The offseason always comes abruptly, and with the trauma and shock of the Ravens’ latest January debacle in Buffalo, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss these next few weeks of decisions about next year’s roster and the boiling emotions of a season of real Super Bowl promise spoiled on the frozen soil in Orchard Park on Sunday night.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ hard offseason following their loss to the Buffalo Bills. They highlighted the Ravens’ history of turnovers in playoff games, noting that in nine playoff games since 2018, the Ravens have had 16 giveaways and only three takeaways. They also discussed potential offseason changes, including the future of players like Ronnie Stanley, Mark Andrews, and Marlon Humphrey. Jones emphasized the need to address the offensive line and possibly draft a left tackle. They also reflected on the Ravens’ consistent success in the regular season versus their struggles in January.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens offseason, Bills loss, turnovers issue, playoff games, Mark Andrews, Ronnie Stanley, free agency, offensive line, Derrick Henry, Lamar Jackson, defensive struggles, special teams, Kansas City, AFC Championship, player contracts
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. This is a little bit of a requiem week here for all things Baltimore. Ravens. Luke Jones about to join us here. We’re going to get the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road, a cup of soup or bowl. I have a raven scratch off. It’s the last one I have. We will have magic eight balls to give away two weeks from Monday, I almost wore my Costas shirt. We’re gonna be kicking things off at Costas. I must say this, Luke and I abstained from Buffalo on Sunday evening, just like Mark Andrews abstain from actually meeting with media like us that would travel after dropping the ball and after getting stripped. I’ll say this the the notion that we were headed to Kansas City, that we believe that I had a flight for Luke and I that we had barbecue ready on our hands. I had held New Orleans, and I was going to suspend my couple Super Bowl because it’s New Orleans, and we had the boat, and the people from New Orleans, Luke were calling me from the Natchez and like, you’re going to do another parade, right? And I got all sugar plummy and I didn’t even think about Jay Daniels, to be honest with your any notion that the Washington commanders could be playing football this week and the Ravens wouldn’t be playing football this week, but we talk so much about the game in Buffalo and the drop and Mark Andrews not showing up, and, um, just in a general sense, about giving the ball away and turnovers and what goes wrong in this game every year, whether it’s Derek Henry running you over five, six years ago, or whether it’s the loss in Buffalo a couple years ago, where nobody’s there, or whether it’s a flowers fumbling on the goal line last year, and, you know, against the chiefs, and they couldn’t get it done. Offense, Defense. Mark Andrews, Billy Cundiff, Lee Evans, find your goats. Find you whoever you want, or your other go to Justin Tucker, um, the organization pounds on this. It’s going to be a year before they can fix it, which is always the the hardest part when you have these kinds of expectations. The Orioles are about to find find that out in the new group, Don Kovac and Katie Griggs and all them will find that out, that there is a level of expectation that once it rises to this point, and the Washington commanders will have that after now that you know, losing playoff games isn’t good enough, especially when you’re good enough. I think the Steelers fans can say, well, we don’t have it. We don’t good enough players. Or the Chargers fans can say, here we come. But for the bills and for the Ravens in this kind of game where they both have lost it and the bills still have to go to Kansas City, and they got an hour ahead of them on Sunday night to do something that always looks so easy to do until the Chiefs go in there and tangle you up like a pretzel. Um, the bills and the Ravens on Sunday night. We’ll talk about this one for a long time, Luke, because the Ravens were good enough to win. The Ravens did certain things well enough to win in bottling up Josh Allen to some degree. Um, and there’ll be a lot of what ifs here as we close the locker. And I know the one thing, and roquan said this from the podium in Buffalo after the game, it’s never the same right, like whether Todd monkins going here or who’s going there, who’s coming back and who’s not coming back, and salary. This team was constructed to win. It remained healthy enough to win. You believe Sunday afternoon they were going to win? I believe Sunday afternoon they were going to win. So there’s a lot to answer for, even if you lose the Patrick mahomes, even if you lose to Josh Allen, he’s going to the Hall of Fame or whatever, that, even if it’s on the road, it’s a cold night and all of that, the game was there. And I think that that is that will be the eternal lament for any of them who never win a championship. And I know you’re still bullish on Lamar bringing Super Bowl here like all that, once they start to fade away like this, and you start to lose it, then becomes really tough for these guys to go hang out in the off season, because they don’t like losing. Well,
Luke Jones 04:11
I mean, there’s just at this point, especially for the guys that were here in 2018 or even the couple that were here before that, you know, Marlon Humphrey, Ronnie Stanley, is going to be a free agent, so who knows what’s going to happen there, but there’s a cumulative impact. And one thing that I wanted to bring up to you, as I kind of was reflecting about this late Sunday night, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the turnovers, the giveaways, right? And the Ravens have turned the ball over a ton in the postseason, going back to 18. I mean, just to you know, for the statistical context, in the playoff loss to the chargers, and 18, three turnovers, 2019 against the Titans, three turnovers and 2022 turnovers. You know, one each in both of those playoff games that the Tyler Huntley Lamar Jackson injury. Every year you know where they lost in Cincinnati, two turnovers in that game, three turnovers against Kansas City last year, three turnovers against buffalo on Sunday,
Nestor Aparicio 05:09
three turnovers in a January game, one probably lose.
Luke Jones 05:13
But on the flip side, there are the plays like that that stand out and understandably so. Do you know how many takeaways they have in those nine playoff games? See, I’m thinking
Nestor Aparicio 05:26
like sudden takeaways and playoff games. I remember Ed Reed in Indianapolis picking off Peyton and running and then given the ball away and but I’m thinking in the in this era, in the Lamar era, I’m going through these games. They fell behind early in the bad beats, right that the the Chargers beat and the Titans beat earlier, when when Derek Henry ran them over. I don’t remember them stripping Derek Henry in that game. I don’t remember them picking off Tanny Hill. I don’t like I’m thinking about those games, whether there was a moment, um, maybe they had a takeaway in that buffalo, sloppy ass game that nobody went to a couple years ago. I don’t remember, um, Kansas City last year, hmm, I don’t know, dude, I can’t, I can’t think of a moment where they took the ball away, or there was a pick six or momentum shift. They lost games because they didn’t have momentum shifts in any of these games.
Luke Jones 06:26
Yeah, I mean, they have in nine playoff games in the Lamar era, and that’s including the Tyler Huntley game, three takeaways.
Nestor Aparicio 06:34
Whoo, what? No wonder I don’t remember them. They’re not memorable.
Luke Jones 06:39
And look, anyone who’s a football nerd like me with analytics, look in a given game, you might have
Nestor Aparicio 06:50
good fortune, right? Or an interception today is a Hail Mary at the end of the half, and it’s not Yeah, yeah, right.
Luke Jones 06:57
And some of some of them are less consequential than others, right? I mean, we understand that. But when you talk about the history of this franchise, you think about 2000 a historic defense. You think about Ray Lewis taking the ball away from Eddie George. And you think about Dwayne Starks at the picks. You know, Dwayne Starks, who was not a pro bowl corner, but had an All Pro kind of postseason run, or Keith Mitchell’s daddy taking the ball away. Don’t forget that. Well, there you go. A special teams play, right with Jacoby Jones, Jermaine Lewis, returning kicks. I mean, you think about all of those teams that broke through over the years, you had to have some of that as well. And I’m not blaming the defense for Sunday night’s loss. Let me be very clear about that, although they didn’t play very well in the first half. You know, the Lamar fumble put him on a short field. The at best questionable PI on trentavius White gave buffalo a chance to score a touchdown rather than a field goal at the end of the first half. But when you think about a game like that, when you’re down by 11 points, you’re chasing points on the scoreboard you’re playing uphill the entire second half. Boy, was that not a situation that was ripe to steal a possession, to get a takeaway right, to make a big play on special teams, something of that nature. And that’s the other part of this era where so much focus has been on Lamar, and understandably so. I mean, when you’re talking about a three time MVP, I expect three time MVP at quarterback who hasn’t played like that in the postseason, that’s going to be the headliner, whether Lamar fans like that or not. And you know, he played great in the second half, but he didn’t have a good first half because he turned it over twice, and that was costly for them. But when you look at the collective when you look at this football team in its totality, in January, going back to 2018 their defense hasn’t been dynamic, even when their defense has played well, they haven’t taken the ball away, their special teams haven’t made massive plays. You know, there hasn’t been a big return or a blocked kick, or things of that nature. I mean, these are the things you have to do over the course of making a run of winning three or four games to win a Super Bowl in January and early February. And I just wanted to point that out. I mean, when you’re talking about nine playoff games and you have a minus 13 turnover ratio, tells me two things, you’ve turned the ball over way too much, and you’re not taking the ball away very much, and that’s just, that’s a tough combination. I mean, look, look at this weekend. In the four games, the four teams that won were out gained yardage wise, but they took care of the ball and they took the ball away. Now, some of those are unforced errors. I mean, Lamar made a bad throw, bad decision on the interception that wasn’t necessarily a great individual play by Taylor Rapp, but you know, as a pick we talked about Terrell Bernard with the strip of Andrews. Andrews can’t lose the ball there, but a great individual effort by a linebacker to make the strip and the recovery those plays. This defense was good
Nestor Aparicio 10:00
at that Marlon Humphrey at one point that peanut punch was like his jam, right? I mean, the rabies haven’t,
Luke Jones 10:06
yeah, they haven’t made those plays in these spots. And again, that’s part of it, right? You know, it’s so simplistic, even though, I mean this game more than any, I mean, it’s just, it’s so slaps you in the face, obvious, how rushing Andrew’s dropping a two point conversion is with a minute and a half to go and your chance to tie the ball game. But we know, over the course of the last seven years with this football team and trying to break through that it’s been a collective effort. You know, we’ve talked about coaching, we’ve talked about lamar’s play, we’ve talked about turnovers, but it’s also taking the ball away on defense. I mean, they just, they haven’t done these things that you need to do to win in January. I mean, again, it’s not like their defense has been awful in the playoffs. Let me be clear. I’m not, I’m not suggesting that. But you know, when you’re when you’re down two scores in the second half, and look the defense they stepped up to begin the third quarter, that that drive there coming out of halftime, Buffalo scores a touchdown there. I mean, Derek Henry is completely a non factor the rest of the way, because, because now you’re down three scores and you know, then it’s panic time, you know, then you’re really playing from behind. Then you’re, you know, you’re kind of, you know you’re, you’re, you’re, you know what, right? I mean, you’re, you’re in bad, deep trouble there. So I give them credit on that front. But again, when you look at the the totality, you know, the body of work over these last seven years, you know, their defense and their special teams haven’t made the game changing plays either. You know, it’s just, it’s frustrating. It really is. I mean, again, we focus on the giveaways, but, you know, a couple more takeaways along the way might have helped them, maybe been the difference at some point. And look, that’s a credit to their opponent for doing a better job taking care, better care of the football, but it’s another part of the collective narrative of this team just not being good enough in January, coming up small in January. And, you know, that’s just something that really struck me again, 16 giveaways in nine playoff games in the Lamar Jackson era, and only three takeaways. You know, that’s when you consider especially the the history of the Baltimore Ravens defense for a quarter century. Well, it’s not
Nestor Aparicio 12:23
how you get to the January games. If they don’t, they don’t have a habit of giving the ball away and not taking it away. Now, the taking it away part to your point, that’s been something that has come and gone right, like there were various points where they took it away a lot, Rex, ryany, kind of era. And you know, I know you’re a big fan of wink, you know, wink was a little more aggressive. Spagnolo was here for five minutes, as well as a part of all of this, that aggression and aggressive players and the ability to instinctively do it, you know? I mean, it’s not accidental, punching the ball right. It’s not right, it’s coached, it’s it’s and, and it hasn’t happened in these games, but it’s one of the reasons. I mean, I’ve seen Marlon Humphrey dancing around so many times that I don’t need to see it anymore. You know what? I mean, like dancing around after stripping some giants player of a ball, you know, whatever we’ve seen, enough of that. And that’s how that some of these games can get out of hand. Although, you know Lamar running you out of the gym. And we’ll talk about Derrick Henry some more as well. And by the way, let’s talk about that. Happy with the Derrick Henry workload in the game. I mean it. I’ll say this, if I take the body of work for both of their games, and Lamar running into the Pittsburgh Steelers 10 times in the first five minutes last week, and then this week, pretending Lamar doesn’t even have the wheels and like not really designing things to do that. Oh, which one do you want? You want him or you want me? They didn’t play that kind of game. They really didn’t. And and maybe that’s some respect to Buffalo. But it wasn’t like, you know, Henry, Henry, Henry King. Henry, downhill, down hill. Lamar’s legs. Lamar’s legs. Cold night. We’re going to run you. We’re going to run you. It wasn’t that kind of effort. It wasn’t they were ahead of the sticks getting eight yards on first down all night. You know the way that they beat your ass, it was more like three yards in a cloud of flurries.
Luke Jones 14:27
Yeah. I mean, Derrick Henry had 21 yards on eight carries in the first half. Buffalo did a good job stopping it’s not good enough, I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 14:34
but that said that’s how you find yourself down two scores at halftime. Well,
Luke Jones 14:39
I mean, the the turnovers were really why? I mean, it’s fair enough, you know? I mean, it’s, you’ve got to, you’ve got to take care of the football. And I to answer your question, I had no I had no issue with how they handled Derek, Henry, I mean, because, to suggest. That I would have an issue would be to suggest that 416 yards and 7.3 yards per play isn’t good enough, right? The way that they move the ball, in its totality, was not the issue in that football game. You can’t turn it over and you can’t have you can’t drop a two point conversion, right? And that’s what happened. I mean, you know, your quarterback can’t give them the ball. The only what I will say, and I think I mentioned this maybe in our very first discussion, as you and I were, you know, kind of talking about the residue of this. Imagine
Nestor Aparicio 15:32
how punch drunk we’d be if we had seven hours on the road back from Buffalo. Yeah. Oh,
Luke Jones 15:36
no question. But the only thing that I would say would be it when the Ravens did not punch it in, when they had the ball at the two yard line, and Henry runs it on first and goal from the two and gets stuffed, you know? So it’s second and goal from the three. I still would have been very much inclined to give the ball to Derrick, Henry again there instead the ravens, you know, Lamar gets sacked, and then it’s third and eight. So, so there’s that, you know, look, any, anyone, I mean, you could, you could talk about some play calls buffalo made over the course of the game, and you kind of say, why’d you do that? Right? I mean, you’re gonna have that over the course of 60 minutes. And when your offense is running on any in any given week, 65 to 75 plays. I mean, that’s just, you’re going to have some of that. So I look at that, and then I do look at the two point conversion that they did not get where likely was open. But you know, Milano makes the play. You know, it’s a heck of a play. Give him, give him credit. He was in the passing lane there. Lamar has got to put a little more air under, under it. You know, if you don’t give the ball to Derek, Henry there, I can live with that. But remember, they motioned him out, and he’s no longer in the backfield. I didn’t care for that, right? And so, but, but again, the play was there. They didn’t make it. You know, it’s the same thing with you know, are we going to beat up Todd monkin Because he didn’t have the forward thinking to expect that Mark Andrews gonna was gonna drop the two point conversion? No, of course not. You know you you expect one of your best players to make a play there. So you know, to bring it back to full circle, I mean, to your original question, I didn’t have a major problem with how Derek Henry was used. I think you look at how this game played out, you know, he the Ravens collectively ran the ball 30 times for 176 yards. You know, Justice Hill ran the ball really well. I mean, let’s throw that in there. I think at the times where this running game has been at its absolute best, beyond when Derek Henry runs for an 87 yard touchdown in the first play from scrimmage at like Week Four against Buffalo has been when it’s Henry, it’s Lamar and Justice Hill, who’s on the field as their blitz pickup guy when they want to throw the ball, when they can use the change up of giving him the ball, and he gains big yards for you. I mean, you know, they ran for 176 yards, and that’s with buffalo really slowing them, not not slowing them down entirely, but slowing Derek Henry down in the first half. So I didn’t have a big problem with it, you know. I mean, if someone wants to sit here and say, I would have rather had Derrick Henry had 19 carries rather than 16. I mean, fine, you know, sure, but at the same time, we’re still burying the lead here of the fact that they moved the ball, you know, kind of at will, right? I mean, they had over 400 yards. I mean, they averaged the yards per play that they did, you know, they had. They were really good on third down. You know, they were two of three inside the red zone. I mean, it’s not like you look at the the overall offensive numbers and you say, Oh, that was bad. That didn’t look good, until you get to the turnovers, and it’s three turnovers. So keeps bringing us back to the lead here, which was they didn’t take care of the ball and they dropped, you know, couple critical drops. I mean, the most critical drop in franchise history, right there, you know, because, you know, at least Lee Evans, you could debate whether that was really a true drop, or was it a good defensive play? It was truth was in between there. There’s nothing, no ambiguity about that one. I mean, Mark Andrews just dropped it. So, you know, Derek, Henry again, Buffalo did a good job in the first half. They, they bottled him up. The Ravens got him going. But you know, I mean, you just, you look at the second half drives. I mean, we haven’t mentioned this once in our malt in multiple segments, the Ravens didn’t punt the ball once. On Sunday night. Think about that. They didn’t punt the ball once their punter kicked off. So, so, so that, right there tells you the issue wasn’t moving the ball, the issue was taking care of it. So, yeah, so to answer your question, I didn’t have a big problem with how Derek Henry was used. You can, you know, again, at the goal line, there on second and goal from the three, I would like to see hand it to him again and the two point play. I don’t, I didn’t like motioning him out. If you’re not. To give them the ball. Fine, but you know, it’s the same thing that, you know, we talk about in short yardage situations. Why would you ever take Lamar or Derek Henry out of the equation with some of those? Although, you know, the Andrews tush push has proved to work out pretty well over the course of the year. You know, when they’ve been in, you know, less than a yard to go, but you know, it’s just again, they moved the ball. That wasn’t the issue. They’re good on third down. They converted their 1/4 down. Got to take care of it. Can’t give it away. And like I said, the in in converse, you know, the the flip side of that over the years with these January losses has been they’ve given it away, and they haven’t taken it away enough. And you know, that’s in any one game. You’re not blaming the defense for that, but the entire body of work, you know, that adds up to why you’re coming up short in these games. I mean, you gotta, gotta make the big plays. And you know, that was one thing we talked about with the Kansas City loss last year. You know, as well as you look at the final score and you say, you know, you held Kansas City to 17 points, you can’t be too upset with that. How could you at the same time when your offense is struggling, you know you might need your defense to take the ball away once, and they couldn’t do it, then they couldn’t do it on Sunday night. You know, as much as I admire how the defense played in the second half of that game. You know Mark Andrews gets stripped. You know that that drive there screamed for needing a turnover. Well, instead, Buffalo drove down the field. They did hold them to three. Credit to them there. But again, January legacies are defined by who’s making the biggest plays in the ball game. And you know, while the defense hasn’t been the culprit for most of these losses, you know, it hasn’t made the game changing play either, that flips it the other way around. You know, Teron Johnson had to pick six against the Ravens in 2020 in Buffalo, for example. You know, you look at that play that he made, you know, the Ravens defense hasn’t made those kinds of plays in January in this era, and you know, it’s just one of the multitude of reasons why they’ve come up short and they haven’t broken through.
Nestor Aparicio 22:11
Lou Jones is here. We’re going to be lamenting lots of things here as we prepare to watch Buffalo and Kansas City in the AFC Championship Game, and the unspeakable, the Washington football franchise taking on the Philadelphia football franchise on Sunday evening. Although we’ll make for nice cheese steaks, I’ll go over Pete Johns, maybe little cheese steak going i i don’t know what to make of all this when, when the Ravens get eliminated, you need that deep breath of a couple of days, especially when they weren’t soundly beaten, when they were good enough to win. This isn’t, you know, Pittsburgh, where you look at it and say we weren’t really good enough this year, or even some upstart Detroit, or even Minnesota, or these other places where they’re disappointed because they won a lot of games. This has become a little bit too much of a trend. Uh, Luke Jones is here, Luke, let’s talk off season. Who comes, who stays, who goes, Uh, what should the the next things, the draft and the and for like, like, let’s pretend that didn’t hurt. Let’s pretend they that they just lost a normal game on Sunday night in Buffalo, and they have to pick up the pieces. Here we go. Right, like, first things first, Monken, who’s coming to get coaches, who’s under contract, old guy, Stanley van Noy, yeah. I mean, what is Billick always say, time for play that ended, you know, when Andrews dropped the ball, and now it’s time for pay.
Luke Jones 23:39
Yeah. I mean, there are going to be changes, obviously. I mean, as you mentioned, the first item of business, whether it’s business or not, remains to be seen as what’s going to happen with Todd Monken, as we know, he’s interviewed in multiple places, so we’ll see if anything comes of that. I mean, lots of guys get interviewed. I wouldn’t remotely assume that he’s gone, but he could be, you know, you don’t know that. And obviously that’s a you know, that leads to the question of who would replace him. But you know, you look at the free agency and you know, you mentioned Kyle van Noy. He is under contract next year, so, but he’s 30. What going to be? 30? Age 34, season. I mean, you know, where is he going to be? What’s that mean for pass rusher? I mean, you know, you same thing with Derrick Henry. He’s under contract. No reason to think that Derek Henry won’t be back and can’t have another great season, but he is going to get old eventually. Everyone gets old eventually. And again, that’s when you had a Derrick Henry that rushed for 1900 yards. It’s like, I just bought the jersey. He better run next year. Yeah, I want to wear the jersey next year. Come on. Now I hear, I hear you. But again, he’s, he’s gonna be another year older. I mean, that’s, that’s what you’re always talking about. But when it comes to the free agents, I think you know the headliner, Marcus Williams, gonna be gone, right? I mean, he’s gone, obviously. And. And, you know, we’ll see if they have anything to say about what happened there. I mean, it’s something that just kind of got buried, because fortunately, what they did with Kyle Hamilton and ardarius Washington, who was really good, you know, our Darius Washington, one of the unsung heroes of this defense in the second half of the year. I mean, wasn’t just that. He was steady. He played well. I mean, go look at the the Josh Allen tackle on on third and goal, or Near East Washington, made the play there, right? I mean, he’s, he’s been that good. But, you know, the flip side of that was Marcus Williams, and, you know, moving on from him, you know, the big question for me, and I was even talking with some other members of the local media about this the last couple weeks out on the practice field. You know, Ronnie Stanley is going to be a free agent. What do you do there? You know what? I mean, like, he was healthy. He played 17 games for the first time in his career. Played all every game. You barely missed a snap. You know, the only time he was really pulled was when,
Nestor Aparicio 25:56
if you’re happy with him, you pay him. And you, you know, you’re probably going to like anybody else is gonna like it. But do you pay him? You know what? I mean, like, 30 pay him. I’m gonna pay him like, you know, like, offer him a job next year. Who else is offering him the job? Well, but what are they gonna pay him? But that’s my question. I mean, first thing, do you want him, or do you want to improve that position? I mean, I want
26:17
him, but I do you at what cost? Now is it going to be a cost? Is it going to be a cost that is going to be conducive to recognizing he’s going to be 31 yes, you got a healthy season. But you also know, the five years before that, the history you know, I mean, is it? And to your point mark, the
Nestor Aparicio 26:36
answers may be that question on the back end of this, in him hiding from the media on Sunday night, like, you know, like, is it? Look the bills went this way last year. Look at them. They wound up getting rid of accomplished players and digs. And it felt like, well, they’re gonna take a step sideways. You wouldn’t have to pitch me that with likely and with their wide receiving corporate, you know, like, you could say, we’re moving on from Andrews and Stanley, because of age, we moved off from Zeitler Moses the year before, and we came a drop pass from our Hall of pretty decent player, dropping the ball away from, you know, maybe forcing ourselves into a championship game again. I They’re dude, they’re close, right? I mean, come on, you and I picked them to win this game. They’ve been close
Luke Jones 27:18
for five years. Nestor. I mean, this isn’t, it’s nothing new that this isn’t new territory, you know. I mean, I hear you. That’s what’s frustrating about this, because it’s like, what do you do? You know, I saw, I saw a couple, you know, some of the nfl.com and some of the national sites that, you know, they, as soon as a team season ends, they put out a kind of a paint by numbers, what’s their biggest offseason need? And I saw a couple people say wide receiver for them. And oh, here that. I mean, zay flowers wasn’t out on the field. They could use a late in the game, right? I mean, maybe the play goes to him rather than Mark Andrews, I don’t know, you know. And again, there’s no excusing Mark Andrews for dropping that pass. I mean, there just isn’t. But, you know, could they have used another wide receiver? Well, they tried with Deontay Johnson, the guy’s a total knucklehead. Three other teams recognized that too. So, you know, I mean, I can’t fault them for that. I mean, they, they gave up next to nothing to get them, but it didn’t work out. They could have used him. They could have used him, or the idea of him anyway, on Sunday night. So, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 28:22
conversely, if he weren’t an idiot, he could have used them.
Luke Jones 28:25
Well, think about it, not just dude,
Nestor Aparicio 28:29
he could have the last four weeks they, like the Texans wanted
Luke Jones 28:33
them to. I mean, either one of those teams, like, yeah, anyway, I don’t want to get off on a tangent too much with him, but, you know, I’ll hear wide receiver, sure. I think offensive line, whether we’re talking Stanley at left tackle, you know what happens there? You may be right. Maybe the Ravens do value him more than any other team out there. But what? What takes us one right?
Nestor Aparicio 28:52
And how are you going to improve upon him? And what’s it going to cost you? And that’s the thing I mean. And let me be clear, what are they picking? 20, what you know, they’ll what? They’ll be 2032 Yeah, 2727
Luke Jones 29:09
27 because Detroit, Detroit will be 28 There you go, right. Detroit, they lost, right, yeah, and they had the better record, um, but, but you know, you you look at that with Stanley, for example, he was healthy. Was he all pro Ronnie Stanley all year? No, I thought he played really well over the first half of the season. I think the second half of the season, he was closer to fine than Pro Bowl level, which, hey, if, if he, if you can pay him to be that, if you can pay him as that fine. But if you know, if he has designs that he’s going to be anywhere close to the the tax bracket he was in when the Ravens signed him five years ago, then no way. You
Nestor Aparicio 29:48
know, what’s fascinating is all the first 25 years of the franchise, I was completely glued in to knowing how they really feel right like, you know, I would always, even if they would lie. To me, but they didn’t. I mean, that’s the thing that’s so out of character for all this. When the story is written, if you run into the cost or horrible when I got behind closed doors with them, they were always, like, painfully honest, like they are what they’re off the record stuff with you, where you know exactly how they felt about Jermaine Illumina as an example, or how they really felt about Earl Thomas in the end and what that they didn’t want to go down that road again, even in the aftermath of Ray Rice and the embarrassment of all of that that they have managed to mainly steer clear of jurisprudence related issues, their biggest issues of this off season probably won’t be a player punching his wife in an elevator or having a drug overdose, although that happened two years ago. You know, he had a baseball player here in Brian Mattis. I mean, these are young people. There’s, you know, they’ve had tragedy down in South Florida with one of their draft picks a decade ago as well. You know, these weird instances of all the things that can go right or wrong in the off season, but they are, in a general sense, as stable as stable as stable can be. And they pick their players. They love their players, they sign their players, they retain their players. This goes back to John Ogden and Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, like it’s been a different kind of organization in that way. And I really think, had I been getting together in the off season with Eric the cost and John Harbaugh, like I always did for hours at a time, and vibing them through the roster and where they are on, what they really think of Marlin Humphrey, what they really think of Tyler Linder bomb, how they feel about Rosengarten at this point, clearly, the Kyle Hamilton thing. I don’t need to ask about that, right? Like he is the next statue for them in their mind, in your mind, probably as well. And they have to figure that out with money, right? They have all these moving parts. I don’t know how in love they are with Stanley, and I don’t know how in love they are with Mark Andrews, in a general sense to say, like watching Zach Ertz run around for the Redskins, right, or the commanders, right, like where as well as Travis Kelsey and his beautiful girlfriend running around with the Chiefs later on. I don’t know how they value Andrews when they have likely and they could say, All right, it’s time. And now Eric’s tolerance for this financially and otherwise and in the framework of the offense, and dude, Pat ricards hung around two years longer than we thought he would. Right. Yeah, right. I mean, they find roles for people they like. And that speaks to who Harbaugh is, um and, and har balls directing this as much as it’s thought to be Eric’s team. Come on, man. They live next door to each other. They meet over horses, and they’re, they’re beautiful farm in northern Baltimore County, and they, you know that there’s Kumbaya and all this, they’re in this together, and they take this loss together, and they’ve taken a lot of losses together and not enough wins this time of year, with Lamar on top of it, Humphrey Stanley Andrews, who else has been a part of the pudding here, Justin Tucker. Throw him in there, because he’s been a part of it been around a little longer, um, than any of them. But you know it look, the fact that you have a press pass, and I don’t, tells you how us against them, they all are, and the protection of Chad Steele and Andrews doesn’t even show up and show face after the game, which all the other teammates had to do that, as you’ve brought out several times. I change happens, and sometimes change is good. I mean, you know, they got rid of camp. Cameron won the Super Bowl. The Buffalo Bills cashed in everything in the off season, people thought they were quitting their a point and a half dog or whatever. What are they? It’s a point and a half. Finally, whatever they are, I don’t bet on this stuff. Um, and they have a chance to go the Super Bowl. So these off season changes that are difficult with relationships and players, and he’s going to be in the Ring of Honor, but he’s making too much money, and he dropped a pay, and we don’t it’s just time. It’s just time. Yeah, maybe I, I don’t know where they are on Tucker, dude, you know what I mean? Are they going to come back with no season with Tucker? And how do they feel about that? And where are they with? Because they could easily, easily, whether it’s Bucha or not, sell it to you and me easily. I can make a case right now to be king prick and go out to Owings Mills and sit with Eric like we used to, and just say you’re done with Stanley, right? I don’t know my you know, I would, that’s the vibe I would get. I would say, um, you got to be thrilled with Hamilton. We’re signing him. Don’t even think it’d be like, whatever it’s it’s gonna cost us a lot of money, but that’s gonna get done. Don’t worry about that. Where are you in Humphrey at this point? Well, he makes a lot. Of money. Had a good year? Um, yeah, I don’t know. You know, Would you trade him for a two right now get you know, and I don’t think you would. I don’t think they like their back end enough. I don’t know how they feel about Wiggins. A year in, he’s out on the field. They like him. You mentioned our Darius Washington, how they really feel about a guy that size and the way they want to play defense, which is Hamilton. I’m getting deep now, 10 hours after the game, Hamilton up. But I love football, and I could sit here and go all night with this, um, but I do think there’s a point where you tap Ronnie Stanley, Justin Tucker, Mark Andrews, maybe not Humphrey, although I’m not a Humphrey guy. I just, I’m not. I don’t think he’s a winner. That’s just me. I I would fumigate that I like. I just would, but that’s me. I want a different might have been their best defensive player this year. I agree with you, and I’m saying, if I’m with him, I I have a pre pro preponderance to like certain people and not certain people. I’ve always loved Zach or so. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as a defense coordinator, because I think he’s a good human and I think he’s a smart guy, he’s a good football player, like just all of that. I’m not ready to give certain guys that I know. I know, Mark Andrews, I don’t need to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I was around him enough I Ronnie Stanley, ditto, that I need to as a media member, fanboy, pretend General Manager, tough guy, columnist, get my mike. Preston going here, counting my beans on my money and where I am, I don’t doesn’t matter how I feel. Bro matters how they feel. And I used to have a real sense always for what direction they might go in I don’t know, so I’m guessing I would say as the Monday morning, you know, coffee boy use just watches the games on TV now to watch Chad Steele, Preen around in the post game behind all of his players. I could be done with Andrews. I could be done with Stanley if I had if I had a solution, if I had a solution, if I wanted to reallocate resources. I saw Andrew’s a $16 million cap number. I did a little bit of work on this, because I’m going to be writing about his act Sunday night in the little locker room in Buffalo when it’s 10 degrees and the media has to come out of the press box into eight degrees and walk the length of the stadium, around the stadium, I saw the one woman that probably doesn’t deserve a press pass who has one running around there in the cold, didn’t know where she was going, like I saw her tweeting about it. I’m thinking, Sis, you got a press pass? Go enjoy yourself. I’m sitting here with my cat in my lap eating pizza John’s. So after 30 years of building an empire for media so well, what is media and who has a press pass, and how Mark Andrews can run for you, and then you how you can hold him accountable. I’ll hold him accountable because it’s wrong. It lacks integrity. It lacks integrity top down. But that doesn’t shock me. You saw me running the Bucha Ian, Eric, the cost on a on a veranda 10 months ago. And where’s Bucha? D Where’s nobody else is going to say that. Where’s the shotty to answer questions. So all of that, I’m just guessing. I’m guessing they better have a plan at left tackle. Stan Lee, to me, it’s not good enough moving forward, right? But I don’t know what their plan is. And they got $50 million into the quarterback. And let’s go play the Feud. Everything we did with Flacco. Let’s do that with Lamar. How much money are we going to spend on this player? That player, Hamilton’s going to be? How much is Hamilton going to be? He’s he going to be a 25 $30 million player? 30, if they use him the way they want to use him up on the line, and he really starts becoming an absolute
Luke Jones 38:48
unicorn, yeah, I’m trying. I’m pulling up the highest paid safeties right now, the highest paid safety which again, is he a safety? Are you safety? Yeah, right. The Highest Paid safety right now, has an average annual value. It’s Antoine Winfield of the box, $21 million
Nestor Aparicio 39:06
so he’s 23 at
Luke Jones 39:08
least. I mean, he could be 25 right? Okay, that’s why I said 25 right? No, no, I’m just, I’m just saying
Nestor Aparicio 39:13
so that, you know, so now, who is your left tackle? You’ve got a tight end solution, and likely that you could say, look, Mark, drop the ball. Let him go play for the Cardinals. Let him go. You know, it’s fine. He’ll probably, you know, whatever he does, we have a solution there. I’m trying to think of solutions and ball players, right? Like they have linebacking issues, right? They do. I mean, they were running around Chris board and Simpson, and what they’re going to do there,
Luke Jones 39:39
I’m not spending money on another linebacker. I mean, is roquan Smith. Did he play like a $20 million
Nestor Aparicio 39:45
linebacker? Well, you said he wouldn’t two years ago, and that’s you were the first one. And
39:49
to be clear, he played better the second half of the year. But, you know, to refocus us a little bit, because when you you asked me about free agents, Marcus Williams, going to be gone, Ronnie Stanley, we’re going to see right? I mean. 31 the injury history. He was healthy this year. He played well, but not outstanding football over the course of the full season. So what do you do there? However, Patrick McCarry is also a free agent, so if now you’re talking about two offensive line spots, where are you with Daniel falay? He played better than expected, but are you ready to say he’s going to be my next Marshall yonder for the next five, six years? So the offensive line, while they played, they exceeded expectations relative to where we thought they could be over the course of the season, and where we thought they were going to be in training camp. There’s still, I think there, that’s, there’s work to do there, right? Whether you’re going to draft a guard, whether you’re going to draft to draft another tackle. I think one of the bright spots, I think Roger Rosengarten played really well as the year went on. And I know this from having talked to people before the season, their main contingency plan had Stanley gotten hurt, as he’s apt to do, was not necessarily to just put Patrick McCarey there like they did in the past. My understanding was they, they would have considered putting rose and garden at left tackle. So I’m not saying that means he’s going to be your bona fide left tackle the future. However, if you go into the draft and say, a tackle that you really like is there in the first round, second round, in the same way that Rosengarten was there in the second round. Perhaps that’s your left tackle of the future, and maybe you play Rosengarten at left tackle for 2025 I don’t know. You know, I’m spitballing. That’s So Eric to say, not only are we going to draft the right tackle the second round is going to be a solid Orlando brownie kind of right tackle, but a guy that we think might be a left tackle in his third or fourth year, and maybe he’s the guy we give money to that’s not top of school left tackle, but good enough. And yeah, I mean that, that that’s not that wouldn’t shock me, right? And let me be clear, I’m not at all saying I would not resign Ronnie Stanley, but I need to know what it is, right again, if he he has thoughts that he’s going to be paid anywhere close to being a $20 million left tackle again, I mean, I’m just, I’m not doing that. I have to ask. I’m asking Who else, and that’s why I said, I think, I think there very much are some thoughts that Roger Rosengarten, at the very least, can be solid there. And I don’t think, I think ideally, you know, in a perfect world, you you draft a left tackle, or Stanley signs for two, three, a two, three year deal at, you know, okay, starter money at left tackle, and you’d let that play out. But, you know, I think there are some thoughts that Rosengarten could play left tackle and that. But then the question is, who’s right tackle? And as I mentioned, McCary is a free agent. Yeah, the rest of their list of free agents. But because we mentioned it, I want to at least give it, you know, a little bit of oxygen. You know, I don’t, at this time a year ago, there was a lot of thoughts about Brandon Stevens. And, you know, would you give him a long term deal? He didn’t play well enough this year. I mean, I mean, I think Brandon Stevens will probably get a decent contract somewhere else to go be a starting out outside corner. And I think you let him do that, and you’ll take the comp pick. You know, I think with Marlon Humphrey, because you mentioned him, he’s going to be entering the final year of his deal. I think his cap number is some somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 next year, I’d consider giving him an extension. That’s how well he played this year. Now I know what you had to say about him, but we said this was going to be a pivotal year. The guy stayed healthy, and he played at a very high level, arguably the best year of his career, certainly one of the two best years. I don’t think you want to start the season without him next year. She, yeah, yeah, oh, I don’t think there’s any way you caught him. I mean, I you know, suddenly you’re like, okay, even if you like, Nate Wiggins,
Nestor Aparicio 43:48
well, I mean, to your point, he feels to me to be the kind of guy that he’ll get cranky, either behind closed doors or wherever to get this is his time to get paid again, right? I mean, that is a story. He he he is a guy right now as cranky as Lamar got a couple years ago. He’s a cranky he’s a guy that will say, you know, come back and play last year on my deal. What are we doing here? I mean, come on, give me some money. Give me some I played hard for you, and I could, and that would be fair on his behalf. That’s fair. Yeah,
Luke Jones 44:17
yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I mean, with Humphrey, actually, I was wrong. This isn’t the last year of his deal. He 20 he’s under contract through 26 I was wrong about that. My apologies. With a $20 million cap number, right? You know, it’s 25 this year. So that’s where you look at that and say, okay, you know. And I’m using Numbers from over the cap.com you know, which is, to me, the over across the league, the best resource, and looking at contracts, things of that nature, but he in base salary, 14 and then 15.2 in 2026 so you look at that, how do you take that, those numbers, and maybe give them a four year extension, you know, something like that, understanding that it probably be a three year. Contract, right? I mean, we know how these deals work, so, so you’d look at that. But you know, you look at the rest of their free agents, you know, tredavius white, he’s not going to be back. There’s no reason to think he would be Aguilar not, probably not going to be back. Ricard, you know, I no reason to think you wouldn’t bring him back. And I, you know, there’s not going to be a high demand for Patrick. Ricard, we, we’ve seen that play out. He’s hit the market before even as a pro bowl fullback. But, you know, Malik Harrison, Josh Jones, Josh Johnson, Brent urban, Steven Sims, Chris board, I mean, you know, as I mentioned, Brandon Stevens, Ben Cleveland, Christian Welch. I mean, these, you know, our Darius Washington is going to be a restricted free agent. So there’s a conversation, at least, in terms of, there’s a guy you don’t want to lose. Oh, you’re not right and, but the question would be, do you just tender him, or do you give him a contract, which you’re not going to break the bank, he’s not going to break the bank. But, you know, do you give him a contract in the way that they gave Broderick Washington a contract extension a couple years ago, you know, something that gives him some real money, but it’s not crazy, you know. So, so, you know, but, but the point is, that list of names I just gave you, it’s not as though they have six or seven high priority free agents that are going to be hit in the market, where you say, oh my gosh, what are they going to do? You know, it’s Stanley, it’s McCary, and then after that, it’s, you know, role players, right? I mean, what are you going to do? So, you know, I think ideally they’d love to bring Patrick McCary back. I think ideally you’d want them to move back into that six man role, though, right? I don’t know if you want to start the year with designs of him being your starting left guard again. I think that worked out okay, but I think you’d like to find a long term answer there. So I, as I see their roster, I still think the offensive line, you know, even, even if they do bring Stanley back, I still think you’d look at the offensive line in terms of, you’d like to add another really legitimate piece there via the draft or, you know, whether it be a veteran and free agent, I think they’d probably try to go the draft route.
Nestor Aparicio 46:57
You know, I mentioned wide receiver in passing, I guess, you know, I’ll say this. I mean, to your point, if you would move on from Mark Andrews, you’re going to need another pass catcher. You don’t want to just go into it with Isaiah likely, and then zay flowers and Bateman, and that’s it. You’re going to need another one then. And we know, move on from Andrews, but he’s $70 million player. I mean, like I There comes a point where the value, well, I just, I’m just saying you presented that possibility. Somebody comes in into a conversation they got kicking dirt. I mean, I’m trying to figure out how they get a Super Bowl winning roster next year, because this year’s over with. And to your point, the offensive line is going to be different. The team’s going to be different. But the things that they did, well, the things that they like to do. Ricard King, Henry, you know, the two tight end sat having the speed of flowers out there, which they lacked the other night. And then whatever Bateman is at this point, you talked about extending guys. They gave him some money last off season to give him a kiss on the cheek. So to our point, it feels like, well, there’s not a whole lot that they’re gonna do. It feels like they’re drafting low 27th which what can they do? And then you think, well, free agency, what do they ever do? So there’s no splash coming. There’s no big off season thing. The next big thing that happens for them is going to be the when the schedule comes out, and who they’re playing, and whatever offensive lineman they take with the 27th pick, or whatever, you know, whoever they’re going to pick at that point, at the bottom of the bottom of the draft, because that’s what happened when you play divisional weekend. You know what I mean? You pick, you pick in the low 20s, and it’s hard to find the right kinds of players there, certainly wide receivers. And the things that we’ve talked about over the years is what’s still there. You get a good center, well, they did that. You know, they’ve they’ve done those you get a safety that turns out to be all world. Well, they did that. So, you know, they have
Luke Jones 48:52
to pay those two. You got to pay those two guys either this off season or next off season. They
Nestor Aparicio 48:57
drafted the ED reeds and the and the Ray Lewis is down there. And they’ve drafted some Todd heaps and some other real serviceable players at the end of the they also had some Lamar Jackson draft at the end of the first red so Luke Jones series, Baltimore, Luke, it’s beginning of the beginning of the off season. If you want to hear us yell about Mark Andrews dropping the ball, we’ve done plenty of that. If you want to hear about the game plan, we talked to plenty of that. And this is what we’re left to do, either that or just throw darts at Mark Andrews all day long, or or John Harbaugh, or whatever you Lamar for kicking the ball around, whatever the perceived issues are, this is what happens when you lose a big ball game, and especially when you’re in a position to win the game that I mean, that’s the real heartache of this loop. They didn’t go out and lose 31 to 14, kick it around four times and really get their ass kicked. The game was sitting there with a minute and a half left to go to extend the season. And they’re going to have to live with that for a lot forever.
Luke Jones 49:56
Yeah. I mean, it’s like we said, you know, 2009 19 to the Titans. They they fell behind big in that game, but since then, 20 Teron Johnson picks six against Lamar, you know, it turned a seven point game into a two touchdown loss. 21 they didn’t make the playoffs, of course. 22 Tyler Huntley at the goal line. I get it. No one thought they were going to make a deep run, but they had a chance to upset the bangles. I mean, they’re, you know, I mean, it’s still excruciating in the moment for these guys, even though Lamar wasn’t out there, they were trying to win, and they had a shot. And then, you know, last year you had say, flowers, Lamar turning the ball over and and then, I mean, you have what happened on Sunday night, which, again, the mark Andrews drop is going to go down right there with with Lee Evans and Billy Cundiff, other than the fact that that was the championship game. But you know, you don’t expect a Ring of Honor kind of player to make that kind of a mistake. Again, you throw a pick of defenders on the other side to catch it right. You fumble the ball, in most cases, the defenders knocking it out. That ball wasn’t knocked away from Mark Andrews or wasn’t it, you know, just catch it again. I hate to say it, but anyone you know the truth is the truth. I mean, you’d expect a high school kid to catch that, and he’d be the first to tell you that, you know, if he had talked Sunday night, I suppose. But it’s just, yeah, it’s a long, long January, long February, long, off season, long, OTAs, long training camp, long, 2025 regular season. And unfortunately, there’s been a whole lot of that here in recent years, because this team has been so good in the regular season. Not so good in January. He
Nestor Aparicio 51:40
is Lou Jones. He is Baltimore Luca. He will be in Owings most cleaning out the lockers this week. You’ll find it all out at Baltimore positive. We’re getting the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. Now the Ravens have lost cancel flights to Kansas City. Was that that cancel my flight from going nowhere? Um, yeah, that sounds like a song. Man, I had barbecue, dude, you and I were like, ready to paint it up, man, I had Q 39 all set up Jack stack. I was going to do a double barbecue. And then, you know, my wife’s like, you’re bringing some home, right? And now, all of a sudden, it’s like, what a mail order. I click online. Maybe what I people do here with fade these crab cakes or Cocos or cause the order online. And I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m watching football this weekend like everyone else, and lamenting the loss that I’ve eaten my final Nacho mamas, salsa and wasadilla. We’re just, we’re on to something new around here. It’s a new season. It’s, it’s baseball season. So I’ll be here to ask Mr. Rubenstein some questions, and I could, I could transfer all those Kansas City points that flight to Sarasota. So maybe, maybe it’s not a flight to nowhere. Maybe it’s a flight into spring training. Yeah, we never stopped talking Baltimore sports or Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
