Luke Jones and Nestor discuss Ravens offensive line problems and solutions after Raiders loss
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
offensive line, week, ravens, game, henry, run, lamar, season, derek, talking, good, play, lele, starting, team, cleveland, owen, derrick henry, give, lamar jackson
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are, W, N, S, T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are. Am 1570 reminder, please set a dial. I have a car too. There’s six little things and there’s six mores just make us one of the numbers. I’ll even be number six. I’m number six on my own dash. It’s fine. You could put classic rock. You could put 98 rock you give any matter of fact, if you’re on the am side, we’re on the same side of the Dallas W, b, a, l, and they’re a big deal. So the Maryland lottery sends us out to do something that’s a big deal as well. It is our fifth year of the Maryland crab cake tour. It’s at fadelies on Friday. I got my fade Lee shirt on. Come on down. If you haven’t been to the new fadelies, we will have Raven scratch offs to give away our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care, power and Luke up, getting him from a training camp down to Camden Yards. The Orioles are home this week, San Francisco, giants in town, tigers in town. We will be at fade Lee’s on Friday afternoon. John Sarbanes going to join us, Congressman, we got some some other great guests, and the Tigers are in town, and the Orioles are in second place. But I’m not here to talk about baseball right now, it’s a football season, and the Baltimore Ravens are oh and to the former Oakland Los Angeles Raiders of Las Vegas came here and hurt everybody’s feelings on Sunday, Luke and I are here to continue to discuss that. And I don’t know where we left off, but how about a 10 point lead at home, you know, with 12 minutes left to go in the game, and how that gets squandered, because Harbaugh and I saw this stat has now is like nine double digit losses in the fourth it’s like some outrageous number. Now, you’ve been a coach for two decades, you blow some games, but the losses they had last year were curiously weird in that way that they lost games in the last minute of games that they’ve been winning for 58 minutes. I mean, I don’t want to say they almost went undefeated last year, but they ran to the chiefs of the championship game, but they were that good last year, and now they wake up on the bad side of Owen two with this incredibly difficult first place schedule. We don’t know about first place schedules around, because we don’t have them that often, but this is where the first place schedule really starts to smack in the face and say, All right, now, by the way, how about the Raiders seeing two hardballs to start the season two? That’s kind of weird, but in our case at Dallas, where they’re reeling buffalo, where, you know that’s going to be what it is here on a Sunday night. And then Cincinnati, who looked like they came back to life, um, despite the outcome now. And by the way, the Steelers are too now, yeah,
Luke Jones 02:32
well, and you just said it. I mean, the Bengals are Owen too, so the AFC North kind of upside down right now. I mean, not that I thought,
Nestor Aparicio 02:38
My daughter doesn’t think that.
Luke Jones 02:40
Well compared to expectations, it is, though. So, I mean, you never know. And again, it’s week two. There are plenty of teams that can rebound from an Owen to start. You’re going to hear a lot of a lot of statistics about oh and two teams and what percentage of them had made the playoffs. And it’s low because bad teams typically start oh and two, or frequently start oh and two. So we’re gonna see. I still think this is a good football team. I still think in the big picture, they’ll be okay, at least as it pertains to being a playoff team and getting in the tournament. But boy, they’ve got some issues, and you can’t allow yourself to dwell on this. You have to turn the page quickly because of what you just said. I mean, you’re going into Arlington to play the cowboys who got embarrassed on Sunday. I still think that’s a good football team. And by the way, it doesn’t get any easier. It was Chris Jones in week one. It was Max Crosby on Sunday, Micah Parsons now also this coming Sunday and and after that. I mean, you’ll have Trey Hendrickson looming a couple weeks after that. So, I mean, they’ve got to figure it out. They’ve got to be able to run the ball more consistently. They certainly have to pass protect, as we said, you know, my I’m going to be on high alert, not that we’re allowed to report how they’re the offensive line is lining up during practice. But do we see Ben Cleveland in place of Daniel fall away? Do we see Rosengarten replace Patrick McCarry? I mean, they both had their concerns. They both had their struggles. Do you just go with the young guy and say, Hey, we need to, we need to start growing, right? I mean, we’re just, we’re spinning at
Nestor Aparicio 04:16
one and four, if you start these young guys and they can’t handle Henderson four weeks from now, and certainly going down to Dallas, where they really got their ass kicked. They got their feelings hurt this week here. Oh and three. Oh, my God. I mean, that’s a different level of whatever that 4% 9% numbers are of single digit percentages of teams making playoffs and winning Super Bowls. This is this the toughest assignment, I think they have in the first five weeks. For me. For me, this is the toughest game. Well,
Luke Jones 04:49
I think more than anything, it’s the mental part of it, right? I mean, okay, I’m not even shouldn’t be afraid of the Cowboys, I mean, but at the same time, it’s. Think you are fighting that mental challenge now. I mean, I think from Lamar Jackson on down, you know, just everyone, right? I mean, these guys aren’t used to being in this position. Yes, they’ve blown some games over the last few years in this fashion. But to start Owen two, it is very rare territory. I mean, we’ve said it, it’s the only the second time they’ve started, oh and two in the Harbaugh era before 2015 you gotta go back all the way back to 2005 I mean, Nestor, that was the Kyle bowler getting hurt against Indy on in the Sunday night opener, and fans cheering and Anthony Wright coming in the game. And, you know, they they started that year, and you know, things quickly spiraled. And you know, they were fighting an uphill battle the rest of the way, and they weren’t very good over the course of the season. And Ray Lewis gets heard, and other guys got hurt, and they just weren’t they weren’t good enough. You know, 1999 and 2002 were the only other times. So, you know, we’re not talking about of Raven’s history of overcoming, oh, and two starts. It’s been more so it goes the other way. Now, again, I still expect this team to get up off the mat and brush themselves off it, but it starts Sunday, because, to your point, you think, oh, and two is taxing mentally. You drop to Owen three, then going home knowing you have the bills on a Sunday night and the Bengals on the road the following week. I mean, again, we we spelled it out in a previous segment. It’s not this far fetched proposition that they play so that they have to play so horribly to be one in four, for example, or something like that. I mean, that that’s that’s poor. The
Nestor Aparicio 06:34
next couple of weeks, they could play well and be one in four. They could lose two out of these three games and play well
Luke Jones 06:38
in order, sure, of course. I mean, not their best football but wouldn’t have to be their worst either. As to your point, I mean, no question about it. So they got to find a way to win a football game. They got to find a way to play a full 60 minutes again. That That game was, I mentioned the final 12 minutes were slapped you in the face in terms of how obvious it was, in terms of the collapse, but I still go back to the interception midway through the third quarter. You know, Lamar trying to find Bateman there, and the ball goes off his hands and you know it’s bounces up. Spillane takes the ball away. I mean, before that play happened, I think a lot of people were sensing, okay, this is where the ravens are really going to seize control. They’re up 10, they’ve got the ball. The Raiders just put together their best drive of the day, and they got nothing out of it, and now the ravens are going to seize control. And, you know, they finally got Derek Henry going a little bit, and instead, they handed the ball back back to the raiders and gave them a short field. And that game was very different from that point. So, you know, they’ve they’ve got to find a way to play a full 60 minutes. You know, again, there’s no shame in losing to the chiefs in week one, right? I mean, I said it, I wrote it. I believed it at the time wholeheartedly that losing to the Chiefs as disappointing as it was, as as taxing and as exhausting as it might have been, mentally after the entire offseason of living with the AFC title game that was tough, but it didn’t change their trajectory. I mean, they lost on the road to the defending Super Bowl champions. There’s no shame in that, but there is some shame, absolutely shame, in Squandering a 10 point fourth quarter lead against a team that, let’s face it, let’s call Gardner mentioned what he is. He’s a placeholder at quarterback for them right now. I mean, they’re not, they’re not so bad that they’re in a full blown rebuild and horrible to the degree that you might consider the Carolina Panthers right now, but they’re certainly not a team that anyone was anticipating being a playoff team, or a team of any cachet or any real substance to be a threat in the AFC, and maybe they will turn out to be that. I mean, Antonio Pierce, give him credit. I mean, those guys played hard in the second half. To your point, they their best players played way better than the Ravens best players in that second half. But it’s still a team that you expect to win at home, and you expect to win 10 out of 10 at home when you’re up by 10 points in the fourth quarter the way that they were. So it’s extremely frustrating. And I think the post game locker room, there were guys that, you know, searching for answers. I think there were shell shocked. Might be the best way that I would think of it. And I know disgruntled fans will say, Well, they did this last year a couple times. They did it three times in 2022 and I’ll hear all that, but it is a different team, you know, and in the same way that just because they went 13 and four and really 13 and three in games that mattered, you know, that they lost that Pittsburgh game that was a throwaway game in week 18. But it doesn’t mean that they’re just going to roll the ball out and be the same thing, because it is a different team. They have experienced attrition, coaching wise, and with some of their depth pieces, and certainly on the offensive line, as we’ll continue to talk about that at length, but you got to make plays, and they just didn’t make nearly enough plays in any phase of the game to finish off that football game. And as a result, they kept leaving the door cracked for. For the Raiders, and give them credit, they kicked it down when they needed to in the fourth quarter, and that’s why they come away with the win, and the Ravens are licking their wounds at Owen two right now,
Nestor Aparicio 10:14
philosophically, I wrote that they have a $50 million quarterback and a 50 cent offensive line. The backup plan, right? You know when things go wrong and they’re going wrong right now, injuries haven’t even happened yet, right? Like they don’t. They’re not banged up on the offensive line. They’re just not good enough. This whole notion that they’re going to coach guys up and get them better, I’d like to think that there would be some optimism in that drive where, you know they would have some decent tape at the end of the third quarter to say, all right, these are some things that have worked, but I don’t know what to do when the offensive line is losing every individual battle on plays, and when there’s a premier player or series of players, and you mentioned Hendrickson coming down the line, certainly Micah Parsons this week, certainly the game wrecking ability of Max Crosby. And we talked about balding or breaking down all these breakdowns, and showing all of that the offensive line without a net. And the look into Costa’s face two weeks ago when you were in front of him, and even he said, we don’t really know that’s a that’s a hell of a mission to make. And now we do know we’re two weeks into this, and we know it’s not good enough right now. And the question is, can it get better? I mean, and listen the loss of joeless Andrus, um, just, I when it’s all said and done, the emotions of all of that I was with a friend who attended his ceremony on Friday after the loss that they had his his memorial the morning after the Thursday night loss against Kansas City, and just how entrenched he was in the emotions of that, and the fact that, not only is the offensive line, did they get their ass kicked, they’re now going to go into a room all week without him again, and they’re used to having him there. And I, I don’t know how they’re going to scotch tape this together for lack of a better expression well,
Luke Jones 12:20
and you just said it. And look, no one’s saying this to be incentive to be insensitive. I mean, the human element, this is a man who passed away, right? We’re not. No one’s trying to be insensitive about that, but they’re not canceling the season either, right? These guys have a job to do, and they’d be the first to tell you that, right? I mean, Ronnie Stanley and Tyler linderbaum And Patrick McCarry. They don’t want anyone saying, well, your offensive line coach passed away. It’s part of this though. I mean, it is. You can’t deny that part of this plan, in terms of this youth movement, was attached to the idea that Joe Dallas Andrews, who they held with such high esteem, was going to coach these guys up. Now that’s not to say that George warhop, who’s come in and by the way he talked, spoke last Thursday, classy, and how he handled himself and how he discussed it, and really struck a good balance between, hey, we’ve got a job to do, but these guys are, you know, they’ve been through a lot over the last month. I mean, it was Saturday Nestor, you know. And I even noted that in my 12 thoughts going into this week to match up, Saturday marked the one month, one month since the Ravens announced that Joe Dallas Andrews had been hospitalized and they had hired George warhop. I mean, think about that. That’s just when he was hospitalized, not talking about when he passed away a couple weeks after one month. I mean, right? I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 13:31
they had never met this guy until a month ago, right? That’s a lot. So that’s where I would
Luke Jones 13:36
say grace for all these individuals from a personal standpoint. And look, we should never get personal when we’re talking about criticizing football players or coaches or anything like that in terms of what’s happening on the field, right? It’s business. It’s results driven industry, right? I mean, all of that we know. We all understand that, even though if we don’t always practice it to the degree that we all should as media or fans, so we’re acknowledging that. But at the same time, the season goes on, and this is a major question mark. This is a major problem. And to your point in terms of plan B or pivoting to others, I mean, okay, you know, I’ve been talking about, plenty of people are talking about Ben Cleveland at brightguard. Check noted, right? You could elect to just go to Roger Rosengarten, which is the long term plan. I think the plan sooner than later. Anyway, you know, if you’re saying, Okay, well, Patrick McCary struggling too, and, you know, we think Patrick McCarry is better suited as our sixth man, and chances are someone’s going to end up getting banged up anyway, you know, let, let’s go with Rose and garden. Let’s let him get all the starter reps. Let’s let him play and get comfortable and start building rhythm next to and cohesiveness with Ben Cleveland at right guard. You know, I’ll hear that, but those are still, you know, they’ve got to go out and do it. They’ve got to go out and perform. I mean, okay, veteran Josh Jones would be another option at one of these spots. But, you know, short of going out there and make. To trade. And what team out there right now, in mid September is willingly, eagerly trading you a starting caliber offensive line. I mean, this is not the season for that. The season for that is in March when the Ravens traded Morgan Moses to the Jets, right? I mean, that’s the kind of thing that happens at that point in the in the season. Now, that’s not to say that there won’t be an offensive lineman that you might be able to acquire at some point between now and the trade deadline, but again, what are your reasonable expectations for that? I don’t think you’re acquiring an All Pro, right? I’m not sure you’re acquiring a younger version of Kevin Zeitler, for that matter. So, I mean, this is, you’ve got to figure this out internally. I mean, you do, and, you know, I mean, I don’t think you’re calling up guys from the practice squad. I mean, I hope it doesn’t come to that, but you’ve got to figure this out. And this has to be better, and it has to be a cleaner operation. And for all of the Derrick Henry hype over the course of the off season, you know, my biggest question was still, who’s blocking for him? And you know, that’s come to fruition over these first couple weeks. And you know, I think some of it is also scheme fit and kind of marrying what he did best in Tennessee with what the Ravens do, which wasn’t necessarily a round peg into a round hole scenario. I mean, he ran, you know, you’re seeing the Ravens play a little more under center than they’ve had, than they have in recent years, but they’re still going to operate out of the shotgun and pistol, way more. I mean, that’s, that’s their offense. That’s what Lamar Jackson has done, going back to his days in at Louisville. So, you know, there was always a little bit of a question with that. I mean, Willie Taggart, their running backs coach, acknowledged that much over the summer, where he said, Yeah, early on, when we started talking about signing Derek Henry, I did have some questions, because of what he did in Tennessee compared to what we do here in Baltimore, with our run game and the style that we, that we played so and I’m not, let me be clear, I’m not saying that won’t, that won’t all get worked out, but you’ve got to start with being able to block up front. You got to move people in the running game, and they’re just not doing that nearly consistently enough right now. So I don’t know, man. I mean, it’s you. You look at this group, I mean, the ravens, they consciously decided to do this. I mean, I think Kevin Zeitler would have been very amenable to, you know, some kind of short term extension. He ended up signing, what with Detroit, off the top of my head, I
Nestor Aparicio 17:35
think it was a one year, $7 million deal. It’s not like it was lucrative, right? It’s not like they gave him a five year deal where you’re giving him a bunch of guaranteed money. Felt like Derrick Henry would be a better investment with that money, not knowing that Henry’s only going to touch the ball 1214, times a game. Cycle is going to run block 65 times a game, right? Like, literally and well, pass block. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, he’s going to be in on every play, as opposed to being involved in some of the plays. And this was a value. And look, Eric, the cost is way smarter than me. Just if you can find him, ask him, he’s got analytics, he’s got studies, he’s got this, he’s got, you know, he’s got wisdom, he’s got all of that. They were the ones that decided to do this this way. You were always skeptical of the big money running back, and everybody is except for Chad Weasley, who I had at Coopers this week, who represents Josh Jacobson represents running backs in the league. And you have to have that. You have to have a running back that can do this, do the job. But did you need $9 million worth of running back? I argued for it. So I am the guy that’s happy Derek Henry is here, but I thought that they had better plans for their offensive line. I think they thought that too. And the belief they have in Voorhees, the belief they had in follow Lele to put him out there, like we’ve always looked at it and said that looks a little square and round, looks more like a tackle than a guard, doesn’t it. Doesn’t have the feet to be a tackle, getting out into space. How does he have the feet to be a guard? Can’t get out of his own way? Yeah, he’s big, but Is he strong, like all of those things, and we’re two weeks into this, and I don’t know how they march him back out there and say, Stop Michael Parsons this week, and think that it’s not going to go any worse,
Luke Jones 19:20
yeah. And let me be very clear, I think it’s important not to make this, you know, this referendum in totality, as far as Derrick Henry versus and let’s be clear, let’s not present this as a false choice. Either it wasn’t Derek Henry or Kevin Zeitler. It was Derek Henry or Kevin Zeitler, or any number of other possibilities in terms of your offensive line and ways that you could go about doing that. So, you know, because I’ve seen some people say, Well, what, what guard were they going to get for the money that they gave? Derek Henry, well, like there, there’s multiple ways to do this. That reminds me of the people back in the day who tried to defend the Ravens trading Anquan Boldin by saying, well, they, they wouldn’t have gotten this guy and this guy if. Yeah, there’s more than one way to build a roster, right? I mean, there’s no it’s more than two ways to build a roster. So you know that I rejected it back then, and I rejected the notion that Derek Henry was their only choice in terms of, you know, whether you’re talking about the O line or Derek Henry. I mean, there were lots of ways to and look, they still might this, still might get figured out, right, and maybe it’s as simple as pivoting to Ben Cleveland, and he’ll give them a higher floor, and it’ll look better, and the year will go on. And I’m not suggesting that Derek Henry needs to have the 93 cowboys blocking for him. You know, I don’t think anyone has that kind of an expectation, but it’s got to be better than what it is right now, anyone will tell you when you look at you know, especially from an analytics standpoint, and Eric da Costa would attest to this, when you talk about your run blocking compared to your pass block, and when you talk about success on the ground versus pass protection and sacks and all of that, they will tell you that the offensive line is way more responsible for your success on the ground than the running back, and they will also tell you that. And I’m not saying, I’m not saying this to pick on the mark. I’m just saying, in a general sense, they will tell you that sacks and pass protection probably falls a little more on the lap of the quarterback than most people will generally admit. Of course, the offensive line has to pass block. I’m not suggesting they don’t, but I’m just saying, when you kind of look at those two concepts, run game tends to be much more offensive line dependent than having a, quote, elite running back. And when you talk about sax allowed, specifically, that tends to be a stat that probably puts, you know, should put a little more culpability on the on the plate of the quarterback. Now that doesn’t mean when Max Crosby blows by Daniel fall a lay or Patrick McCary and sax Lamar that that’s on Lamar, I’m not, I’m not at all suggesting that point is there’s more nuance to these discussions, right? And everyone was excited about signing Derek Henry, and I get that, I I never said to you, I hate this, or I’m 100% opposed to this. I would, but I was always skeptical through the lens of, okay, you’ve got Derek Henry, but you waved goodbye to Kevin Zeitler and Morgan Moses and yeah, I wasn’t as fazed about John Simpson. I said that at the time. I still am not fazed by that, but replacing three spots on your starting offensive line, and oh yeah, that’s not including Ronnie Stanley and acknowledging his injury history over the last four years. That’s a lot, I mean, that is a lot of change. Nestor, you know, we we’ve talked about, you know, just to make a quick, brief comparison with the Orioles, how much roster turn the Orioles have had, and a lot of it dependent by, you know, determined by injuries, right? I mean, but look at what their roster is. Look at what their daily starting lineup is right now compared to what it looked like in May. That’s a lot of turnover. And when you have to make that many changes, whether it’s premeditated or whether it’s on the fly, like the Orioles have had to do, or the Ravens have had to do, some of these years where they’ve been ravaged by injuries, chances are it ends up being a diminished form of what you originally had, and that’s what the ravens are dealing with right now with their own lines. So doesn’t mean the season’s over, doesn’t mean that, I don’t think that they’re going to rebound and be a playoff team and and this offensive line can improve, but this floor is too low right now. I mean, it just is. So that’s where, again, the short term suggestion or fix that people are imagining right now. Envisioning right now is, yeah, Ben Cleveland, stepping in for fall. Lele, at least it’s his natural position. At least it’s the spot that he’s, you know, he’s and he also worked at left guard, also over the last three years. But at least that, you know, he’s a guard, whereas file a lay. I mean, he’s learning, and, you know, this has been a big experiment, and his pass blocking looked better than people gave him credit for during the preseason. But I just I’m not seeing it. It doesn’t look good enough, and I’m not seeing enough glimpses and flashes to say, okay, that rep wasn’t very good. But
Nestor Aparicio 23:58
hey, look at rep
Luke Jones 23:59
2345, and six here. And look at that. Look how impressive that was. I’m not seeing that upside there. And even again, if there’s something you could, you would try to envision with someone like him moving from right tackle inside the guard and said, Okay, six foot eight and 380 pounds. You would say on paper, that means, Oh, this guy should be able to maul, absolutely Maul, some people in the run game, you know, run blocking, he’s not doing that. I mean, he’s not playing like a offensive lineman of that size. So if he’s not doing that, and we already have questioned about his footwork and whether his hand placement and all those different things are up to snuff, then what are we doing here? You know, where’s the upside? So, you know, again, the Ravens know better than I do in terms of expertise and coaching acumen and front office acumen. I get all that at the same time. That doesn’t mean that any coaching staff or any front office is going to bat 1000 right? I mean, we know that. That you know these everyone’s human at the end of the day, we all make mistakes. We all make bad assessments from time to time and again. I look back, and I don’t want to make it solely about fall Lele, but that’s just a lot of change in one off season to to try to, especially for a team that was that close to being in the Super Bowl last January, to change it up as much as they have. I think we all expected some hiccups. We all expected inconsistency. But I’m concerned, I really am, because again, it’s not just Chris Jones, it’s not just Max Crosby. I mean, every team, not every team, let me, let me be clear about that, but most teams around the league have a pass rusher that is going to draw attention and can potentially disrupt and wreck the game if you’re not able to handle them. And they couldn’t handle Max Crosby on Sunday, they just couldn’t, I mean, certainly could not do it in a one on one capacity. And then that’s when you get into what concessions are you having to make in order to shore up that pass protection, and then in turn, what does that do in terms of limiting your passing game? You know, fewer receivers out in a route, Lamar. I mean, how about the Lamar overshot Mark Andrews downfield on a play that I think he had, you know, it looked like a clean pocket. He had time, but Lamar was he was feeling pressure that wasn’t there. And that adds up. The same thing happened to Joe Flacco, you know, going back to the last four, five years of him as ravens quarterback, where if you didn’t have an offensive line that you trust, you’re feeling the pressure, even if it’s not there on a lot of plays. So, you know, they’ve got to, they’ve got to figure this out. There’s no, no doubt about it. But the problem is, again, what team is out there that you’re just Eric DACA is just going to call up a GM and say, and the GM is going to say, Oh, sure, Eric, yeah, we’ll give you our, our starting guard for, you know, sixth round pick. I mean, that’s this isn’t the season for that now closer to the trade deadline, maybe, maybe, and maybe that ends up being the big move that the Ravens make, that they get some other guy that’s comparable to a Kevin Zeitler, right? Or, or, you know, some guard that you feel better about compared to the guys you currently have. But you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta win games in between now and whenever that potentially happens, if it happens so it’s it’s a concern. We’ve dwelled on the offensive line a lot, and understandably so, based on what we’ve seen through the first two weeks of the season, I don’t think there’s any question there. I
Nestor Aparicio 27:31
wonder if they feel the same way, or they’re like, We they’re gonna start trying guys out this week. They’re on the phones. If they feel like they’re personnel. They don’t have the right guys. Because it, it did make me a little queasy watching, to cost that speak to all of you two weeks ago about it, I didn’t like the expression of doubt, right? I mean, and now we’ve seen the doubt over two hours in the body of work. Lamar has also seen it. Derek Henry’s also seen it. Todd monkin has seen it and maybe tried to adjust to it a little bit in the third quarter, in using Lamar a little differently, even just that crazy play at the line of scrimmage where Henry moved doing the just trying to do things a little bit differently than maybe they thought they were going to do it two weeks ago. Because it’s not working. They’re good. They’re going to have to adjust in game. And I said, you know, at halftime they came out, played it, played, okay. I’m like, Hey, there’s your halftime adjustment, I guess. I mean, if there’s such a thing, but you’d like to think that there’s some adjustment being done here to their mindset on the offensive line to say, it’s getting late early, and we’re not good enough right now, and this Voorhees follow this isn’t we can’t win like this. And I think they know better for what competition they’re going to face. And they probably saw Max Crosby’s tape during the week and knew they were going to need some extra help for him. I would think the same thing’s true for Parsons and all of these really elite players, where they don’t have an answer for that. They didn’t have an answer last week either. For Chris Jones,
Luke Jones 29:09
yeah. I mean, it’s, again, it doesn’t get any easier in that regard. And look, I don’t have any problem. Like, for example, you know, Henry’s touchdown, he takes a direct snap, right? Derek, Henry did that in Tennessee, plenty. I’m not opposed to that. I’m not. You know, we talked about Henry moving on the false start on the what the tush push play that they were getting ready to run with? What with what? I guess Charlie Kohler was taking the snap. I’m not completely opposed to that, but I am concerned when I’m seeing them come out in the first half and they can’t run the ball at all. I mean, this is the Ravens. Forget about Derrick Henry for a moment. And part of my argument about spending $9 million on a running back was what they’ve been able to run the ball with any number of characters in their backfield because of what Lamar Jackson’s presence. So when you have Lamar Jack. Jason and Derek Henry in the backfield, and you’re not able to get gain any traction with your run game. That’s a problem. That’s a pretty sharp indictment of your offensive line. When you have those two guys that in the backfield knowing that any defensive lineman, whether you’re talking about a defensive tackle or especially edge guys, that they’re in conflict for that extra split second that they have to say, Oh, I got to watch out for read option here I got, you know, I got to watch out for that. And, and maybe the answer is, ravens need to get into more of that. And, you know, rather than just straight handoffs to Derek Henry, you know, but I mean, they’ve it needs to be better. There’s no doubt. There’s no excuse if you’re an NFL offensive line. There’s no excuse when you have Lamar Jackson, the greatest rushing quarterback in NFL history, and Derek Henry, who is on his way to the Hall of Fame even at age 30. You know he’s not in his prime. He’s not the guy that’s going to rush for 2000 yards anymore, but I never doubted the fact that he was still a really good running back a year ago, and I still think he is a good running back, but you have those two guys and you can’t block for them. That’s a you problem. That’s not a Lamar problem, that’s not a Derek Henry problem, that’s a an offensive line and a Todd monkin problem, right there. So I don’t know what the you know Is it as simple as plugging in Ben Cleveland? I don’t really think so. But do I think that can help? Do I think that can make things better? Sure? And again, I’m not seeing enough from Fall Lele individually, and it’s not just on him. I want to be clear on that, but I’m when you’re looking and trying to identify the weak link, or a guy where you might have an alternative, you know, you have a person you can pivot to, you know, that’s the one that that stands out. Because, you know, we all thought Ben Cleveland was going to be the starting right guard, you know, back in April and May and June, that was the assumption, you know, I mean, that that’s, that’s what we thought. So, okay, foul, Lele got his chance, and, you know, the coaching staff can keep talking about the promise you see, or how hard he’s worked, or anything like that, but I’m just not seeing it. I’m just not and I’m not sure there are many people outside the organization, and I’m not I’m not saying the organization’s even seeing it internally these first two weeks. I’m guessing they are. But I’m not seeing enough good signs. There enough. You know, when you talk about young guys, you always use the term flash, right? You want to see an individual flash. I’m not seeing enough flashes from Daniel fall late to think that this is going to be tenable, that this is going to be successful. And when you have someone like Ben Cleveland, who I get it, coaching staff clearly doesn’t believe in them, right? And that might be any number of reasons for him, he doesn’t practice hard or whatever. I mean, I again, I don’t know that for 100% certain, but the last three off season speak for themselves. They’ve had a guard an opening at guard each of the last three off seasons, and Ben Cleveland was perceived to be the favorite at the start of the off season each of those years, and then start there. So I’m not saying that that’s completely on the coaching staff, and not on Ben Cleveland at all. But when you have someone at a position where it’s not working, and you’ve seen someone else do it, albeit in a small sample, in three starts combined, between 22 and 23 I think I need to take a look at that, and Ben Cleveland goes out there and gets destroyed, and it is terrible. Sure, you can go back to file a lay, I guess, right? But I just it’s not good enough, and it’s concerning. You know, you can’t have liabilities at right guard and right tackle, and then your left guard is still learning, and still very much a work in progress as well. I mean, most offensive lines around the league, and John Harbaugh made this point a couple weeks ago, and I thought it was a fair point. You know, he, he kind of acknowledged, look around the league, you know, it is rare that you’re going to find any offensive line that doesn’t have a weakness. I mean, last year for all the talk, and he was a nice little story, and he and he ended up getting a nice contract with the Jets. John Simpson was a below average starter last year. He was not very good. But when you had four other guys that were either veteran players or, in the case of linderbomb, a Pro Bowl, all pro caliber player next to him, you can you can live with that. You can’t have three guys like that on your offensive line and expects success, a consistent success, right? So it’s not an easy answer, because again, mid September is not the time where teams are taking your calls left and right, trying to pedal off a starting caliber offensive lineman to you that you need. So certainly not at a price that you want to pay to get them, even if that guy exists right now. So, you know, they’re really in a tight spot here in terms of kind of needing to go with, you know, go with what they have. To your point, sure, you know, if we a day or two from now, we hear and we see on the transaction wire that they’ve worked out five or six offensive linemen, that wouldn’t surprise me whatsoever. I. I think they’re finding an answer in that group of potential players. They’re working out or street free agents. Probably not, but the fact that we’re even having this conversation really speaks to it not being nearly good enough for the first couple weeks. And you know, again, you have three spots on your own line that are such question marks, and you’re healthy, right? You’re not dealing with two or three guys that are injured, as can happen. I mean, this time last year, linderbaum and Stanley were both out, right? They were both sidelined in week one last year, and they missed time early in the season, so they’re not even dealing with that,
Nestor Aparicio 35:36
but it’s still no imagine that. Imagine if we go to second
Luke Jones 35:40
season. They’ve got to get figured out that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so they’ve got to figure this out. I mean, I don’t think you know this isn’t a crisis to the point where I think it means they’re going to go six and 11. But no,
Nestor Aparicio 35:55
it’s a crisis because of the next three weeks. There’s a play. It’s a crisis because of the schedule they had the Browns next week despite their victory, I would feel like, all right, you know, if their next couple of games were they
Luke Jones 36:06
have miles, Garrett and arias, Smith, Fair enough.
Nestor Aparicio 36:09
Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, anybody that has a front seven matchup issue, I’m just saying Yeah. Luke Jones is here teams in the league where you would say they’re there are only a few teams in the league where you would say their front seven is such a non issue, where we’re not going to be talking about this. I mean, this is, this is a weekly topic until the Ravens prove otherwise. Fair enough. Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore. Luke. You can find him out on the interwebs. You could find both of us all week long, doing baseball, doing football, examining this Oriole meltdown that’s in progress, Luke will be back at the ballpark this week. Luke will be in Owings Mills. They allow him, they do not allow me. So I don’t know what we do for afternoon games later in the week, but we’ll, we’ll be talking about that around here, also the wnst tech services coming back this week, I promise. So I’ll brought to you by Cole roofing and Gordian energy. We’ll be talking about that. And on Friday, we’re going to be at Faith these I’m wearing my fatly shirt. We’re gonna be out at Lexington market in the afternoon. Come on by. Get a lottery ticket from the Maryland lottery of the Raven scratch offs as well. This weekend, our friends at Jiffy Lube MultiCare putting us out on the road, and we are celebrating our 26th anniversary here at wnst by having 26 oysters in 26 days. I’m 10 days into this. Doing pretty well. I haven’t really other than having two separate Chuck oysters, I’ve had interesting oysters, fried oysters, poached oysters, grilled oysters, roasted oysters, oyster stew, oyster soup, oyster fritters. I’ve had it all. I feel like Forrest Gump, but forest Nestor, I guess it this week, Orioles and ravens, not as much rock and roll this week, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen at six. That was all last week. Playoffs begin in two weeks. Yankees are next week. Dallas is this week. Get a lot of business to do around here. I am Nestor. We are wnst. Am 1570 Taos in Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
