The New York Giants are a terrible football team. The Ravens go to the Meadowlands as whopping 16-point favorites on Sunday as Luke Jones and Nestor discuss a busy next 10 days and ways that the AFC North can still be won before January.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens favorites, Giants matchup, Super Bowl odds, Justin Tucker, defensive improvement, offensive line, special teams, injury report, playoff scenario, Pittsburgh game, Kansas City, Buffalo, health standpoint, penalties, win streak
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Ravens’ upcoming game against the Giants and their Super Bowl prospects. The Ravens are favored by 16 points against the Giants, who are struggling with a third-string quarterback. Jones emphasized the importance of winning out, including beating the Steelers, to stay in AFC North contention. He highlighted the need for improved special teams, offensive line consistency, and defensive takeaways. Despite their 8-5 record, the Ravens face a tough schedule with potential playoff games against top teams like Kansas City and Buffalo. Jones stressed the importance of clean play and capitalizing on opponents’ mistakes to make a deep playoff run.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 tasks of Baltimore and Baltimore positive. We hope you’re setting a spot on your radio dial if you’re driving around. I’m astonished by how much traffic there is out on 695 during the holiday. So I hope some of you have am 1570 on your dial if you do watch us on YouTube, or you find us out on the socials, all of our crab cake tours are brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ve been fast and furious with the crab cakes. We were at fatal ease. This week, Damien broke out all the shipping stuff and all the stuff that they’re doing down there. I had this crab Christmas thing and ornaments and cookies that look like crabs and and then we talked about politics a lot. The Democratic National Party had Robbie Leonard down as well as Matt Gallagher. Ruffin Bell joined me from COVID state. We talked about our partnership with COVID state and the holidays. And they just won a big ladies game last week against Arizona State. Played played NC State pretty tough the other night on the men’s side as well. Those games are available at am 1570 as well. Our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care are also sending us out on the road for our crab cake tour. We will be at AMI cheese on Tuesday. Don’t tell anybody they don’t have a crab cake there. They don’t, but I’m doing the show there anyway, because I love them, and it’s sort of my Arnolds. If this were happy days, and these are all happy days, because they’re playing the Giants this week, uh, Wednesday, we will be wrapping things up at Costas, established in 1971 I was established in 68 we’re looking forward to getting over there one day I’m going to get mister Costas to Kelly. Come on and like, tell me the whole story about how he came to Dundalk with $5 in his pocket. And turn cost us in into what it is, which is a place you should be joining us next Wednesday under the Christmas tree, and I’m trying to wrangle friends, neighbors, dundalkians and but not Luke Jones, because he’s going to be too busy swept up in all of this football, Saturday Night Football, Wednesday night football, Christmas night football, no Sunday football. I’m looking at my Sunday schedule during the holidays. And I’m like, I’m going to get some ish done. Um, I don’t say a normal week out there. Luke, right? Like, this extra rest, they’re trying to treat it like it’s normal. It’s a one o’clock Sunday game. It’ll be the only thing it’s normal. The line opened at 15. I don’t know where it is right now, but it’s a lot. And you know, you’ve been out there sort of witnessing this cooling off period for Justin Tucker, the tallying off period of losing and being two games behind the Steelers now, and what they’re doing defensively on the back end, and just getting ready to look at the reality of the task ahead, as you and I have done, which is, this is not an easy, easy path to the Super Bowl for them, and it really this next 1011, days. They got to play great flip. They got to be, I don’t say flawless, but they need to win these games,
Luke Jones 02:54
all of them. Yeah. I mean, if they have, if they have any designs on winning the AFC north, they have to win out. I mean, it’s obvious when you’re too back, and obviously that entails beating the Steelers. That entails the Steelers losing not just one other game, but when you kind of go through, I mean, you can do this. You can go on ESPN website, and they have the playoff machine where you can click on all the different scenarios, you know, a lot of the tiebreakers, when you start going through the list beyond head to head. So if the Ravens beat the Steelers, obviously it’s there’s they split beyond division record, you start getting into some of into the weeds of some of those other tie breakers. A lot of them don’t work out in the Ravens favors. So when you kind of look at this, I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but you’re really looking at the Ravens obviously needing to win out, including beating Pittsburgh in what 10 days now, nine days, whatever it is, and and needing Pittsburgh to lose a couple more games beyond that. Now, as I pointed out to you earlier this week, when you look at the Steelers schedule coming up and knowing that they play Philadelphia, they play Kansas City, they play the Ravens on the road. Of course, it’s not impossible, but to your point, there’s no margin for error here. There’s certainly no room no discussion whatsoever about the Ravens going up to the Meadowlands and not taking care of business there. I mean, if they don’t, then, shame on them. They’re not going to, they’re not going to win the division, and they’re going to be talking about barely, you know, at that point, holding on to a wild card spot. So this is tough to your point. It’s a normal week in the sense that you’re playing Sunday at one o’clock, but you know what follows? You have a short week after that, with the Steelers coming to town a week from Saturday and and then you have the the Christmas game after that. You know, going to Houston against the Texans team. That hasn’t been great, but it’s still a division leader at this point in time. So it’s tough. I mean, it absolutely is. I mean, this first game isn’t tough, but knowing what you have on the back end of that. But you know, even though, if it’s not a talking point during meetings, you know, it’s in the back of the minds of the coaching staff to if you can take care of business and get a lead and build the kind of lead that you should build against a team that has two wins on the season and is playing their you know, what amounts to their third string quarterback at this point in time, and look at their injury report, and look at the guys on IR. You know, this is the kind of game if, if things go the way that you’re capable of playing, you could be able to be have the luxury of resting some guys in the fourth quarter, knowing you have a quicker turnaround and then a really quick turnaround after that. So, you know, obviously they need to win. And obviously, hey, this team lost to the Raiders back in week two, and you see what their record is now. This team lost to the Browns back in week eight. We know where the Browns are record wise. So you can’t take any anything for for granted. You can’t make any assumptions. But in an ideal world, that line being what it is, yeah, you’d have the kind of lead in the fourth quarter where you can pull some of your very best guys with 10 minutes to go and start looking ahead to Pittsburgh.
Nestor Aparicio 06:07
Well, it does set up to be that kind of game. It’s 16 now, yeah, so I mean,
06:13
went for 1514, and a half. I mean, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 06:17
like second division, you know European soccer at this point, but you know all that being said for this team and how it shapes up for Pittsburgh, and having watched Pittsburgh play last week, and as you’ve pointed out, I don’t know that everybody knows this, but certainly Steelers have a really tough schedule, man, including this week. You know we’re going to sit around and watch them play after we’re sitting around skating at 330 and Lamar has got his hat turned backwards, up in New Jersey, right? And they’re ordering, you know, cannoli to go, you know. But the Steelers have a tough road as well, and, you know, there’s some vibe about them being two games ahead. And you and I didn’t even really talk about this much earlier in the week, but like that, they’re a paper two game lead. You know that they’re not Russell Wilson’s just not the old Russell Wilson, but I don’t know, through a lot of touchdowns last year, not a lot of interceptions, and got whacked out of there and didn’t have a job for five or six weeks here, and finally worked his way in. And all they don’t, they haven’t lost. They don’t lose, you know? So it is. It’s like looking at Patrick mahomes and saying, Well, it’s not impressive enough. Well, to your point, earlier in the week, Borough has been pretty impressive as an individual, but that hasn’t won a many games in Cincinnati, but Kansas City and you know, Buffalo wasn’t very impressive on the road in LA, they certainly weren’t very impressive on the road in Baltimore earlier in the year. And you look at these teams, but but Pittsburgh, of all of them, we still sit here and scratch our heads and say, How does Tomlin do it every year? Always above 500 doesn’t matter who their quarterback is and and you can go through the trash pail of their quarterbacks, and I probably shall next week with Charlie batch for the holidays, because it makes me feel nice to bring him on. And I think we look at them and say, how are they doing that? And, and it’s not impressive, and they’re not beat down victories. And but you know what? They don’t rack up 12 penalties for 140 yards in a game. They you know what I mean. That they’re the what they’re doing is different than what they do here, and certainly defensively, Pittsburgh’s, you know, the lunch pail packs with that, and that’s what they should be worried about next week. Because I don’t think we’re thinking enough about the defense around here and why the five losses are the five losses kick, the kicker, if you want. And, you know, make chicken jokes and do anything you want on that end. But they got five losses at this point. They’re two games back, and it’s two weeks before Christmas. They’re not on schedule, like you like to say, you know,
Luke Jones 08:50
no. I mean, no way. I mean, I’ve written this, we’ve talked about it on the air. I mean, you know me, I’m an analytics guy. I’ve cited DVO a for years now, when we talk about different measures, beyond just talking about win loss record, or beyond the traditional counting stats, you know, yards per game, different things like that, but at some point in time that needs to align with what you’re doing when the scoreboard what the scoreboard looks like when the clock hits triple zeros. And this team hasn’t been able to do that. Now, all’s not lost. Eight and five is not terrible, right? I mean, eight and five has them comfortably in a wild card spot right now. But that’s not inspiring from a standpoint of, you know, we already know the number one seeds out of the picture, and the first round buys out of the picture, the divisions and uphill climb. I mean, depending on which site you want to look at in terms of trying to forecast their odds, you know, there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a 25 to 30% to win the division. And you know that might even be on the kind side when you kind of look at it, albeit acknowledging that the Steelers daunting schedule that they have over the Final Four games as well. No, but you need to go out and do it. And it’s not just one thing. Justin Tucker is a big part of it. He has been when you consider these close losses and the missed kicks he’s had, it’s an absolute huge part about it, just like we’ve talked about with the defense and the improvement the defense made before the bye week, it absolutely coincided with Marcus Williams being benched. I mean, I’m not saying that’s all of it, but it doesn’t lie like your eyes don’t lie in that case, where you say that was a major part of the problem. And obviously they’ve done some things scheme wise, to simplify and keep things in front of them. They’ve limited the big plays, but they need to continue that. And I asked Zach gore and Kyle Hamilton over the last week in terms of, okay, defense played better in Pittsburgh, albeit in a loss, played well out in LA against the chargers and even against the Eagles. I think if you were divvying up the blame, okay, the the run defense leaked in the fourth quarter against saquon Barkley. But by and large, you’ll, you’ll take that defensive effort. You know, it was much more the offense and Justin talk Tucker not doing what they needed. There is
Nestor Aparicio 11:03
a thing about sucking up time in fourth quarter that sure field and sure bite off the field the one score game. How good is your day? You know, I understood,
Luke Jones 11:11
but, but at the same time, this run defense hasn’t been the problem whatsoever this year, right? Saquon Barkley is in the MVP discussion right now. I mean, we’re talking about a very special exception there. Now, if I don’t think Tyrone Tracy for the Giants is going to run the ball on them with any level like that, but hey,
Nestor Aparicio 11:29
you got to stop Josh Allen and Patrick mahomes If you have a touchdown lead on the road on a cold day, right? I mean, yeah, like so, but, but I guess to stop the beat the best. If you’re right defense you’re gonna have to show up against that, no
Luke Jones 11:42
question. But the point I was trying to make in terms of what’s next, they’ve limited up. They’ve limited the big plays the past. Defense has tightened up. I mean, it absolutely has. It’s been much more average to slightly above average, at the very least, over the last three games they had played before the bye week. And hey, that’s coming a long way from where it had been, right? I mean, with what Joe burrow and Jamar Chase were doing and even some quarterbacks earlier in the season, remind
Nestor Aparicio 12:07
me to ask you about Hamilton off the line of scrimmage in in regard to how that’s gotten better. Well,
Luke Jones 12:13
that that’s a that’s a big part of it. I mean, you don’t see him make the the same impact splash plays, but his coverage has been really good on the back end, and that’s one of the reasons why teams haven’t been throwing it over their heads. Our Darius Washington, same thing with him, but when I asked them what the next step is, Hamilton, he gave a really cerebral answer, and he kind of talked about it through the lens of we’ve been playing better, but even in some of those games before the buy, we were really focused on being a little bit softer in coverage and keeping the ball in front of us and not giving up big plays. The next step for us is now, since we’ve established that and assignments have been cleaned up, communications been cleaned up, all of that, the next step is to become more of an attacking defense again. And I think a big thing that Zach Gore mentioned about that when I asked him over the bye week was takeaways. I mean, they have 11 takeaways on the season. That’s 23rd in the league. Interestingly enough. I mean, we kind of forget not just that. The Ravens led the league in takeaways last year. They’re tied with the Giants and takeaways last year, which makes it ironic that the fact they’re facing New York on Sunday, but you know, that’s something they’re looking at. I mean, they have seven interceptions on the season. Nestor, five of them are from Marlon Humphrey. So they have two picks all year from players not named Marlon Humphrey. Well, they dropped five and they dropped they did, yeah, and that’s part of it, right? And that’s part of when you’re trying to gage and judge not what a defense has done to that point in time, but what they’re going to do moving forward, that’s where you do take some more, like
Nestor Aparicio 13:45
say, how many sacks do they have and where are they ranked? But where are the pressures? Right? Exactly? Yeah,
Luke Jones 13:50
exactly. And we’ve talked about that with the pass rush. The pass rush has been very feast or famine. When it works. It looks great when it when it’s not so great. It’s really
Nestor Aparicio 13:58
and you know when it works, when the T the offensive line is lousy, and you know when their offensive line doesn’t work, when they there have a one on one problem, you know when somebody can beat you on every play, you’re in trouble.
Luke Jones 14:10
Yeah, we’ve talked about it with the Ravens offensive line, where it’s held up against the more average fronts that they’ve played, but when they face really good fronts, and specifically, teams that seem to have good interior defensive lineman, they’ve really struggled Well, right? It exposes your guards? Yeah, exactly. And we know that their guards are, you know, it’s a guy that’s been a swing offensive tackle, primarily in Patrick McCarry, and a guy that was a backup right tackle with Daniel Fauci. So, so, so, yeah, I mean, but to go back to the defense, look, there’s nothing about this game on Sunday that’s going to earn you league wide style points. I mean, we’re not talking about that, but I do think it’s an opportunity for them to take the next step that Kyle Hamilton was talking about in terms of, you know, not just saying, Hey, we’re going to keep everything in front of us, but can we get back to the. Point where we’re picking our spots, where we attack, and we’re trying to third string
Nestor Aparicio 15:04
quarterback, right, exactly. And there’s tape and there, and you’re better than them across the board. Vegas says so. Everybody says, So, right? Like at some point, this has got to be the week you get three picks. This has got to be the week you strip a ball. This has got to be a week that drew lock is seven for 24 for 91 yards in. Drew locks
Luke Jones 15:25
not playing. It’s Tommy DeVito. Tommy DeVito, I’m sorry, it’s fine. I even struggle to keep track of it too. Yeah, even worse,
Nestor Aparicio 15:31
but there’s, there’s less tape on him. But either way, you should be able to overwhelm an inferior quarterback, and I don’t know, I mean, I still think of roquan Smith as a guy who can wreck a game. I think of Matt abika. I look at what they have up front. I look at Marlon UMP. I look at Kyle Hamilton in a normal role, safety role, as you would say, and say, This attack part of like playing a preseason kind of game with this team, right? It like 16 points to consider the Giants. That’s how bad it is. And I don’t know that they’re just going to waltz this week. I would like to think that Derrick Henry and Lamar can have some fun this week that the offensive line that they could control the ball get three and out. Control the ball get three and out. Games over 340 they win 31 to six. Come home and get ready for the Steelers. That’s my dream scenario. I don’t know that I would predict that. I mean, you know, the Giants have been relatively scrappy to some degree, despite the fact that they have no quarterback play, which automatically kills you in every circle. If you don’t have a quarterback that can play, you can’t, you can’t stay four quarters with anybody because you can’t control the ball. But this feels to me to be that kind of game where, like on Monday morning, I don’t say we’re laughing about it, but we should be feeling really good come out of it healthy feeling like this is a confidence boost for Pittsburgh next week. I don’t want to see them on the struggle Sunday, or have any excuses about why they’re struggling or missing kicks, like, let’s go. Let’s make it a new season. I’m sure John’s pitching that out there. They should come out with some some crispness this week, given the buy and all of that, and look like a playoff team. Look like a nine and five team. Yeah,
Luke Jones 17:26
I think that’s fair. I mean, for me, check boxes, right? Justin Tucker, make all your kicks. Offensive line, hey, one thing I’ll mention about this giants defense, which is not good overall. They don’t have Dexter Lawrence, ogil Laurie, was one of the edge rushers that was talked about quite a bit at the trade deadline. He’s on IR, but they still have Brian burns. They still have Kayvon Thibodeau. I mean, you know, and obviously, the if you took a look at the early week injury report, there are a ton of guys on the injury report for the Giants, but, you know, they do still have some good players here and there. So I want to see a clean, clean performance from the offensive line. I want to see what answers they found there. I’m not anticipating changes there, but hey, you never know, right? I mean, we saw changes back in September when things weren’t going great, but, but, yeah, I don’t think for me, it’s necessarily that, oh, I’ll feel all warm and fuzzy if they win by 30 points. But some of the things that have been issues, or some of the things that have been questions, I don’t want those
Nestor Aparicio 18:26
things to look first at 25 again. I just don’t want to see that sure
Luke Jones 18:30
and look for as much as we look at the line and we laugh and the giants are awful and they are I mean, this is a team that’s talking about getting the first overall pick and taking their next franchise quarterback that they’re going to have to replace in three years, because it probably won’t work out, because it’s giants at this point, but it’s still an NFL team, and the Ravens should know better than anybody that if you play with your food and you turn the ball over or you commit penalties, which has really been the problem for them offensively, in terms of times this year where it hasn’t gone as well. They haven’t turned the ball over a whole lot, except in the Pittsburgh game. But what percentage is
Nestor Aparicio 19:11
that of punts that they have where they have punted or been in fourth down and have to go for it based on penalties? I mean, like, Dude, I it feels like six to eight possessions a week. They’ve had a penalty somewhere along the line that’s effed up the operation.
Luke Jones 19:30
I mean, it either does or they have to overcome it. And this, this offense has been so great over the course of the season, generally speaking. Now not against Philadelphia, course, not against Pittsburgh, of course, but over the course of the season, think how many times they’ve scored touchdowns in spite of themselves committing those penalties and having to overcome those types of things. So, yeah, you want to clean those things up. It’s not, this is not going to be a raucous environment. They’re probably, probably a decent chance. Was going to be as many Ravens fans as Giants fans there on Sunday. If
Nestor Aparicio 20:03
people makes a couple of kicks and they’re 10 and two, the penalties get, like, sanitized, right? Like, all the sins go away. And we’re talking about because they’re eight and five, but it really, it’s made everything harder, like, and it, and there’s it, it doesn’t stop if, in the first quarter, if by 120 I’m tweeting or blue skying or fake, what the hell I’m doing out in the social media about penalties, they and that’s the problem. We’re in December, and they want to win a championship, and they have five losses, and we sit here and and point out all the pimples, because they’re not pimples. Now, they might be warts. They might be surgery, not, you know, like a little bit of the white cream. Well,
Luke Jones 20:52
again, you have to clean those things out up. But yeah, I mean Justin Tucker at this point, even if he goes three for three against the Giants, does it mean he’s fixed? Does that mean your confidence level is going to be where it neat, where you’d like it to be if they need to make a kick to beat Pittsburgh, or they need to make a kick to beat the Texans on on Christmas, or forget about those games, if they’re on the road in Buffalo or on the road in Pittsburgh or on the road in Houston in January playing in a playoff game. So look, there’s nothing that’s fixing that confidence level other than Justin Tucker making every kick the rest of the season, right, and and looking like Justin Tucker next year too. So, so you have that the O line. I mean, look, and I saw lots of discourse about this with, you know, film, study. Type Twitter. You know people who you know, fans who watch the game, and some that are quite good in breaking down film, and people that I follow and say, hey, you know, I value your opinions. You know, at this point, do they think Ben Cleveland’s any better than ball a lay or McCary? I mean, there’s three and a half years now of evidence that suggests the Ravens don’t believe that, right, when it comes to Ben Cleveland, same with Voorhees, you know, compared to McCarry. I mean, if we see a change, we’ll, we’ll talk about it, but I’m not anticipating that until we see it so but, but with the O line, I mean, it’s the same thing. They’ve looked good against lesser units, you know, lesser defensive fronts, but when they’ve had their issues, it’s looked really bad, right? I mean, it’s there’s no middle ground. It either looks good against lesser competition, or it’s looked bad, and sometimes really bad against your more elite fronts. And the problem with that is not that every playoff team is going to be that, but Pittsburgh elite defensive front Kansas City has Chris Jones, even if their defense collectively hasn’t been quite as strong over the second half of the season. You know, buffalo, the Ravens did impressive work against them back in week four, but Buffalo has gotten healthier, you know, with getting some guys back and we’ll see. I mean, obviously
Nestor Aparicio 23:00
the game will be there, right? Sure, sure.
Luke Jones 23:03
So there’s, there’s always that, right? And we always try to do this, right? We always try to be cold there. And it’s the same thing with, you know, what, with Raven Steelers, or any of these rivalry games where you say, Okay, well, this happened in this game. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, right? It could be the exact opposite. So, so So, I mean, again, there’s not going to be anything that happens in this game that I think is going to drastically change anyone’s opinion, unless it’s something very negative, right? Unless it’s something, you know, if Justin Tucker goes over three and it’s windy up and then you’re saying, okay, they’ve got to bring in someone on the practice squad and look at this, because it coming out of the buy. It’s not any better, right? Heaven forbid you get an injury or two, because you look at their injury report right now, beyond the Deontay Johnson suspension, I mean, it’s a new C Kane is the only player not practicing this week, if rookie backup safety, so they’re as healthy as you could dream of being in mid December. At this point in time. Michael Pierce should be back on Sunday. You know, he’s practicing fully. I would think he’ll get activated for this game. I would assume so they’re, they’re as healthy as you could fathom. You know, back in December, when we windy mid
Nestor Aparicio 24:17
30s, by the way. Just so, you know, windy mid 30s in Anthro meadow land zone. So,
Luke Jones 24:21
so Justin Tucker, Hey, be ready. I mean, this is the kind of environment you’re going to be kicking in in January, if you’re still ravens kicker at that point. So, you know, I mean, that’s he knows that. But, but, yeah, you look at this team from a health standpoint, it back in May when the schedule came out, and knowing they had a week 14 by I mean, they couldn’t have dreamed any better in terms of what their health is right now. I mean, you really couldn’t. So that’s where, again, bad turf bet life, holding your breath, making sure you don’t get you know, you don’t have someone that turns an ankle the wrong way, or their knee goes the wrong way, right? I mean, it’s the last thing you. But, but that’s no different than anyone else, right? I mean, that’s, that’s the league, right? I mean, you’re trying to stay as healthy as possible. I mean, ask the 40 Niners who are injured again, and they’re on their way to to missing the playoffs the way it’s looking, barring a dramatic turnaround here. So, you know, this is one of those games where, you know, it kind of feels like there’s not a whole lot you can take away from it, other than just win the game first and foremost, and just check some of a few of those boxes, as we mentioned. And then it like I said, if you can play a clean enough game and an impressive enough game where you can be in a position with 10 minutes to go and say, Hey, let’s get Lamar out of there. Let’s get Derek Henry out of there. Let’s get roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey out of there. Can’t rest everybody, of course, but you can try to do that. But look, unlike last year, unlike some of their recent teams, even, even some of the years where, you know, they didn’t necessarily, weren’t necessarily the number one seed, go and look at the last five, six years. I mean, Ravens have had a lot of blowouts, and we talked about that. I mean, we’re not talking about the NFC thing this week because they’re coming off of a loss against an NFC team, but we know that
Nestor Aparicio 26:06
that’s but you can go back and see how many tweets I’m I’ve I’ve had saying, Why is Lamar in there? You know what? I mean, it gets to be 2124 28 I don’t know what that math is, but this better be one of those games where we’re thinking about that, at least hoping for that, but that said, they’ve only had a couple
Luke Jones 26:23
of those games this year, right? I mean, last year, you go back and find 456, games, 2019, famously, right? RG, three. Played a lot that year because Lamar was benched in fourth quarters, because they were blowing it, blowing it, blowing
Nestor Aparicio 26:35
they haven’t boat race teams because their defense had been any good. Well, that they’ve
Luke Jones 26:39
missed kicks, they’re committed penalties, right? I mean, it’s the same issues that that crop up that turn some of these games that could have been blowouts into games where you know, not that the outcome is in danger, like Tampa Bay is a perfect example, right? Remember, second half, they really jumped out to a big enough lead in that game where you exhaled, but they committed a turnover that, you know, like, what that weird lateral play that that happened, and their defense didn’t tackle very well late in the game. And, you know, some penalties, some big plays all that. And before you know it, it was a 10 point game again, late to the point where you couldn’t pull your starters and everything. So, so they’ve had some of that. So yeah. I mean, look on paper, even, even if both these teams were at full strength and the Giants at this point are are nowhere close to full strength. Ravens are much better than them from a talent level standpoint. But we’ve said that about some other games this year where, you know, it was
Nestor Aparicio 27:39
tight, yeah, Las Vegas.
Luke Jones 27:42
I mean, Cleveland, look at that game. I mean, there was another game where they catch the ball a couple times on defense, not only do they win the game, but you’re having a much different idea and perception of what the defense was in that game, because the fact that Jameis Winston threw it to them, what three different times and they dropped it, including Kyle Hamilton, the play before the game winner. So, you know, it’s just, there’s been a lot of that this year. So I think that’s where you’re hoping, you know, and this is where I get a little psychological, you know, a little bit of the mental side of this. You’re hoping that the bye week was good for them, from a standpoint of taking a long look at themselves and saying, Hey, what do we want to be? Right? I mean, we’re eight and five. That’s good. It’s not great, but it’s good. But do we want to be better than that? Are we going to be the team that can make a run and play deep into January and get to New Orleans, you know, play in the Super Bowl to your point, when you look at Kansas City and Buffalo and Pittsburgh and Houston and all these teams that are going to be in this AFC playoff field. They all have something about them that you don’t love, right? They all have something that isn’t as impressive, or something that could be a potential pitfall. I mean, that’s it’s the NFL. I mean, you rarely have a team that’s a juggernaut, right? I mean, the Ravens came close to that at the end of the regular season last year in terms of how they were perceived, and we saw how that turned out. So, you know, they’ve got to put it all together. Now. Guys have talked about it these last couple weeks where, you know, for most of the year, it was the offense leading the way. Special teams have been a problem all year, not just Justin Tucker, but other elements of the special teams and the defense, while it came on the in the three games before the buy, we know that how much of a problem the past defense has been so it, it’s it’s crunch time. Now it’s time to start putting all that together. Not that you’re going to play a perfect game every week, but they certainly need to play more complete football to not just navigate this upcoming stretch of three games in 11 days, but to optimize themselves in terms of making a run in January, knowing that most likely you’re going to be playing most of it, if not all of it, on the road. So I mean, it’s where they are right now, and I’m not going to sit here and say they can’t do it, but. It. The time is now to start doing it, right? I mean, it’s not, you know, go, go two and two over these Final Four and continue to have the same issues, and then, and then, miraculously, you think it’s going to start happening for you in the wild card round. You need to start showing that now, you know, you’ve got four games to you know, it’s a new season, but you need to think about it in terms of, no, you don’t have four games to go. You have eight games to go. But you need to start thinking about it in terms of, hey, if you want to be the division champion, gotta win eight in a row here. I mean, it’s, you know that that’s your mindset. If you want to be Super Bowl champion, you got to win eight in a row here, because you want to at least try to have a first round game at home if you can. So, you know, you know, it’s not
Nestor Aparicio 30:39
well. The question is, are they capable being that good? They have the best quarterback on the planet, allegedly. They have a running back going to the Hall of Fame. They have wide receivers who are better than at any point that they’ve had. They right. They have a defense that’s highly paid with three levels of players that are Pro Bowl talented, players, you know, some issues at will and Sam, you know, they have some deficiencies, and certainly the safety position has been a mess for them. The kicker is good enough. He can kick the ball 63 yards if they need to. What I
Luke Jones 31:11
said, you hope? I mean, I agree with you, but he’s got to do it, right? I mean, that’s he’s got to do
Nestor Aparicio 31:17
it. But saying, how do they win eight games in a row win a Super Bowl? This is I’m trying to make the case here. I’m trying to be, you know, Nestor sunshine, and pretend that I think that they can go to Pittsburgh, Buffalo in Kansas City, in that order and win. I don’t think they can do that as comprised. I just I’ve seen nothing to believe that, that that is possible on this team, or the makeup of any of these guys like Marlon umprene, these guys that haven’t, and Lamar, all of them who, collectively, in January, have been a part of, yeah, you know, I stood at their lockers back when I was a real reporter, before they threw me out. Now I’m not even allowed to do that when the season ends and look them in the eyes and see what’s going on. I don’t know. They’re eight and five. There’s no real reason to like them to win the Super Bowl right now, but if you do, I bet you get hell of an odd right now, right like, get a nice little number on them, because they’ve been backed up so much, but they have the elements of being able to be the team that I just dreamed of you, that Derek Henry can walk in any week and beat your ass. So can Lamar. So when that happens, and as long as the defense can buckle up, take the ball away once, and get off the field, not just get pushed around, maybe buffalo could push him around. Maybe, I don’t know that Kansas City offensively can push him around. But there’s some magic trick with mahomes and Allen in and especially at home on a nasty night. I mean, our fans won’t be in those buildings, because the tickets will be 600 bucks, like bucks like so you know, Ravens fans aren’t taking over buffalo or Kansas City. I promise you, the way the Eagles fans came in here last week and brought their cheese steaks and had a good time and beat our ass. So that will it won’t be the case, but I can make a case for them winning eight in a row. And the reason I’ll make a case for them winning eight in a row is come see me. You know, Christmas night when we’re sitting here having dessert, and maybe they’ve won three in a row. But, I mean, we’re talking 1012, days from now, right? Like maybe they’ve won three in a row, and maybe it’s the horrible way, not pretty, you know, maybe the Pittsburgh thing, they get a cheap call. Who knows? Doesn’t matter how they win. But if on Christmas night, they’ve gone down to Houston, and you’ve given me precedent, they already gone to tampon one, they beat the hell out of buffalo here, they’re good enough. They’re good enough. They are. They’re better than eight and five. And if I were to go out there and har ball or invite me out there to do some Mickey Coachella comedy, I’d look at all of them and say eight and five tells wrong with you guys. You should be ashamed of this. It’s terrible. Eight and five now we’re gonna have to go on the road and and Jones and Aparicio are over there saying we can’t do it. Oh, I can. John’s John getting all by love. Tell them happy holidays. You see him this week, but they can win eight in a row. I’m not. I mean, they, they, they’re talented enough to do that. This isn’t Anthony Wright running around or Kyle bowler or they’re healthy McNair on one. Keep going. You know, very slowly, right? If we’re going to play ravens roost here, and rah, rah, rah, and take over the lounge. And, you know, be all sunshine and roses around here. So I get my press pass back, because, you know that would help. They can win. I mean, they can. And I’d write that, I’d say that out loud, but then they, if you’re going to be that team that’s going to win eight in a row, be the team that wins four in a row, be the team that beats Pittsburgh next week, no matter what be the team that goes down to Houston on short rest, all banged up, tired, handles your business and then comes back and talks about closing things out with Cleveland and how Pittsburgh is going to stumble and you’re going to get a home game, I don’t know, but the momentum needs to change in that direction. And the thing. Changes the momentum is winning four games in a row to your point
Luke Jones 35:02
well, and you do that by being more consistent, becoming a more consistent football team, putting it all together, not that it’s going to be perfect. I mean, you rarely play a perfect game, especially not going to do that three or four weeks in a row. But look more complete. You know, the offense get back on track after choppy performances two of the last three, right? Which led to two losses, right? Justin, Tucker has to make kicks special teams clean things up. I mean, come on, you’re the Ravens. You’re that team that thinks about special teams, whereas you have some of these other teams around the league who you don’t really feel like they necessarily put a lot of effort into it, the Ravens do. So for it to be as bad as it’s been, beyond Tucker, you know, not just Tucker, but but all of it, you know, not good enough. Defensively. John
Nestor Aparicio 35:44
fossil will be available. Let’s get bring him in. Let’s bones. Let’s go bones. Man, that was Monday, Monday night,
Luke Jones 35:52
hearing them talk about Leon lett and everything, I was just like man, just the the latest thing to go wrong for the Cowboys, which I’m not shedding any tears for it, mind you, but, but defensively, okay, you took some encouraging steps the last three games before the buy. Now, come out on the other side. You’re healthy. You’re getting Michael Pierce back now, put it all together. Attack, get a couple turnover, turnovers, you know, take the ball away a little bit more your pass rush. Kyle van Noy will be back after missing the Eagles game. You know, be look to be a little more consistent there. You know, not. It’s not going to be the 2000 Ravens. It doesn’t need to be. I mean, as great as this offense is when it’s playing its best football, and it did that for most of the first 10 or 11 weeks of the season, right? I mean, we saw it. You look at their numbers, they’re still right there at the top of the leaderboard, or, you know, second, third, something like that, almost across the board, you know, even with an underwhelming finish, you know, pre buy. But you look at that, can they put it all together? Can they stay healthy? Can they they get the some bounces going their way to your point. I mean, that’s, that’s always part of it. You know, 2000 look at some of the things that happened in that playoff run. Look at 2012 with the Mile High miracle. And so, so you always have that right. Luck is always part of it. People, people are offended by when you bring up luck, when it’s, oh, I wrote
Nestor Aparicio 37:20
about it in purple range. Absolutely, it’s because every person in the building mentioned it in the aftermath. Yeah, good luck. Yeah. I mean COVID Jones, dude, stop. You know, like, exactly, exactly. So, I mean, COVID Jones catching that ball is gonna put John Harbaugh in Hall of Fame. I mean, like, literally,
Luke Jones 37:35
well, and think about it. I mean, look at some other losses this year. I mean, some un some self destructive things happen, yes, but some unlucky things happen too. I mean, think about the the interception Lamar threw in Pittsburgh. Oh, on the play the linebacker made an unbelievable play on that, you know, to take it away from Justice Hill. I mean, if that were a Ravens player that did that, we wouldn’t be talking about it in terms of all, Russell Wilson threw a bad pick there, or anything. We’d say that was an unbelievable play by roquan Smith, or whoever you know, whoever you want to imagine, have taken the credit for it. So you know things like that happens. The other team tries to we know that as well, but, but, yeah, this is the time because, look, I don’t care about Lamar winning an MVP. I don’t care about how many guys get sent to the Pro Bowl. I don’t I’m I think we, I know you and I are, because we’ve talked about it for years now, but I think so many fans are just they’re over the regular season stuff. That’s why them not being the number one seed. I’m just like, okay, hey, it’s gonna be a more difficult path, but maybe this is what this team needs to do to be the underdog, where not everyone’s expecting you to do it, and you go and do it. And I’ve said to you the 2012 team in mid December, same time, at 12 years ago, at this point in time, Joe Flacco was laying on the turf and the Ravens were getting their butts beat by the Denver Broncos. And they are. They just fired cam Cameron, and we were wondering if Jim Caldwell, who’d never called plays before as a coordinator, because, you know, they were a mess, I perceived this team much better right now than where we perceive that team at that moment in time. But that’s also making some assumptions that you need Justin Tucker to get right. You need your defense to continue that improvement that they made before the bye week. You need your offensive line to to come up with some answers, knowing that you’re going to see Pittsburgh at least one more time, if not two more times. You’re going you’re going to see Kansas City in January, presumably, you know if you’re wanting to get to where you want to go. So you know you’re going to face those teams so, and that shouldn’t be viewed as a negative. That’s an opportunity for you, because those teams have to face you again. And nope, you know, it’s not as though they’ve been blown out by anyone, right? I mean, it’s not like they’ve lost these games by, you know, these, these games they’ve lost by a little bit here or there. So make two or three more plays over the course of a. Game, make your kicks, catch a ball if the quarterback throws it to you. If you’re on defense, don’t commit penalties. Line up properly on the own special teams. Know your assignment, don’t commit penalties. So look, I mean again, Buffalo is having these same types of conversations Kansas City, despite the fact that they have one loss, all kinds of discussions, because we know that they haven’t looked dominant, right? They haven’t looked like what you would expect a 12 in one team to look like Steelers, or Steelers aren’t dominating with the Steelers, right? Gonna win? And I don’t say that to be disparaging to them. I’m saying that because, like everyone’s kind of in the same boat where it’s all about not just winning the next game, but knowing that, hey, you’ve gotta, it’s time to go on a run here. It’s time to do this. I wanna
Nestor Aparicio 40:47
hear my comments saying we’re not good enough to be cocky. You know, we’re not good enough to be thinking we’re just gonna come in and have we’re not 16 point favorites in places we go because our hotsy Tots offense, you know, like the and the Ravens have to go out and be oxy taught, see, and they want to win a Super Bowl. They’ve picked the hardest path they can pick at this point, like and having them really slobber knock her down and play the Steelers, not just hard next week, win like they lose to the Steelers. Now go into the toilet. You’re going to, you’re going to, you’re going to be going to Buffalo week one, you know, right? So I’ll give you final, final shot here, parting shots, as they would say on the sports reporters, yeah. I mean, let’s
Luke Jones 41:27
just bring it full circle. I mean, it’s the giants on Sunday, right? I mean, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about these other games, but gotta go handle their business and do it in a way that if you can get to the point where you’re thinking about being able to pull a few guys here and there in the last 1011, minutes of the game. I think that would be huge for them, right? I mean, Pittsburgh, short week, the Steelers are in their heads. We know that they can say they aren’t, but they beat no made of the last nine times. They absolutely are in their heads. So take but you got to take care of business here. Don’t kick the ball around. Don’t play with your food. Don’t commit penalties. If Tommy DeVito throws you the football, catch it Justin Tucker, make your kicks, please. I’m so tired of talking about that, but we have to, because it’s a real it’s a very real problem for them. So, you know, this is the game that, like I said, it’s not going to be a headline or game, even if they win by 40 points. What’s the first thing that anyone else is going to say around the league? Oh, they beat up on the on the lousy giants, you know, who are woeful. But it’s a game where they can check some boxes. Feel good better about themselves coming out of the by knowing that they had lost two out of three. And then after that, it’s Hey, not even a 24 hour rule. You’ll have the couple hours coming back from northern New Jersey back to Baltimore. You’ll enjoy it then. And then, right away, it’s getting ready for Pittsburgh, because you got a Saturday game, so just take care of business on Sunday. You’d like it to be comfortable, but it’s also the NFL. And I’d say this much, you know me, I’m not a gambling man. I’m not touching that line where, when you’re talking about a road team in the NFL that’s favored by more than two touchdowns, I’ll, I’ll just pass on that game. Give me something else to
Nestor Aparicio 43:16
well. And the thing that makes it close is the Ravens doing sloppy stuff, so which they tend to do? Ah, here we go. Luke Jones is at Baltimore, Luke. He is Luke at W nst.net, you can find me. Ness at Baltimore positive.com as well. Our friends at the Maryland lottery have us out on the road twice next week. So nice. We had to do it twice. We meet you on Tuesday. We’re going to be Acosta’s on Wednesday. Also, our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care putting us out on the road and making things good going into 2025 again, a lot of football. Year ahead, we’ve had great crab cake tour conversations. You will find all of them out of Baltimore positive as well as I’ve unearthed this week, I honored ZZ Top an old interview earlier this week, and I’m unearthing various things and cleaning things up for music classic during the holidays as well. So we hope to see everybody out and come get a come get a scratch off for me from the Maryland lottery. Uh, Luke and I’ll be monitoring all things football out on all the socials on Sunday, beginning at one o’clock, and gathering back here again for Monday morning. I am Nestor. He is Luke. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Wear something warm. If you’re going to the game in New Jersey, it’ll be blustery. You.
