The tradition of defensive football is in question with the 5-3 Baltimore Ravens. As the injuries mount and the trading deadline looms, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the defensive issues and communication problems as the Denver Broncos come to town Sunday and the Bengals follow on Thursday night.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens defensive issues, Broncos game, Lamar Jackson injury, quick turnaround, Denver defense, pass rush problems, offensive balance, Keaton Mitchell, Cincinnati game, Thanksgiving matchup, defensive struggles, trade deadline, pass defense ranking, offensive firepower, injury report
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. We’re taking the Maryland crab cake tour out on the road. It’s all brought to my friends at the Maryland lottery. We have the Raven scratch offs to give away a full slate ahead into November, December. I got dates of Cocos. We’re going to be at Gertrude the BMA on December 5, with Dan Rodriguez for the holidays. I just got word that Gina shocks going to be joining us Rock and Roll Hall of Famer on December the 19th at Costas. We’re going to be doing it in the bar. So I have holiday things and then November. Thanks all the brought to you by friends at Jiffy Lube multi care as well. Luke and I are going to get together now talk about the injuries of Lamar Jackson and the Broncos coming to town. We’ve done a lot with the Broncos this week. You can find it all out at Baltimore positive. Sean droar from Mile High sports. Mike cliffs from TV there in Denver, written books on John Elway as well as Brandon Stokely, who caught a few passes around here of significance as well. I buy things on the internet, Luke, you know this, right? And I’ve been, I’ve been a little wistful. I don’t spend money on sports anymore. I almost went to game five of the World Series on Wednesday, and I didn’t. I’m still waiting to hear from Miss Griggs to see if my application for my Birdland membership has been approved or not, so I can start spending money with them again. But I bought this incredible piece of work on the internet came in a box and and I it came literally in a box at like six o’clock on Wednesday night. And no sooner did I open this than the Yankees had blown the World Series at home at Yankee Stadium. And I thought a day where a Steadman book would show up that I never knew existed. These are his columns from the 60s and 70s and the missing columns of the characters of John Steadman, Mister days and all of these people, all of them are in here. So if I’m busy this weekend before the Broncos game, it’s the best and worst of Steadman. And by the way, I just open the book here, Luke. John F Steadman has been sports editor since January 6, 1958 he remembers the date like a birthday, because it was one of the most significant dates of his life. I began working at the Baltimore Sun on January the sixth, 1986 so there so first thing in the book. I’m already interested in it, and he’s already complaining on page 54 about hatties, bum athletes make too much money and and money’s overtaken the game, and it’s going to wreck the sports, and it’s not fun anymore because of money. That was in 1974 I think he was writing about Johnny and ice.
Luke Jones 02:34
There you go. I mean, look all those you can go back and find stuff from the early 1900s talking about baseball and salaries growing out of control, considering what they were making then compared to today. But always fun to look back at that, and certainly all the respect in the world for John Steadman, that’s for sure.
Nestor Aparicio 02:52
Alright, you’ve had work to do all week. This is your chance to plug the tech service, because it has been active. I don’t know what point the Lamar thing becomes alarming? Probably sometime in the next 48 hours, if it’s to become alarming. Um, weird week. Dude. Marcus Williams, no speaky, trade, trade for wide receiver. We did an hour on that. Um, Denver’s in town. They’re five and three. They’re better than you think. Um, probably on both sides of the ball, even though skill position players, they could have used Deontay Johnson, um, yeah, for, for where this game is, and this piece, this piece of coming out of this game, wherever they are, health wise, and then having to play football again next Thursday’s Thanksgiving around here, we just get the Bengals coming to town, and they got To chase Jamar, chase around, and, you know, all things considered. And as the Browns proved last week, and Jim Schwartz and we did a long segment on that, when you prepare for Lamar, you’re a little more prepared, even if you don’t have the personnel, you at least have watched enough film and have some tendencies, and has some schooling that these NFC teams seem to get on Wednesday afternoon, and by Sunday, they’re overwhelmed. This next couple of this is treacherous. At five and three, they’re they haven’t given themselves a lot of wiggle room here. Yeah,
Luke Jones 04:07
I mean, but that’s also what happens when you start on two, right? I mean, that’s just where you are. And interestingly enough, I mean, this is a Denver team that also started owing to a team that obviously has a rookie quarterback, and as you pointed out, doesn’t have a lot of star power, right? There aren’t a lot of big names on this team, necessarily, although certainly they have their share of really talented players when you talk about certain and some of the others. But this, this is a team that’s playing good football, and they haven’t had the toughest slate of opponents. I do want to start off by saying that so it’s not as though you look at their wins and the profile the teams that they’ve played in your wild I mean, they went on the road and they beat the Buccaneers 26 to seven back in week three, which was very much a surprising outcome at that point in time. But you know, they’ve won five of their last six. And they’ve got a really good defense. And as I just pointed out, you may not recognize that many names on that defense, other than certain and a couple others, but they’ve got good players. And like I said, it’s not necessarily superstar, household names, but go, look at how their defense is played. I mean, this is played like, you know, just about any metric you want to look. Look at to it’s played at a top five or at least Top 10 level, really, across the board. I mean, you just look at their very simple rankings, their third and total defense, seventh and rush defense, fourth and pass defense, third in points per games allowed, 16th and third down defense. Okay, there’s your one metric that doesn’t look quite as impressive, third in the red zone. So you’re talking about a very sound defense and a defense that has the ability to get after the quarterback. Oh, that sounds familiar. That’s what Cleveland can do, and what Cleveland did against the Ravens last Sunday and their offense, which obviously lags behind the defense, but they’ve got a pretty darn good offensive line, which means they’ve been giving Bo Nicks time, which we know the Ravens have had their issues getting pressure on quarterbacks consistently. So there you go. There’s a formula there that okay, even though the only name that you really recognize from their pass catcher collection is Courtland Sutton, they can still make plays if you get Bo Nicks time in the pocket, and we know that that’s been an issue, and that was certainly a major issue against Jameis Winston and the browns. So this is not a game that the Ravens can take lightly. I mean, I know what Vegas says, and you can look at the point spread, and I was talking about that with a few other reporters on during Wednesday’s practice.
Nestor Aparicio 06:38
Feels ambitious. Nine and a half feels really ambitious. I feel like six would be right there.
Luke Jones 06:45
You know what I mean? Like, six maybe seven. I you know, nine and a half. Like, that’s a big number, considering the Ravens defensive issues and and how Denver’s played, which is better than expected, and
Nestor Aparicio 06:56
decent on their own, and decent, yeah. And let’s be clear, I
Luke Jones 07:00
expect the ravens to win this football game. I’m not going to game. I’m not going to sit here and try to to sit here and create a doomsday scenario that I’m expecting. That said, if you lose to the Cleveland Browns on the heels of having lost to the Las Vegas Raiders back in week two, you can’t sit here and say that any game’s a layup or any games a guarantee, or anything like that. I mean, get out of here with that. So this is a team that’s going to come in and absolutely has the potential to give the Ravens everything they can handle. On Sunday, they like to run the ball, and while we know the Ravens defense has been very stout and elite against the run, Michael Pierce is on IR Brent Urban’s in concussion protocol. Travis Jones is still not right with that ankle. I mean, I I said this to you before last week’s game. I think it was crazy that they played him last Sunday. I mean, he only played 15 snaps, as it was. And go back and look he wasn’t right. You got to get him right. He’s been your best defensive lineman. So you look at how banged up they are up front defensively, and knowing that, yes, even though Javonte Williams isn’t this running back that has a great yards per carry average, he’s still very capable, and he’s still someone that don’t want to feed if they get opportunities to do it, and the game script dictates that they can still do it. And Bo Nicks can run around, you know, he’s not Lamar Jackson, but he can run around. You know, you can’t let him get out of the
Nestor Aparicio 08:23
pockets. So the notion that there’s a run stuff team and that you can’t run on them, teams are going to start to test that a little bit if they, if they have the capability to do that,
Luke Jones 08:31
well, they will. But at the same time, and I kind of talked about this after the Cleveland game, you could throw all over the field on but at some point in time you can test it. I agree. But if your past defense can’t do anything to stop them, you get to a point where you say, Well, why would I even bother to try to run against the rave? I’ll just throw it all over the field. And teams about success. Well, we got
Nestor Aparicio 08:55
corners. We got to get on the field right. We have the quarterback on on the injury report like this and and a game on Thursday, in a division game on Thursday, not for the Bengals chasing us, but for you trying to stay above water and make sure you’re an above 500 team when this whole thing ends two weeks from now.
Luke Jones 09:11
Sure, sure. And I mean, you have to be mindful of that. I think that’s why we saw Lamar Jackson sit on Wednesday. John Harbaugh caught it a rest day. Lamar is listed with back and knee issues. The early indication is that I’m not overly concerned here, but get back to me in a couple days. Get back to me over the weekend when we’re talking about, you know, where he is in terms of the injury report. I mean, hardball said a rest day. Okay? I mean, it wasn’t just listed as non injury rest on the on the injury report. So we get into semantics a little bit, but you know, it’s something to keep in the back of your mind, especially because you do have the quick turnaround, and you do have five or two games in five days. So But that said, I mean the Ravens Can’t they cannot get caught looking ahead here. I mean, this Denver team is playing pretty solid football, and like I said, their defense is good. COVID. So that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop the Ravens. Let’s be clear. I don’t think any defense stops the ravens, but are they capable of slowing the Ravens down offensively a little bit? Yeah, I absolutely think that, especially with their ability to pressure the pocket and get heat on quarterbacks. So I think this is, this is the kind of game that, on the heels of losing in Cleveland and laying the egg and playing as poorly as they did defensively, I would certainly hope they come out ready to play in this one, and there’s no sleepwalking or lull or anything like that. But again, you got to go do it, right? I mean, you can keep talking about roquan Smith. Love roquan, right? He was asked on on Wednesday about some of the defensive struggles, and he starts getting into, you know, we’re going to be fine. We’re keeping receipts of what everyone’s saying. It’s like, okay, that’s well and good. You need to go out and do it then, right? I mean, no more talking about it. You need to go out and do it. Your past defense is last in the NFL right now, last. You let the Cleveland Browns hang 29 points on you when they hadn’t even scored 20 all year. So this is not a place for, you know, pride and complacency on the defensive side of the ball right now, there’s urgency to get this thing fixed, or there should be, and they’ve got to figure it out. So again, this isn’t a Denver offense that wants to chuck it all over the field by any stretch of the imagination. But that said, they do have Courtland, sutland, Sutton. They do have a tight end and Adam Troutman, who, I think is a solid you know, they’ve got some other receivers who, if you don’t cover them, can probably make plays. I mean, we’ve seen no name receivers make plays against the Ravens this year, right? So I it’s not even so much that. So the good news is Marlon Humphreys back on the practice field. That Nate Wiggins was back on the practice field, albeit on a limited basis, on Wednesday. So again, we’ll monitor that as we get closer and closer to Sunday, Friday, we’ll have the final injury report. If there’s notable elements to that, we’ll send that out to you via the wnst tech service. But they’ve got to get right, because, to your point, you’ve got Cincinnati on the back end of that five day stretch. And look the Bengals at this point. You see what their record is, right? I mean, they’ve got to do unbelievable work over the second half of the season, regardless of looking at their schedule and saying, hey, well, that looks pretty reasonable. Or they’ve got to go out and win games. They’ve got to win a lot of games. And for them, that’s going to start with, not start because, you know, they obviously, they play another game between now and then, but their urgency is going to be at an all time high. I mean, it’s going to truly be a must win game in week 10 for them, and we know what they did against this ravens defense in Cincinnati several weeks back. So for the ravens, you’ve got to strike the proper balance here of keeping yourself in good position physically for that one and and hoping and praying that you get through Sunday’s game, okay, in that regard, but you better not take this game for for granted on Sunday. I mean, nothing should be taken for granted. That’s a crucial week. I
Nestor Aparicio 13:10
mean, there’s and it feels to me like it can be slipping a little bit when quarterbacks are on injury reports and quick games and you’re rushing guys back. You mentioned Jones. Hey, look, Humphrey Wiggins will be back out there this week. Let’s see how they they do on the backside of that, the Cincinnati game. I don’t use the trap game thing or whatever, but I don’t like playing football. You hate Thursday night football. I haven’t watched it all year because you told me not to, so I’ve stopped. Good for you. I don’t need to be on the Amazon site. They didn’t even endorse the right political candidate last week at the Washington Post. So I didn’t cancel my subscription because I didn’t have one. But the Thursday night football, this is really where it feels treacherous to me going into this Sunday’s game, not just that you and I wake up Monday morning early with sand in our eyes, and they’re gonna be players waking up, you know, not ready to play on Thursday. Same thing for Cincinnati side of things. I mean, I’ll, I’ll hear that. But this is just where it really taxes the the organization. At a time when they haven’t had a buy, players are starting to go by the wayside. It was all two weeks ago that you and I were sippity Do da, and they’re five in a row, and they’re really healthy for where they are. It’s changed a little bit. And I don’t think they’re going to get healthier on Sunday against Denver. You just hope to sort of survive this part of the season. And I think if they come out of it six and four, I’m not shocked. They better. May not be five and five, and if they’re seven and three, they’ve done that hard ball. Ian job of getting up off the mat from Cleveland, and the cost will make some trade next week. I mean, all that is sitting there for this franchise that’s pulled it off before, but this is they gotta pull their they gotta pull their pants up, and the next sec, 678, days, really run harder than they ran last week against Cleveland,
Luke Jones 14:53
yeah, but it starts Sunday, right? I mean, you can obviously, they’re doing their advanced scouting, and they’ve got. People that are looking at the Bengals, and it helps whenever you come on a Thursday game. It always helps when it’s a division opponent. And same thing goes for the Bengals playing the ravens, right? But again, this Denver team is confident. They’re playing confident football right now. I mean, they’ve won five out of six. Their offense is getting better. Bo Nicks is getting better. You know, he can run, you know, he can get out of the pocket. They haven’t been able to pressure quarterback, so go look at his splits. And I saw this, I think was pro football focus, but also a couple other sites. Go look at Bo Nix passing splits when he’s got a clean pocket compared to pressure. He’s been really good when they’ve given him time, and that offensive line is playing well when he gets pressured. He’s terrible and looks like a rookie. Well, the Ravens haven’t, haven’t been getting consistent pressure on quarterbacks.
Nestor Aparicio 15:43
They’re not good at this, right? You know this. So that’s where you dial up safety blitzes and you dial things up that he hasn’t seen before. But that’s where the confusion they’re already confused, right? They’ve already had problems. And if he avoids, if he avoids a blitz, because he’s crafty enough to get out of the pocket. That’s when you give up a home run for trying to hit a home run, right? Yeah, and that’s
Luke Jones 16:05
right, the formula in the past would be to confuse, confuse, confuse, deceive. Pre snap simulated pressures Blitz. Look like you’re gonna Blitz and drop into coverage all those things. They’re even trying to do those things. And that hasn’t changed. If, in fact, because I’ve been asked this question, look, I’m not Mike McDonald, right? I’m not Marvin Lewis, I’m not Rex Ryan. But you know, I’ve had people ask me, you know, what’s changed about the Ravens defense, beyond what the obvious of coaching changes some of the personnel that left via free agency, but if you look at the percentages of what they try to do, in terms of the percent of their Blitz, in terms of their pre snap deception, and all those different things. Percentage wise, it looks very similar to last year. Nestor. It’s not as though they blitzed the bunch last year and not now. They’re not blitzing, or they didn’t blitz last year and they’re
Nestor Aparicio 17:00
blitzing a ton this year. It was way different than what we saw from McDonald like, there was, there were definitely Exactly. It was a different look,
Luke Jones 17:09
right, right? It hasn’t been something that’s been dramatic in that way. They just haven’t executed well. And it’s been, you know, guys have looked confused, or they’re not in the right spot, you know. And that’s where I said, How much of this is game day, how much of this is going on, you know, what’s in the meeting rooms, how much of this is on the practice field? How much of this is, I will also throw this out there, and I’m less inclined to do this now than I was three four weeks ago. You know, we’ve talked about it though. They they faced the first half of the season. They faced a tougher stretch of quarterbacks, but you can’t say that about Jameis Winston. You can’t say that about Gardner Mitch. You right. I mean, when you have guys like that that are doing the things that they’ve done against them, then that argument holds no weight. But I will say this much, and maybe this is why we’ve seen the and even the Ravens make the move for Deontay Johnson this week, defensive performance is noisy year to year. And as great as the Ravens were last year, when you do throw in the coaching changes, and not just McDonald, they lost Dennard Wilson, who was a very talented secondary coach, and I think that’s a factor, not not saying it’s all Chris Hewitt’s fault, for example, or Doug Mallory, who they brought in, but Dennard Wilson really had those guys sharp on their P’s and Q’s, as far as their pre snap and understanding their assignments and all that last year. I mean, you looked at it and you saw how well so all those guys played. So, you know, you just change up those variables, and then you realize defensive performance is a little less reliable year to year, but that still doesn’t explain the Ravens having nearly given up as many touchdown passes this year than they did all of last year already. I mean, we’re eight games into the season, and they’re at that point so, I mean, it’s just It’s crazy to think about it in those terms, as far as just how much this group has struggled. I mean, that can’t happen, you know, that’s that’s inexcusable, that’s below the bar, as John Harbaugh said, years and years ago. You know about, I think it was a poor ravens secondary performance in San Francisco, if I recall, was back in 2015 but I mean, it’s just, it’s really messy. I mean, they’ve got to figure this out. They don’t need this defense to be the 2000 defense. They don’t even need it to be last year’s defense when your offense is as explosive and efficient and diverse as this group has been, and now you add Deontay Johnson to the mix, just be average, just get your pass defense back to being average. And if they do that, then this team’s absolutely poised to go, go win a Super Bowl, but they’ve got a lot of work to get this group back to that point. And I think where there’s some concern, and obviously Marcus Williams. Is a smoking gun. Example of this right now is when you have a group that’s struggling as much as that group is struggling, and they’re so used to being successful. I mean, not just last year. I mean the history of the franchise, the Ravens culture, as much as Lamar Jackson, is changing that over the last six years, the ravens, one word that describes them, defense over the last 25 years. We all know that. So when you have a defense that is performing like this one is, or should really say not performing as this one isn’t performing right now, then it’s kind of inevitable to start looking around and not saying that it it creates a fractured locker room, necessarily, but you do have everyone kind of looking over their shoulder like, like, what’s going on here? You know, why aren’t you playing better? Or, why aren’t we getting this figured out coaching wise, or or whatever? So I’m not saying that’s happening. Let’s be very clear about that. But the longer these struggles go on to this magnitude, those things start to become more and more of a concern in terms of guys looking around and pointing the finger and saying, you know, why aren’t you doing your job? What’s going on here? Why is this so disorganized? Why aren’t we making the adjustments schematically here? Why? Why is this guy playing over this guy, or vice versa? So, I mean, you always have to watch those things and look to their credit, because John Harbaugh has cultivated this kind of a culture in their locker room for a very long time. You have less of a concern about that, but that only goes so far if you continue to struggle to this degree. I mean, go look at their defensive numbers, you know? I mean, that’s really, really unraven, like, I mean, even, even years where we’ve looked at the defense and said, Yeah, it’s kind of down compared to what it normally is. This is really stark in terms of how different and how much worse it’s been than last year. So, and it shouldn’t
Nestor Aparicio 21:56
be this imbalanced, right? Let’s we talked about the trading deadline, no. And this is not a young defense. This is not a poor defense. They’ve got Pro Bowl caliber players along four levels. They got guys making 15, $20 million at every level of the defense, guy, and Hamilton’s not even one of them. And they have a special you call them generational. So there you have it, kind of player in in Hamilton, and it’s still not it’s not getting done. And maybe it is as easy as communication in the pass rush. Maybe they do have the players and aren’t utilizing them the right way. Maybe if Mike McDonald was back here, it would look differently. And that really be an indictment on Marlon Humphrey, and it might be an indictment on the whole organization. Ever let him get away if hardball is not going to be coaching here two years from now or three years from now anyway? But whatever it is, it’s not for lack of personnel trying. And to your point, we spent an hour talking about the cost of maybe going to get in a pass rusher this week. To add to it, they’ll continue to try to do that. But it should be, shouldn’t be 32nd I mean, in all of our balls years, I don’t remember you and I, and you’ve been here from the beginning. I remember you and I ever having a conversation about them being the worst of anything? I mean, if you look at the yard department, but other than that, yes, if
Luke Jones 23:16
you look at it right now, I mean, this is they’re tracking. This is tracking to be the worst defense the Ravens have had since 96 in terms of points allowed. And obviously more goes into that than just the defense, special teams, turnovers, all those different things, right? But still, that’s where we’re talking here. But 32nd and pass defense, 26th and points per game allowed, 29th on third down, 19th in the red zone. Okay, they’re number one in rush defense. Great. We’re
Nestor Aparicio 23:45
halfway through the season. That’s not a week. That’s not a small sample size, yeah, exactly,
Luke Jones 23:49
exactly. So it’s got to get better again. I don’t need it to be it doesn’t need to be top five. It really doesn’t. That’s how great their offense is. They don’t need a top five defense. They don’t need a top 10 defense. They need to get that pass defense at least back into the average range. If they can do that, then I feel fine about this team, you know, and their chances in January. But you I mean, we saw it on Sunday, the rave. It’s not as though the Ravens offense was awful on Sunday. It was down from where it had been in previous weeks, no question, but they still scored 24 points, even on a down day. But if you’re going to give up that to Jameis Winston, I mean, what’s going to happen against, you know, the next time you face Patrick mahomes, assuming they’ve got their offense clicking at a higher level than it’s been, because that’s what Kansas City does.
Nestor Aparicio 24:37
Craziest thing is, they
Luke Jones 24:38
played well against buffalo. Yeah, yeah, they Right, Right exactly. And still 30 seconds, and still 30 seconds, that’s right. Look, and we and we always, you know, we can always look at this and say, well, if team Team A beats Team B, Team B beats Team C, Team A should be Team C. And we know that it never makes sense like that, because it’s the NFL and it’s week to week if they played buffalo again this week. I’m guessing the Ravens wouldn’t blow them out again. They might win, and they might, they might do a good job again. Maybe they’re just a good fit against buffalo, but, but the point is, you just said it. That’s what’s so frustrating about this. Because even with losing Mike McDonald and some of these defensive assistants and acknowledging Yeah, you would have liked to keep Gino stone in a perfect world as your third safety. And, yeah, ideally, I wasn’t going to pay Patrick Queen when he got in Pittsburgh. But doesn’t mean you don’t miss him. It doesn’t mean you didn’t like the player right. Liking the player and making a the what you feel is the right business decision are two different things. You know, up front at avion Clowney, I wouldn’t have been inclined to give them a two year deal either, but they’ve missed him. And that’s not even to say that clowney’s been all that good in Carolina, because he hasn’t been, but the version of jadavion Clowney they had last year, boy, they missed that because as great as van Noy started off, and same for a dafe away. Look at their pressure rate the last four weeks compared to the first four, and I don’t think that means that they’re not saying they’re bad players or anything like that. Far from it, but I think they’re having to play too much because they don’t have enough guys behind them that they really trust. And gaqua right now is kind of their number three right there. I’d feel way better about him as my number four, my number five in that rotation at this point in time, David ajabo was a healthy scratch on Sunday, you know, Tavis tavius Robinson, I think is good for what he is, but he’s more of a, you know, tweener run stopping. I mean, they even slid him inside a little bit because they were so banged up on the defensive line on Sunday. Point is, you look at that pass rush group, they need another dude. Yeah, I I don’t, I’m not saying it has to be max crowds, because I don’t think Vegas is going to trade him, but I really feel like they need another dude if they can go out and get that. But even with all of that, even even with all of that acknowledged, it shouldn’t be this bad, it just shouldn’t, and for it to be this bad. Now to your point halfway through, we’re going to be at the halfway point of the season, at halftime on Sunday, right eight games in 17 game season, for them to be where they are past defense wise. I mean, that’s it’s alarming because, again, it’s not that different. It’s not as though, you know, they’re, you know, this isn’t, not like they’re speaking a totally different language defensively. You know, it’s, you’re
Nestor Aparicio 27:23
going to win the Super Bowl when you’re the 32nd ranked defense in the league. And you, you are getting worse, not better, at this point, at this point, this time last week, they were number one in the power rankings, and Lamar, Lamar, Lamar and King Henry, and it’s, they’re both going to the Hall of Fame and all of that. And then you you take it on the chin to the browns, and your quarterback shows up on the injury report. You got two games in four days in the middle of the year when things are sort of teetering a little bit and the Steelers look capable. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t see that coming. I don’t think anybody we never see Washington coming as being capable. But there have been surprises around the league. You need to make sure you’re not the surprise on Sunday getting beaten home by the Denver Broncos, who’ve played really well on the road and as a nine and a half point favor, Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke. He’s going to be out knowing smells all are brought to you by Jiffy Lube multi care. We are on downtime this week for the crab cake tour. I thought I might be attending World Series games this week, I abstained, but I still celebrated the fact that the the Yankees have squandered another World Series. Luke, any other parting shots on this? You’ll get your predictions out, and all your observations will be out of Baltimore positive before the game. And this is going to be a quick turnaround, getting into Cincinnati next week as well, not to mention the election. And I want everybody to vote next week. Please vote. Do what I’m doing on Tuesday.
Luke Jones 28:43
I think I covered most of what I had to say, and again, I’ll have some more tidbits and factoids and different things like that, as I do my 12 ravens thoughts and prediction for Sunday’s game. I’ve already said to you, I expect the ravens to win this game. They better win this game, you know, especially on the heels of what happened in Cleveland and having Cincinnati coming into town four days later. But I’ll throw something else out there. And this is a good news thing, because we were just talking about a lot of negativity, and they are. They’re five and three, you know, they they just had a five game winning streak. All is not lost. I’ll throw this out there as a positive Keaton Mitchell was a full practice participant on Wednesday. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna play Sunday. Let’s be clear. I mean, this is a guy who just started practicing last week, but I’ve gotten a sense that they like what they’ve seen from him, physically, and that his speed and all that. So as much as we’re talking about Deontay Johnson and talked about Derrick Henry maybe running for 2000 yards, and Lamar made, you know, MVP favorite early on through eight games, you had Keith Mitchell. Back to that equation, another guy on the perimeter, you know, another outside speed guy, man, and let’s be clear, Derek, Henry’s still going to carry the load and keep Mitchell is, you know what, close to not, not even 11 months removed. Yet from from his ACL injury. So let’s
Nestor Aparicio 30:03
still, you know, very capable and just right, right, but, but
Luke Jones 30:05
the point is, you add another potential home run hitter into this offense. I mean, that’s where I joked. I said it about Deontay Johnson. If you get even a Keaton Mitchell, that’s 85% of what he was last year, and throw him into the mix as another change of pace. Maybe it won’t matter that they have the 32nd ranked pass defense, because I don’t know if you’ll be able to stop them at that point. So I wanted to at least throw that out there. I don’t know if that means he’s going to play Sunday. You know, it’s kind of a weird time right now, Sunday and then a game Thursday after that. But Keith Mitchell, being a full practice participant, he shed the knee brace this week in practice. So just throw that out there. I wanted to be for Baltimore positive. This is still a five and three football team. This offense is unbelievable. Lamar is still playing at a MVP level, even if he’s a little banged up this week. So yeah, they’ve got their defensive issues, and I am concerned about that. I’m not going to be disingenuous about that, but Keaton Mitchell, you throw him back into the mix too. And as I’ve said, if nothing else, I don’t want Tara Henry to have too much of a workload to the point where you want to keep him as fresh as can be in January, because that’s all that matters for this team at this point. So you throw Keaton Mitchell into that mix a little bit. And hey, maybe it’s only four or five carries a game or something like that, when he is fully back to in game shape and all that. But I thought it was nice to see that. I know that kids worked really hard. I know you have an affinity for Anthony Mitchell, and we all talked about how great the story was last year. So glad to see him back on the field. Glad to hear that he’s doing so well. You know, sounds like his speed, at least straight line looks like what it was last year. Lateral movement, we’ll see. You know, that’s something that’s always a challenge for skill players coming back from an ACL but I wanted to throw that out there amidst all the concerns and negativity and some of the injuries that they have dealt with here recently, Keith Mitchell looking good and making progress as he’s working his way back to an in game return that you know. Not saying it’s imminent, not saying it will happen Sunday, but it feels like it’s not too far away at this point in time.
Nestor Aparicio 32:12
If you’re not on the wnst tech service, you get on it, you’ll get all the breaking news first. If anything happens with Lamar, if there’s any trades, anything weird is going on, we’re at the end of the baseball season now. So if the Orioles are going to do anything, if there’s news to be made, they can make it, because they have that sort of moratorium on any sort of news during the World Series. So that baseball parts over and the Yankees still lost. The Yankees still off. The Yankees still lost. They’re not the champions. The Yankees lose. The Yankees lose. We’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake tours throughout November and into December. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I have Raven scratch offs. Give away. I’m gonna get some holiday scratch offs as well, because they are now out. They don’t have the sniffers this year. John Martin hates when I call them sniffers, the scented note scented lottery tickets this year. So there goes all the Fauci, all the fun. My bag smelled like gingerbread till like March last year. So it was good. We’re going to be at the Cocos. We’re going to be at the Fade. These were going to be a Costas. We’re going to be a Gertrude. We’re moving the show around a whole bunch. Hope to bring it back out to Carroll County as well later on this month. So we have some more words on that. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care putting us out on the road. I’m wearing my curio wellness shirt along with foreign daughter. They provide health and wellness needs in the cannabis space, we provide education here for that. And Wendy brown fine joined us this week, gave us a Duran Duran review from Monday night as well. It is our 26th anniversary. And our friends at Liberty, pure solutions keep our water clean. One 800 clean water. They give me bottles of water, and they’re really tasty fresh water, but they keep the water in my house clean with a water filtration system that takes care of things that well water, no bueno. Don’t be drinking a well water call Liberty pure one 800 clean water, also for all your plumbing needs. They are there for that. Wise markets calls these wise conversations. We have plenty of them ahead, including a whole bunch of stuff coming from Denver. Brandon Stokely joined us this week. Mike Cliff joined us this week, as well as Sean droar, all insiders with the Broncos. Lots of stuff on bone Nicks. Sean Payton, Peyton Manning, Peyton Manning, and and more. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.
