens have been in the regular season over the last five years. But go look at their record. Over the last five years, they’ve won a lot of games in the regular season, and what’s happened to them in January. So in that way, you know, and look, everyone love, I love making fun of the Cowboys as much as anyone. I mean, they, last time they were in NFC Championship game, I was in what middle school, I guess. I mean, that’s how long it’s been for them. But at the same time, you know the Ravens for all the right, you know, the Ravens. I called him recently, regular season royalty. That’s what the Ravens have been over the last in the Lamar Jackson era, when he’s been healthy, they’ve been fantastic in the regular season hasn’t translated the January and the Cowboys, you know, with Dak Prescott and this era of cowboys teams got into January, and they’ve, man, they’ve folded worse than the Ravens have. I mean, at least the Ravens have won one of a couple playoff games in January here in recent years. But, I mean, this is a, this is a huge one. I mean, obviously Dallas is going to want to bounce back from getting their feelings hurt, getting blown out at home by a saint team that might just be good like I’m kind of that’s the biggest surprise of the season so far, is how dominant they’ve been over the first two weeks. But on the flip side, I mean the urgency level. I mean you start oh and three seasons, not over, not by a long shot. Let’s be very clear about that. But you start oh and three you’re questioning everything about your football team at that point in time you’re you’re questioning your O line, of course, by the way, if that happens different positions here
Nestor Aparicio 43:07
or there, Tony gungey, all of them the Monday there, Sunday night crew, they’re going to be in a field, and the Buffalo Bills are going to be here. That’s real. There’s something like football here two weeks from now, and if they’re on the field at O and three with the Buffalo Bills and 20,000 of their mafia down here jumping off the top rope talking about K fab and wrestling. Um, I I cannot imagine. We would have never seen anything like that in Baltimore, oh and three, Sunday night football. Josh Allen coming to town, and I’m sure they’re doing a blackout or a purple out, or a gold out, or they’re trying to try and on their new helmets for everybody to sell some stuff, but they’re a favorite Dallas to start the week. I don’t I don’t know what that’s I haven’t seen enough of Dallas. I watched it play a little bit more last week, but I was so focused on the ravens and the Cincinnati, Kansas City game this week, and I did watch Houston in Chicago slogging around on Sunday night. But the other early games, the Pittsburgh game, I’m just you know away from it all, but my impression of Dallas, even after getting their ass kicked by what we think’s a good New Orleans team, is this is a it’s a tough week down to Dallas. You and I toured their building after they got destroyed by the 40 Niners last year and saw sort of how they work and how they do things down there, this is a tall task for the ravens to go down there as a favorite underdog, whatever it is, because the Ravens aren’t playing well for all the reasons we talked about, the Ravens have shown us nothing on offense to think that they have an answer for Micah Parsons, or they’re just going to go up and down the field, and there’s going to be Three or four drives that are going to put three going to put 34 points up and that the defense is going to defend. And I don’t know the offensive line we we’re going to talk about it until we don’t talk about anymore, but I am gravely concerned about where the ravens are at. Owen two looking at the schedule right now. I think everybody else is too. I.
Luke Jones 45:02
I mean, I’m concerned, I I wouldn’t say that the offense has shown nothing. I mean, they they put up a lot of yards. They lost by seven on the road to Kansas City, even with how bad it looked at times with their run blocking, and they still scored 23 points. I mean, it’s not like they were held to three, but, yeah, going on the road. Micah Parsons, questions about this. O line, hearing the noise all week from fans and media and images themselves. The urgency of being known to this being uncharted territory. I mean, when if the Ravens I saw, a few people pointed this out after the game. And, you know, I don’t put too much about going back to the end of last year, but Lamar Jackson starting being the starting quarterback. He’s lost. They’ve lost three games in a row now going back to the title game. So like, this is, this is unusual territory for them to be in that position. So yeah, this is a challenge going down to Dallas and I mean, are the Cowboys gonna drop back to back home games? If they do, then maybe the Cowboys just stink. And look, I don’t think the Cowboys, talent wise, are as good as they were a couple years ago. You know, I would at least go that far. But this is still a tall order. There’s no doubt, especially being on two and going on the road and, yeah, dealing with Michael Parsons, who is a phenomenal talent, and ravens trying to figure this out with their own lines. So yeah, the the thought of potentially being oh and three for Sunday Night Football, about the only thing that would come to mind for me, Nestor would be. And the expectations for that team were nil, the o2 team when they started Owen two, and then they had the the Denver Monday Night Football when Monday Night Football was, was the real, you know, the big time, Prime Time game when they beat the Broncos on that night. But there were no expectations for that team. No one was shocked that that team was oh and two at that point in time. So the thought of coming home oh and three and being on Sunday night football and the NBC talking heads all saying, What the heck is going on in Baltimore? I mean, that’s, that’s a that’s a very unsettling proposition, but hey, they’ve got to go to Dallas and play good football to get themselves back to one and two and to just be able to exhale on the flight home before you get ready then for Josh Allen in the Buffalo Bills. He is Lou Jones. He’s
Nestor Aparicio 47:19
Baltimore, Luke. We’re gonna have plenty of baseball. We’ve done a lot of football here. All of it. Brought to you by our friends at curio wellness. I got my purple going on. It is our 26th anniversary. I’m out having 26 oysters in 26 days. All of it. Brought to you by our friends at Liberty. Pure solutions. 1-800-253-2692, you don’t need to remember that 800 clean waters. All you need to know they’re right here in Baltimore County. They take care of my well water, your well water, lots of people’s well water, as well, as they do plumbing as well. And 26th anniversary oyster and crab is about to take over. I’m starting to release our daily oysters, and I’ve had them so many ways in so many days, and so many more ways. I’m going to be having them before we get to Dallas this week. Orioles are home all week. Luke’s going to be at the ballpark. Luke’s going to be in Owings Mills, all of that. Brought to you by brought to you by our friends at Royal farms, real fresh, real fast. And on Friday, we’re going to be that fatally so eat crabcakes. Probably have some shrimp salad. And I know Damien’s rolling at the oyster beds. I think our friends from Jo spikes are going to be coming by. Congressman John Sarbanes is going to be there next week. We’re going to be talking to oyster farmers and the oyster recovery partnership, about how it oxygenates the bay, how we get better crab cakes. Marvin and I were walking through the city the night after having dinner to meet you. She’s like, this is when the good crabs are out, right? I’m like, don’t tell the tourists that yes, September and October, it’s when the big fat ones come in the brackish waters, the sweet meat. So get on out. We’ll be a cost this next Friday, having crabs as well will be a fade these this week having crab cakes. It is the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery, in conjunction with our friends at Jiffy Lube MultiCare who power Luke up and get him from Owings Mills to Camden Yards. Rest up, Luke, we got an Owen to football team. We got a baseball team on the ropes. We got playoff baseball ahead. I think we got the Yankees next week. We’re going to Dallas and taking on America’s team this week, Pearl Jam and Bruce. That was so last week. I’m Nestor, he’s Luke. We’re wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. And we encourage you to set your dial to us right now. You.
