With the early days of free agency now a scoreboard, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the addition of veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and the retention of Ronnie Stanley as big victories for the offseason of Eric DeCosta and the Baltimore Ravens.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ acquisition of DeAndre Hopkins, comparing it to the Odell Beckham Jr. signing. Hopkins, who had 56 catches for 610 yards and five touchdowns last season, is expected to complement Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman. The Ravens’ salary cap flexibility, influenced by Ronnie Stanley’s contract, allowed them to sign Hopkins for $5 million. The conversation also touched on the potential impact on Mark Andrews’ role and the broader NFL free agency landscape, including quarterback market trends and the importance of depth in roster building.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
DeAndre Hopkins, Ravens offense, Lamar Jackson, free agency, Ronnie Stanley, Mark Andrews, wide receivers, salary cap, Odell Beckham, Kansas City Chiefs, NFL Network, Justin Tucker, Patrick Mekari, Derek Henry, Eric DeCosta.
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive. Check us out. Set your spot on the radio dial around the beltway as our we’re coming in crystal clear. We got more daylight now in the afternoons, and we’re doing the Maryland crap cake tour. We’re going to be CVP in Towson on Friday, despite the bad news, final against the Delaware blue hens down at DC on Monday night, we are continuing through to March Madness this weekend. We’re forging through into Canada, I hope, enough to pay tariffs in or out. They’re selling elbows up shirts there that Rick Emmett spoke about here on the airwaves this week. We’ll be in Canada for opening day two weeks from now, Luke and I are heading north of the border for all real baseball. That’s an old song. Also, we have free agency, and we have talked a lot about Ronnie Stanley. We’ve talked about departures of players on Monday, and then all of a sudden, on Tuesday, Eric da Costa got his checkbook out a little bit. Luke Jones joins us now. I am wearing my a curio purple. No, it’s a, it’s a football week, right? Like I’ve, I’ve been out and about this week, and I look up and televisions are all set to NFL Network, and it’s Jimmy Garoppolo staying with the rant. You know, you know, sort of little agate type headlines and the Hopkins thing is, it’s interesting. And as my friend Joe Enoch pointed out, this is right in line with how the Ravens do business with veteran wide receivers. This goes back a long, long way it does.
Luke Jones 01:37
The difference is now that you have zay flowers and Rashad Bateman, though you’re not bringing in DeAndre Hopkins to be the man I as I was kind of thinking about this, and other people have made this comparison, it reminds me of the Odell Beckham signing, except it’s at the appropriate price point, whereas Odell Beckham getting $15,000,000.02 years ago on a cap that was lower than It is now, always felt like, Okay, well, this is not a Hail Mary for Lamar, because I think once they got to a certain point a few weeks into free agency, they knew that no one was coming to get Lamar Jackson on the franchise tag, but they knew they had to do something right Lamar at that Point, and reports were may were out at that point that he desired to play with Odell Beckham and DeAndre Hopkins. Well, DeAndre Hopkins was under contract with the Arizona card Cardinals at the time, and Beckham was a free agent, so they went the Beckham route, but at $5 million where DeAndre Hopkins is at this point in his career, what he can still do, which, even last year with modest stats, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs after being traded from Tennessee, he still showed an ability to make some contested catches, and that’s something that this wide receiver group didn’t, doesn’t have a ton of. I mean, for as great as a flowers is He’s not a guy that’s going to catch a jump ball, right? So you know, Bateman a little bit. But this gives you another option on the outside. This gives you a number three wide receiver that has a greater level of trust if you’re in a position like the Ravens were in last January with zay flowers sidelined, and they were counting on the likes of Nelson Aguilar and tylen Wallace and Steven Sims and Anthony Miller. So I’m fine with it. I think you have to have the appropriate expectations here. Sure I’m with everyone else who’s being critical. I would have loved to have been five years ago when they got DeAndre Hopkins,
Nestor Aparicio 03:31
dude. I’m trying to get the appropriate expectations for Charlie Morton too, right. So whoever you sign right? It’s sort of right player, right price, not to quote Eric, to Costa here, or anything, or to borrow his line or Ozzy’s line, but, you know, this is an appropriate sign, like I’m I’m on board. This is pretty typical of what we expect them to do, right? I mean, not, you know, this isn’t a shock at all, yeah.
Luke Jones 03:54
I mean, the the where they would run into trouble in the past is when you would sign a veteran wide receiver like this and expect him to be the the man, and you just say, well, he’s not that guy anymore. Well, they don’t need him to be the guy, right? They have zay flowers. They have Rashad Bateman coming off of a career year. You have two tight ends. You’re like, you have a 1900 yard rusher and, oh yeah, you have the guy that could have been the three time MVP, still a two time NFL MVP, and Lamar Jackson. So again, I think DeAndre Hopkins looking at what he was last year, which, you know, he was playing early on in the season, and a terrible quarterback situation in Tennessee. He’s acquired by the chiefs in late October, and this is where I would say temper your expectations, because he was actually better in his first six games with the Chiefs than he was in his last seven where, you know, he kind of faded a little bit from their offense with Xavier worthy, emerging in Hollywood, brown, returning from injury, he didn’t play a whole lot. You know, he was much more of a situational part time number three, kind of wide. Receiver at times. So he wasn’t playing, he wasn’t playing 85% of the snaps. If you go and look at what his snap count was in December and January, well,
Nestor Aparicio 05:09
I think the Chiefs all the way around, it just such an anomaly, because they didn’t, they weren’t great at any point last year in blowing teams out or doing anything historic offensively at all. And you know, part of that was just mahomes Struggling to have time to do anything in the offense, right? I mean, and even though he wound up there, this is a better situation for him. But all that being said, you you said they have two tight ends. It’ll bring us back to Mark Andrews too, and say, I always say this to you, and I know I said this to you the day they signed. Odell Beckham said, $11 million what’s the over? Under on catches, in yards, on him. And I said something flippant. Then, like, 40 catches, 600 yards. And I think it was what it was. Well, under, right? I mean, like, alright, you know, whatever I said is what I said. I DeAndre Hopkins, I don’t what are you expecting him to do? 34 catches for 459 yards and three touchdowns. I mean, like, I don’t what’s it really look like in this offense, and I always ask that when you have a 2000 yard back. Now, we didn’t. We never did the math on that until this time last year, right? You know, there’s only so many touches in the way you want to use the ball. Maybe it speaks a little bit to the mark Andrews situation. And say, What? What do you do with the math of that, not just on the field, but the financial math? Because these are all pieces bringing together that make Mark Andrews more expendable. I think if you’re buying wide receivers that you’re creating more targets for Lamar that
Luke Jones 06:40
you like, yeah. I mean, I don’t know how much this impacts Mark Andrews. I mean, I think a lot of it still depends on, are they getting bites from other teams that are agreeable to them, where you would say, Okay, this is worth parting with a Pro Bowl caliber tight end, understanding he’s in the last year of his deal, understanding we’re not going to commit to him long term, but also recognizing you still want to win in 2025 and having Mark Andrews on your roster rather than not, is still what does
Nestor Aparicio 07:08
that mean? Then that means you don’t want to get rid of him, right? You know I mean, or do they want him on the team or not? That that’s the part where relationships I have now i I’m getting mixed signals because Eric the Costa gave mixed signals in front of the whole world, Indian apples couple weeks ago, and he dropped the ball. We go on about all that and how much money he makes, but I’m just wondering how, in a hurry they are to get rid of him, one way or another, as they continue to add recall Hopkins, formidable. But certainly you know you’re going to notice him. You’re going to notice him.
Luke Jones 07:43
You are, but
Nestor Aparicio 07:44
at the
Luke Jones 07:45
same time. I mean, it’s not as it’s not as simple as, do we want the guy on the team or not? I mean, if that were the case, you’d see many more players resigned by the Ravens. We know the realities of the salary cap and trying to manage a roster and understanding that you’ve got some big paydays coming down the pike, including having to redo your quarterbacks contract, whether it’s this off season or next off
Nestor Aparicio 08:07
buffalo, doing that this week. Exactly. Yeah, so you so you
Luke Jones 08:11
have to do those things, and you have to make choices. And what I’m saying is, you know, in the case of Mark Andrews, is you still value Him enough that you’re not just going, you’re not going to do the Anquan Boldin thing, which was basically San Francisco threw them enough of a bone that they traded them, but really it was a release, right? I mean, that’s how little they really got for them. I don’t know if they’re at that point with Mark Andrews. Is the point that I’m making. But yeah, to go back to your original question, talking about the expectations for DeAndre Hopkins, that’s where I will cite Odell Beckham. And look, was Odell Beckham a 1500 or $15 million receiver for the Ravens? Of course not. We said it at the time he signed. It’s why the price point always felt kind of nuts. But for what he was, he caught 35 passes. He had 565 receiving yards. He caught three touchdowns for this offense. Wow,
Nestor Aparicio 09:06
that I that was pretty close for me guessing, yeah, wow. I told my point guest. But okay,
Luke Jones 09:12
you know that’s why I laugh when someone says, Well, this is Deshaun. No, this isn’t Deshaun Jackson or des Bryant. I mean, that that’s those guys were done, done, done. I mean, DeAndre Hopkins wasn’t great last year, but he was still a a bona fide NFL wide receiver, right man. The amount
Nestor Aparicio 09:27
of veteran guys we could talk about who were sort of on the road to Don or on the other side of this or that. It’s just, it’s amazing how many, how they go to this, till even when they drafted a guy they think is a pro bowl guy, that they still need that part and a, by the way, they’re going to need that a pass rush shoe before it’s all over. Oh, sure,
Luke Jones 09:46
they’re not done. They’re not done. But again, when you’re looking at what they were, how they profiled with their offense, needing depth at wide receiver, understanding that, yeah, you might like devantes Walker in a big picture sense. But you’re not ready to pencil him in as your number three wide receiver when he caught what one pass all of last year. So Hopkins comes in with the expectation that he doesn’t need to be the guy I think in Kansas City, probably what leads this to have a having a better chance to work well is that what I said about how he was at Kansas City down the stretch, he wasn’t getting a ton of targets. He wasn’t catching eight or nine balls a game at the last five, six weeks of the season in Kansas City. Yet, he was on a team that got to us, got to a Super Bowl, right? So if you’re someone like him, who’s made a lot of money, who’s been the Pro Bowls, who’s been all pro he’s the active career, active leader in receiving yards in the NFL. He’s, you know, he’s someone that can be a complimentary piece with the right mindset and with everyone having the right expectations. He probably took a little discount to come play with Lamar, right? Somebody else may have wanted. And that’s the other, and that’s the other part of this. I mean, he’s even talked about it. I mean, I mentioned the reporting from a couple years ago where Lamar was telling Eric Acosta, go get me, Odell Beckham and DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins, you can hear him on a podcast on a couple occasions, talking about how much he’d like to play with someone like Lamar, and I’m sure he felt the same way about Patrick mahomes, and he had a chance to play with Patrick mahomes This past year. So but I think going back to the Beckham thing, if you tell me right now that DeAndre Hopkins has 565 receiving yards and catches three touchdowns, I’d say, Well, maybe you’d like him to be a little more involved in the red zone, because he is someone who can still make some contested catches, and that’s something that he was known for for a long time. But I would say that sounds about right, right. You’re looking for DeAndre Hopkins Realistically speaking, and it’s simplistic, because he’s going to play on the outside a little bit more, but you’re looking at him to be an upgrade over Nelson Aguilar. I mean, that’s kind of what we’re talking about here. You know, Aguilar, two years ago, was buying for the role that he was in, and then last year he was not, did not make much of an impact. He was more of a slot guy. I think Hopkins is still someone that they’ll try to play on the outside a good bit. So you know, we’re gonna see what happens. But I’ll continue to point out, go, look at the market for wide receivers. I mean, even Okay, someone makes an argument. Well, I wish they’d get someone younger as their number three wide receiver. I’ll hear that. I’ll totally hear that. Uh, go look at what the bills paid. Josh Palmer, who the knock on him, you know is that you know him playing with the Chargers. Oh, the Chargers are wide receivers aren’t any good. Oh, the bills go. They paid him 36 I think was $36 million over three years. So what are we talking about here, in terms of expectations? They’re not high. That’s why they’re giving them $5 million as opposed to him making $20 million like he would have several years back. Yeah, idea how
Nestor Aparicio 12:59
many postseason games has he played in his life? I mean, I I got a stats up. It’s amazing, because I always play this game with my wife, and sometimes I play it with you on the radio. But I was gonna say, I bet that dude’s made $135 million like, that’s what I was gonna spit at you. He’s made $139 million so I’m rarely within $5 million wrong on these guys salaries, and it’s made a lot of money, and he’s now played in a big game, you know, got dealt into a situation to maybe win a Super Bowl. He’s 33 years old. He’ll be 33 years old. You know, this is the kind of dog you want around, I think, right? I mean, a guy who wants to be here, a guy who wants to play with Lamar, a guy that’s here for the right reasons, a guy that can still do it enough to be better than any of the other names you gave. Sort of a offensive Eric weddely, kind of, you know, addition to this thing, the same way, Derek Henry never played well, he played big games. I’m, I’m being disrespectful to Derek Henry. He was in some he was in some big games, uh, beat us in some big games. In January, was the reason the Ravens got eliminated in big games. But Hopkins, you know, was never on the other side of those Houston games back in the Flacco era or whatever it was. Feels like he’s Yeah, forever.
Luke Jones 14:10
He’s played in nine career postseason games. Most of those actually came earlier in his career with Houston, right? I mean, I’m looking at it. 2015 they were in the playoffs. 2016 they were in the playoffs. And then 18 and 19 with Deshaun Watson, but until this past year, where he played in, you know, the Super Bowl run for Kansas City, which, again, I want to point out he didn’t do a whole lot for them in January. So maybe that is a sign that he might be closer to being D, O, N, E, but for $5 million that that’s, I think that’s worth it. I wouldn’t have given them 10. I certainly wouldn’t have given them 12 million a year, like I just mentioned, someone like Josh Palmer, who’s, yeah, younger and maybe has some upside. But, well, I always wonder how
Nestor Aparicio 14:54
motivated a guy with $140 million just to do anything? Well, you know, anything, anything at all. You. Let alone to play football and go out there and do this at this point, when he’s got a family, this, that. But the Lamar thing, there is a there’s an it to this. There’s a thing to any of these competitive men that you know who haven’t won, that they have gone home to their hometowns in their off season, and they either feel good about themselves, or even Lamar, who wants to hide, you know, after his third year of not winning MVP, that he should have won, everything he did, it didn’t do enough. And Mark Andrews, I don’t, you know, I don’t, when guys drop the ball in January, they run and hide. These guys like to win, and when you haven’t won, it eats at you, and you want to put yourself in a position to win. So from all of that, I sign off on this.
Luke Jones 15:44
Yeah. I mean, again, what are your expectations? No one who’s trying to sell you on this, including the Ravens. Because again, like I said, you look at the price point. The reason I didn’t like the Beckham signing a couple years ago was because he they paid him $15 million he wasn’t a $15 million receiver. Was Odell Beckham, a $5 million receiver a couple years ago. I think the numbers would suggest he was, you’re not doing cartwheels over that. He was a number three receiver. Basically, you know, profiling is, you know, and maybe he he was a little more than a number three receiver. But the point is, what, what he was, and what the Ravens paid him was out of whack, but we know that there, you know, people even called that. That was the Lamar Jackson tax, right? That was the way to kind of be an olive branch for Lamar, and they got a deal done three weeks later. So with this, I think right off the bat, the price point looks much more appropriate. Yeah, DeAndre Hopkins probably could have gotten more money elsewhere, but I don’t think he was going to get dramatically more. Because I think people recognize that. Yeah, he, he’s in the November, maybe the December, of his career. I mean, it might be Christmas, right? Based on, based on the fact that he didn’t do a whole lot in January for the Chiefs last year. I’m not shying away from that, but for $5 million with a bigger cap, with a need to have some more established depth at wide receiver behind flowers and Bateman, with the acknowledgement of there is some unknown about what’s going to happen with Mark Andrews. I mean, the team knows probably has a better idea now than we do whether he’s going to be on the roster, but that might not have been the case even as recently as a week ago. So you add him in, he still can perform a specific skill set. Like I said, I think he’s someone who could factor in the red zone. It’s going to make some contested catches, which he still did for Kansas City last year, albeit not at the lucrative rate he did with Arizona and Houston earlier in his career. And you see how it plays out again, if you tell me right now that he matches what he does or what he did last year, which was 56 catches for 610 yards and five touchdowns, I’ll take that as your number three wide receiver, gladly. Right for number three wide receiver making $5 million is he going to match that I don’t know. Again, he didn’t trend in the best direction late last season. But who knows? Was he dealing with an injury? You know, he’s, he’s going to be 33 years old in June, so he might be done, but if he is, you didn’t sign him to be your number one receiver. You didn’t sign him to even be your number two wide receiver. So that’s where I look at it, and say it’s tough for me to, you know, even for some of the criticisms or critiques or concerns, it’s tough for me to be worked up about it, because it’s a $5 million deal. It’s not, this isn’t giving Beckham $15 million for whatever the Ravens thought they were going to actually get out of Odell Beckham a couple years ago. So through that lens, I’m fine with it. And, you know, again, the Andrews thing we’re going to find out here pretty quickly, right? I don’t think this is going to drag on. You know, he does have a bonus that’ll be due here in the coming days that, you know, I think one way or the other, we will start to gain a better idea. I you know, I’m not saying it’s impossible that there couldn’t be a draft day trade, but, you know, I think it becomes less likely the deeper we get into the league year in terms of what happens with Andrews, and they might just say, hey, no one was willing to to dangle a fourth round pick for him. So we’re going to keep Mark Andrews knowing that he still can play regardless of what happened in Buffalo. And then we’ll get our we’ll get our comp pick after he walks as a free agent next off season. You know that doing that would not be an unacceptable way to approach it, because he is still a good player, regardless of the fact of what happened in Buffalo, and regardless of any reluctance to extend him long term, which certainly wouldn’t be something that I would be looking to do.
Nestor Aparicio 19:39
He is Lou Jones. You can follow his work out at Baltimore, Luke, anywhere the internet is served, W, N, S, D, Baltimore, positive. He has been embedded in Owings Mills for a decade and a half. We’re embroiled in this Justin Tucker off season, as well as this off season of draft, low draft, the mark and. Andrews situation, offensively, Ronnie Stanley. They figured that out. The money they saved on Ronnie Stanley, they wound up getting a bonus on DeAndre Hopkins over the last couple days. Because I think we’re in the agreement that Stanley would have gotten well north of 2023, $24 million had he hit the market. Um, so far so good, right as the gate, you know, open skier on real free agency on Wednesday afternoon, right? Yeah,
Luke Jones 20:25
well, and be remiss if I didn’t mention they brought Patrick or card back on a very affordable deal, which, look, I feel for him a little bit because he’s taken some pay cuts in recent years. But there’s also the recognition of his skill set is very specific, and there aren’t a lot of offenses in the league that are looking for his skill set. So I think that’s just the reality. But you know, to go back to Stanley for just a moment, we did get an idea of the structure for that contract, and one reason why it’s so flexible for the ravens and that they could make a move like DeAndre Hopkins, and we’ll see what other moves could potentially be made. Again, not expecting any anything lucrative, but certainly still some moves that could be made here in the coming days, but that deal had three void years on it, which allows them to have very affordable cap numbers for Stanley this year and next year. I mean, you’re talking about this year, his cap number is 5.8 million, so next year, it’s just a shade under 10. Now, granted, when those void years hit in 2028 that’s going to mean $20 million in dead money, and that’s if Stanley plays out the three years of the deal. But what you’re seeing teams doing, and Howie roseman’s done this, other top general managers have done this, and we’ve seen the Ravens do more of this the last few years. They add those void years in with the mindset a little bit higher of a dead money hit 345, years down the road. Because why the salary cap continues to go up and go up at a very significant rate. So the idea is, if I’m going to have Rodney, Ronnie Stanley, have a dead money hit at some point, and let’s say they cut him after the second year of this three year deal, or he just plays, and there’s a, you know, the voids all hit in 2028 that $20 million dead hit will be much more palatable to endure in 2028 with whatever the salary cap will be at that point, compared to putting that, you know, some of that cap number, number on this year and next year’s cap, and then you have less flexibility. So that’s just what teams are doing, if you kind of look at it. You know, the Saints have been the, the poster child of this. And I don’t, I want to say this to pat them on the back, because they’ve had so much dead money, and they’ve had to restructure their deals so much that it’s really put a ceiling on their roster of, I don’t know, going nine and eight if everything goes perfectly. So that’s not the the right way to approach it either. But you’ve seen Howie Roseman, you’ve seen Eric to Costa. You’ve seen these guys start to use more void years in these deals, and it allows you to have a more palatable salary cap picture in the here and now. And the thought is that that dead money, you know that credit card bill will come, you know it will come calling at some point, but the salary cap is going to be $50 million higher than it was. Or, you know, maybe not 50. But you get my point. You know, the salary cap continues to go up, will presumably continue to go up. You know, whatever the bubble burst for the NFL, if it ever does. I mean, we’ll talk about it then. But, you know, that’s that Stanley deal ended up making things much more manageable. And again, speaks to the Ravens doing some good work here. And Ronnie Stanley very much, showing that he wanted to stay a raven, because he absolutely could have done better. I mean, there, I think Albert Breer cited a couple teams that were willing to offer him 20. 24 million a year. So he he he could have done not just a little bit better, but much better on the open market, but he wanted to stay. And when that’s the case, when you have two sides that are willing to compromise and willing to give something, then then that’s when you continue your business relationship. So I think this start to free agency has been pretty typical for the ravens, you know, with the players that have walked out the door not surprised by any of those really, for the money that they’re getting elsewhere. And good for those guys. You know, I’m happy for Patrick McCary getting 12 million plus a year from the Jacksonville Jaguars. I don’t think I’d want to pay that, but hey, that’s what free agency is about. That’s what the open market’s about. So but I but I think for the ravens, they’ve kept a couple of their own. They’ve added a number three wide receiver with some veteran cachet, some experience, whether you know, a year from now, we’ll be saying, hey, DeAndre Hopkins was you know that that didn’t work out. Order will say, Hey, that was a really nice value signing. You know, like I said, I think it’s, I think it has the chance to be Odell Beckham, except had Odell Beckham been signed at at a proper price point two years ago, and, you know, for what Beckham did two years ago, you would have taken that for $5 million the problem was it wasn’t a $15 million level of production, so I’m fine with it, you know, again, I don’t think it’s worth doing cartwheels over either. You know, I don’t think he’s going to be great. He’s certainly not the guy who was five or 10 years ago. But, you know, I think he still has the chance to help their offense. And let’s face it, and you brought it up, it’s not like they have a lot that they needed to do to that offense. Once you retain Ronnie Stanley, so that now they’re in a position of going into the draft, and you need to add some depth on the O line, you still need to, I think I’d still like to see a viable guard added to compete with Voorhees, to compete with FAU le lay, to continue to to not just rest on your laurels there, just because it worked out okay this past year. But otherwise, you know, Todd monkins back. Lamar Jackson is back, Derek Henry, I mean, go down the list. We think Mark Andrews might be back. I mean, maybe not. But point is, you still have plenty of other talented players in this offense. And I think DeAndre Hopkins, with the right mindset can come in and and be a nice, complimentary piece for them. Luca,
Nestor Aparicio 26:25
any shockers to you? I, you know, I’m looking around at the Geno Smith thing and looking around at the where Russell Wilson in the in the Aaron Rodgers, and feels like last year all over again. And I don’t think those guys are beating any of the real guys with any team you know, certainly not the jets or the Steelers or wherever you may take it. I I’m waiting on big news to drop. And I guess the biggest news was that so many players were like Ronnie Stanley, staying with their teams, starting with that how much the cap has moved up. But there’s not big news in regard to deals where quarterbacks are going to be surprise retirement, you know, who’s coaching where, other than maybe Pete Carroll, you know. But just as we go into this free agency period, it hasn’t the biggest news of the whole off season has been Justin Tucker by far. Around here, from a buzz standpoint, I don’t know that it really affects the football team, other than the integrity of the football team, which is never really been in question in my mind for quite some time. But they’re going to go get a new kicker, and they’re going to deal with whatever the tail wind of that is. And, you know, blow a fan at it, make it go away. And, I mean, the Tucker thing’s going to be a bigger deal now than it’s ever it might be a big deal when the next kicker misses a kick, you know, on a Monday morning in October or whatever. But they’re going to get through the worst of their worst, because they have a good football team, and they’ll, you know, they already signed a wide receiver. They figured out their left tackle. To your point, they’re going to figure out pass rush and whatever. They don’t figure out they’re going to tell you, Eric’s going to come out with a towel on his head that 11 o’clock on that Friday night. He’s going to say, oh my god, we we got players here, Luke, we got players. We got great players.
Luke Jones 28:10
Yeah, and keep in mind also, we found out officially on Tuesday, four comp picks in next month’s draft. Uh, fourth rounder, a, fifth, 2/6, so you know, the fourth and the fifth round or sixth round and seventh round, guys, it’s like, Okay, let’s see, see if you pull something off here. But, you know, you asked me about surprises. I mean, the quarterback market a little bit, you know, I think we’ve, we’ve seen some interesting developments. I saw a couple people talking about this on Tuesday, that for the longest time you kind of had this all or nothing mentality with these quarterbacks, right? Guys were either starting to get 45 or $50 million a year, or they were getting the, you know, the Russell Wilson Justin fields, you know, one year kind of prove it deal. You’re starting to see kind of a middle class emerge with the quarterback deals and and look, I sit there and you give the you know, you give Sam darnold What the Seahawks are giving Sam darnold With way less around him than he had in Minnesota. So I think that’s going to be interesting to see how that works. I mean, Geno Smith going to the Raiders, that was surprising to me. You know, that I didn’t necessarily anticipate something like that. I’ll say this. I mean, Justin fields getting two years, $20 million a year from the Jets. I mean, okay, well,
Nestor Aparicio 29:29
the Geno Smith thing makes sense. If you want to bring your own quarterback in, and you’re 100 years old, he’s 30 something, and the team stinks, and you’re trying to, like, somehow count the nine or 10 in your division, because you might be able to put your defense together.
Luke Jones 29:41
Yeah. I mean, I, I guess for me, and this is where I think there’s, there can be a tendency to to have some arrogance when you have a Lamar Jackson, or you have a Patrick mahomes or someone like that, who you know is going to be top of the top, yeah, the other 20 places here. I mean, you’re almost. Have it together. It’s almost amusing, right? I mean, you see teams. I mean, I was one of my good friends, going all the way back to playing youth football in high school and all of that. It’s a big Giants fan, and so he was, of course, in our high school buddy text chain, kind of just making fun of the giants about everything they were doing. And I saw the long list of of moves they made. And I just look at it and I say, none of this matters, like none of it matters you don’t have a quarterback, like, you can do all these things, and it doesn’t matter. So there’s a little bit of that going on. Yeah, Brian
Nestor Aparicio 30:33
Dabo was a genius until he didn’t have a quarterback, right? Right, right? So Brian Billick was a genius. So they said, go work with Tony banks and Trent Dilfer, and he’s like, Well, I can, maybe I can win a Super Bowl, but I can’t do it twice. Yeah,
Luke Jones 30:46
I look at a situation. Laugh at that if you’re here, because it’s true. I look at a situation like Indianapolis at this point where everyone’s, everyone’s been put on notice that they’re, they’re fighting for their jobs, and yet they’re going to have a quarterback battle between Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if something could sound more dead on arrival than that situation does right now, and maybe I’m wrong,
Nestor Aparicio 31:14
but where’s Joe Flacco gonna sign? That’s all I need to know. I
Luke Jones 31:18
mean, hey, the Ravens have the Ravens need a backup quarterback, you know, I, I mean, maybe Josh, Josh Johnson’s back, but you know, Josh Johnson’s pushing 40. At this point we’re gonna get Joe Flacco is 40, so Snoop back, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, they had the Ravens have to do that. But I’m not someone you know me. I don’t care about backup quarterbacks. I just don’t because Lamar gets hurt, you’re done. But, yeah, just looking at some of that, I mean, just in general, we talked about it before Monday, you know, before the tampering window opened, that it felt like a higher number of players resigning with teams than normal. And then, as a result, the market does what the market should do. The guys who have hit the market have done really, really well for themselves. And I’ll say this Nestor out of the I don’t know. I mean, how many moves actually get reported by Ian Rappaport and Adam Schefter? And you know that the National reporter types of the 100 moves that have been reported, and, you know, become official starting Wednesday afternoon. Very few of those have, I said, Oh, wow. I really would have liked the Ravens have gotten that guy for that price, right? I mean, you just look at it, and just a lot of money being thrown around for a lot of players who it’s kind
Nestor Aparicio 32:36
of like the day Taylor Swift tickets go on sale. They’re a lot of money, right? Yeah, you wait around. Maybe you can get a seat, you know, in a corner, you get a backup safety or something. I but it really is like, this is where you pay the most and get the least, literally. And then four weeks from now, we’ll have a draft, and we’ll all talk about, you know, the teams that stunk the worst last year, getting the best players. That’s kind of how this is set
Luke Jones 32:59
up to be. I have a pal in never met him, but Ryan Green, who does local radio, local sports radio down in Jacksonville, and he’s, I’ve become, his ravens guy, in the sense that last, like, last year, for example, Jacksonville signed Devin DuVernay and Ronald Darby. So he hit me up as soon as McCary, you know, agreed to terms, and that that deal was leaked, and I went on with them and talked about Patrick McCarry, and I was complimentary, and all of that, but it’s just funny, because a team like Jacksonville is a perfect example of they constantly have money to spend in free agency, and they spend it. But guess what? Those players that they sign are then on the market a year later or two years later, and they’re releasing them. And they just, they just do this. They play out the same cycle over and over and over again. And that’s why you don’t want to be a big player in free agency regularly, because generally speaking, that means you’re not doing a very good job. You know, that doesn’t mean you don’t do it at all. I mean, the Ravens got Derek Henry a year ago at this time, right? I mean, regardless of guys like me being a little more skeptical about it, worked out beautifully, right? But, and they’ve, they’ve made plenty of Barkley changed the Eagles, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, so, so it’s not as though you can’t use free agency, but boy, if that’s if that’s driving the bus for how you roster build with very few exceptions, that’s not going to work out very well over time.
Nestor Aparicio 34:27
Daniel Snyder with Bruce Smith, and yeah, remember that the
Luke Jones 34:31
only I mean, I’ll say this the Rams a few years ago, good on them, although they traded a lot of their picks to acquire talent that way, and you acquire contracts that way. But I think of them, I think of Denver at the end of the Peyton Manning Manning era, with how much they use free agency. And look, they did. They used it very, very well. So credit to them. But I mean, those are the exceptions, not the norms. Typically, when you’re really signing a ton of free agent. Events year after year after year that when
Nestor Aparicio 35:02
you have Von Miller and Peyton Manning, you go and spend, you know, like you have that, like in the same way when the Ravens had Ray Lewis and John OG then they went and got Rob Woodson and Shannon, right?
Luke Jones 35:13
And let me again, let me be clear what I’m saying here. I’m not anti free agency, but the teams that you constantly see spending big money in free agency. It’s because those deals blow up in their face and they’re on the market again.
Nestor Aparicio 35:25
They drafted poorly, yeah, as opposed to the Ravens that draft so well that Eric would come and say, We got four developmental picks from picks that we took six years ago, that we nurtured into being good enough for somebody else to overpay, because we’re not gonna let Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linder bomb get out of here. Well,
Luke Jones 35:44
you’re seeing it with the Eagles, right? I mean, the Eagles have had quite the genesis of, uh, you know, quite the departure of defensive players, so over the these first couple days of free agency. But go, look at who they’re a slave could have been here a couple years ago. Yeah. I mean, go, go look at who they’ve paid and who they are going to need to pay in the same way that the ravens are going to have to pay Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linder bomb so, and they’ve already paid nom de Mata Bucha,
Nestor Aparicio 36:09
and in order to do that, they’re going to take that cat money on roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey, if they’re not careful. Well,
Luke Jones 36:15
I mean, there’s a circle, there’s a circle of life to this, right? I mean, that,
Nestor Aparicio 36:19
well, felt like Ronnie Stanley was going to be an awful cap hit for them three years ago. And it’s turned out to be like they put 60 million more back in this week. So Marlon Humphries, another guy that looked like, you know, maybe he’s Jimmy Smith. It’s an injury. It’s real. He’s a great player, but diminished, I don’t know. You know, he might still have 75 million in him at the end of this right? If, if they can’t fit, they certainly didn’t figure out the corner thing with Brandon Stevens. They let him go, right? And they have to figure out whether the kid they drafted last year can actually play or not. But to some degree, keeping on to the gray beards his mind comes in, by the way, um, not a bad idea to some degree. And and Mark Andrews is one of those, those cases of, do you want them or do you not? You might be better off with him than without him. You may, you may regret getting rid of him if you’re going to give away for nothing Sure.
Luke Jones 37:07
Well, and again, that that goes back to my point there. I mean, it’s fine to say you don’t want to extend them. It’s fine to say that, hey, let’s shop him around and see what what he’s worth. If you don’t like the answer to that, then you say, Well, part of this, part of the math here, is what he can do for us this year, right? What he can do for us on the field this year, and then we can say, a year from now, we love you. Good luck to you. We’ll take our fifth round comp pick, fourth round comp pick, whatever it is, and and we’ll resign Isaiah, likely so. But, oh, and by the way, we’ll draft the kid in the fourth round. That’s you Sure? Well, I mean, probably not going to be him, but someone that hopefully could be a productive player for you. You know, you’re talking about one of the better players, you know, one of the better offensive players in franchise history. So, but, yeah, you just said it with with all these players, whether they’re a rookie coming out of college, or whether they’re in their 10th year, there’s always a certain amount of crossing your fingers that they’re going to stay healthy. Yeah, we’ve talked about it a lot in baseball, but Derek Cole, Tommy John surgery, all you heard about Gerrit Cole until last year was, man, this guy’s really durable. He’s really durable. I say it all the time. Guys are durable until they aren’t anymore. There’s a risk in resigning Stanley for as much as we’ve patted them on the back for what that deal is and it being cap friendly and everything. There’s absolutely risk to it, but you know what else is very risky, not having them and then trying to find a left tackle with only so many resources to be able to do it. So you know, I think where things stand right now, this is otherwise been a pretty predictable start to free agency for the ravens, they’ve lost more than they’ve gained, but they’ve been able to keep a couple of their own. And we’ll see what happens with DeAndre Hopkins. And if DeAndre Hopkins is washed up, well, you know, it’s a $5 million deal that isn’t crippling your cap long term or anything like that, so I’m fine with it. We’ll see what happens next. Made a nice headline is what I would say, Yeah, let’s see what happens next as free agency officially opens, right? Which is just hilarious, because I’ve seen some of these top 25 and top 50 free agent lists, and they’ve already been kind of picked clean. They’ve been tampered with. Is what they’ve been right? Exactly right. Amazing how all these deals work out, like within minutes of the tampering period, but, but, well, yeah, we’ll see. But I can’t say, I can’t sit here and say I’m shocked or even moderately surprised. As far as how this has played out so far, I figured the Ravens would target a veteran wide receiver, and DeAndre Hopkins ended up being the guy. I gotta
Nestor Aparicio 39:34
write that down. That’s like, it’s such a great line, because I’m writing my letter to Roger Goodell, um, about me having information for the NFL investigators, a league that has a tampering period is now expected to investigate a predator. Okay, a potential predator? Get potential in there. Hold on potential. By the way. I’m going to ask this question out loud. I’m. Um, and on social media this week. Do you believe Justin Tucker, just as a general sense, I’m going to ask that question to the world. Luke Jones asks questions and answers questions at it Baltimore, Luke, we have questions about the baseball team. He and I went, you and I kind of went nose nose to nose for like, 66 minutes, longest segment, I think, in the history of the show, when you and I started talking about Mr. Rubenstein’s money, and that’s a great cartoon idea for SIG, let me send her sick Mr. Rubenstein’s money, and whether $8 million on a relief pitcher after you already gave 164 million, which is 100 million more than the guy before you was given two years ago to play or payroll. So, you know, baseball has that issue. Football has a salary cap. So we have two completely it’s almost like talking about Canada in the United States, this boy two completely different philosophies. We’re going to Canada two weeks from now. I have my passport out. I have my Canada hat out. I’m going to let my hair out. Tell him I’m related to Getty Lee. Imma, shave up. Nice. I will be listening to, by the way, Luke, this the best part of going to Canada. Imma, tell you right now, from the minute you land in Buffalo, you put the radio station on, and you can get Canadian radio and the Canadian laws. I don’t want to give the people running this country any ideas, but Canadian law, you know, make make America great and make Canada great again, is that they are by law. If you have a Canadian radio station, you have to play a certain amount of Canadian music. So it leads itself to just a beautiful, I mean, name a Canadian artist, and you will hear that Canadian artist in three days. Ann Murray. You’ll hear Sarah McLachlan. You hear Brian Adams. A lot of that, but honeymoon suite, April wine, you know, stuff that you don’t. Celine Dion, hey, you know. So you’re gonna hear some things, lot of Barenaked Ladies, if you’re in all my wife, she loves the BareNaked lady. So not my thing. Little campy for me. But you know, Steven page, nice guy, did the show that a lot of Canadians on. Rick Emmett was on the program this week from Canada with some words of wisdom for the Americans as well. So American and Canadian love baseball, injuries, salary cap, no salary cap. We’re talking at all, and we haven’t even talked about March Madness. He’s Luke, I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, the am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We’ll see it, C, V, P on Friday. We’re Baltimore positive. You.
