After a second week of inconsistencies and penalties across the offensive line hindered the Baltimore Ravens in another loss, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the worst passing defense in the NFL through Week 2, the strange red flag challenges of John Harbaugh and a purple implosion at home against the Las Vegas Raiders.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
play, offensive line, running, raiders, week, game, ravens, good, derrick henry, talking, defense, oyster, move, ball, player, ronnie stanley, point, pass, gardner, looked
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are a positively into what is a season that we’re going to be talking a lot of football here this week. That is for sure. The ravens are o and two. We are taking the Maryland crab cake tour back on the road this week for the second place, Orioles. I don’t know where to begin. I have, I have it shaved with either one this week. I’m sort of on a strike until somebody wins. But the Orioles, we playing at home on Friday. Luke and I will be down at fadelies, Alex in the market. I’ll have, I will have the Raven scratch offs this week. I have like, three of these gold rush doublers left after our remote last week we we had a great time sitting down and chatting with some old friends, and we did that down at Coopers in the middle of the Maryland oyster tour, oyster festival. I should say we’re in the middle of the Maryland oyster tour. Uh, 26 oysters in 26 days so far. Um, 11 for 11. They’ve been really tasty, really different every day. Luke thinks he doesn’t like oysters. Yeah, I tell you what the the oyster tour is going to take a little bit of a respite here this week, just to talk some football. You know, I see a lot of things, and I don’t know that I could have seen them at Owen too. I don’t know what that would have looked like to bet on that up in Hollywood casino, but what we saw on Sunday, we spent six, seven months of the off season, you and I talking about this, what would happen if the offensive line isn’t good enough? And I don’t think either one of us could have seen oh and two coming.
Luke Jones 01:30
Certainly not when you look at the first five games of the season and you identified the home opener against the Las Vegas Raiders. It’s a team that was eight nine a year ago, a team that replaced its head coach in the middle of last season. I mean, that was a soft spot on the schedule, right? I mean, if you’re not going to win that game, then all bets are off in terms of any of those games. And not to say that, I think the ravens are going to start on five. I don’t I still think this is a good football team, but they especially over the final 12 minutes on Sunday, they didn’t play anywhere close to a good football team. I mean, they broke down and had letdowns and melted down in just about any way you can think. I mean their offense, the offensive line, Derek Henry with a false start on a third and one play, John Harbaugh with a challenge that wasn’t good to match the bad challenge in the first half that cost him a time out that they could have used it the end of each half, the defense, which was so good in the first half, was that bad in the second half, where the Raiders scored on every possession other than their first one. In the third quarter, that ended up being a turnover on downs, where they could have kicked a field goal, and for good measure, even their special teams, Jordan style, Shanks upon on the penultimate tribe that’s that put the Raiders on a short field and made that go ahead field goal that much easier. So that was kind of a clinic in how to melt down late in the football game. And we’ve talked about this at a few different points over the last few years. I mean, this saw people making comparisons to the Colts game last year, you know, the Pittsburgh game last year in Pittsburgh, where the Ravens led and kind of inexplicably let that one get away. You know, we talked about it two years ago with the Miami game and the Giants game up at the Meadowlands. We’ve seen this this team for as much as they haven’t lost a whole lot overall. They seem to lose in this kind of fashion. But I’m not as concerned about comparing it to the past in the present, they’re all in two, and they’ve got to figure out some of these issues. And you just said it for me, the offensive line. But I’ll also throw this out there, and this isn’t to deviate from my belief that Zach or is going to be a good defensive coordinator in this league, but he’s a rookie defensive coordinator in this league, and through two games, I mean, they’ve given up 53 points. They’ve given up more passing yards than anyone in the league through two weeks, and Gardner Minshew isn’t Patrick mahomes, so at best, it’s been choppy on the defensive side. So I didn’t
Nestor Aparicio 04:04
know that’s that they’ve given up more passing yards than any team in the league. They have. I mean, wow, that’s a big number. I mean, I had the Monday Night Football Sure, yeah, yeah. I didn’t. I didn’t hear it that way or feel it that way. That’s kind of that’s alarming.
Luke Jones 04:18
Well, think about it. I mean, Gardner Minshew finished with 276 yards. I mean, go, look at what the halftime stats were. I mean, I think the Raiders had 43 yards total. Now, he had a few more passing yards than that with considering sacks and what that does, the net yard well,
Nestor Aparicio 04:31
they couldn’t run the ball, you knew that. So all they they passed exclusively at the end of the game, and successfully exclusively, like, you know, there wasn’t a whole lot of resistance and the pass rush look, Van Noy got in, oh, wait, got in, whatever. But when the game’s on the line, where are your best players? I mean, that’s, that’s my column. This at this point is you want to brag about roquan Smith, you want to brag about Kyle Hamilton, brag about Marlon Umphrey. You want to brag about this offense. And zay flowers and Lamar Jackson and reigning MVP and we brought in a Hall of Famer. I don’t see any push up front that is allowing skill position players to succeed on the offensive side and the defensive side, big mistakes and big problems and big plays at a time when they have a 10 point lead at home. You got to put them to sleep. They’re a bad football team. Yeah. I
Luke Jones 05:24
mean, Ronnie Stanley said it best in the post game locker room, where guys were really searching for answers. I mean, I think they were shell shocked, but he flat out said it. We had so many chances to put the final nail in the coffin in that game, and we didn’t do it. And that was collective, right? Again, someone make a play in some phase of the game, and instead, it was kind of a, you know, a contest to see who could one up the other phase of the game by making a mistake that was going to keep the raiders in it and give them an opportunity to tide the game and take the lead the way they ultimately did. So really discouraging in that regard. But you know, the big picture questions, you start with the offensive line. Their run blocking was horrible in the first half. They got something going. They got some run game going in the second half, but still not consistent, right? I mean, Derrick Henry busted a couple plays, great. You know, that was good to see. Finally, looked like Derrick Henry, but, well, they
Nestor Aparicio 06:22
had a drive that lets us say, Well, they did it once. I mean, certainly going down the field, and the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter, like that, started to feel like, Oh, this is why they brought Derek Henry. They’re going to pound this at my my prediction before the game was 30 to 13. They were up 2313, you know, like it felt like, Man, my prediction is pretty good. They’ll score another one here. They’ll get the ball, they’ll take the air out of the ball, and that’ll be the end. They’ll put them to sleep. I mean, we’ve seen this so many times. How you win 13 games last year is finishing games like that, a winnable game at home. I
Luke Jones 06:56
mean, but you’ve got to, you’ve got to go out and do it. And this offensive line. I’m just, I’m not seeing it collectively. Now, I’ll say this, I still have optimism that Roger Rosengarten is going to get better as the year goes on. I think he’s eventually going to be the right tackle. You know. I mean, Patrick McCarry struggled just as much against Max Crosby, who, by the way, it was an absolute game wrecker. I mean, two sacks, five pressures. But just I saw Brian Baldinger, your good buddy, had a breakdown early, early Monday morning, and just had two and a half minutes of highlights of Max Crosby just wrecking the game. I mean, even when he didn’t make a play that showed up in the box score, he’s still wrecking the game. And he was the best player on the field. I mean, he was so but this offensive line, Rosengarten, had right tackle, I’ll totally buy he’s going to get better as the year goes on. I’ll say the same about Andrew Voorhees, although he certainly struggled at left guard. Paul Lele at right guard, you’ve heard me saying this, you’ve heard me saying this a lot. I’m not an offensive line expert. I’m not an offensive line coach in the NFL. Let me be very clear about that. I’m not seeing it, the guy doesn’t move fast enough. It’s great to be 380 pounds, right on paper, that looks like you should be able to maul some people in the run game. He doesn’t play like he’s 380 pounds in terms of functional game, strength, football, strength. When he’s out there, he’s not moving people, he’s not mauling people, and he can’t move. So I look at this and I say, is he really, truly better than Ben Cleveland? And look, I’m not saying Ben Cleveland’s going to come in and be Marshall yanda. Let’s be very clear about that. I don’t think this is the coaching staff having such a vendetta that that Ben Cleveland’s a future pro bowler in waiting, but we did see him fill in for Kevin Zeitler for three starts between last season and the year before, and in those three games, that was better than what we’ve seen out of file Lele in the first two weeks. So I listen, I hear
Nestor Aparicio 08:51
de Costa’s potential, right? Like I I watched that press conference from two weeks ago. I also waved to him at Pearl Jam over the weekend as well. Um, you know, this thought that we’re going to get cheaper. You already said Zeitler, I’ll say Moses. We’ll talk about last year’s offensive line that won 13 games and allowed Lamar to win an MVP. You’re certainly, you know, I don’t know if Lamar bought them gold watches when he won his MVP and got his his money for that, but it does happen up front, and we spent eight months talking about it, and I’ll hear as my gray hairs grow in, that Zeitler was getting old, Moses was getting old. I’ll hear all that they were expensive, but this would have been better with Keaton Mitchell in the backfield and a real offensive line than giving the ball to a 30 something Hall of Fame running back that has nowhere to go and well,
Luke Jones 09:42
this, this was why, back in March, I was lukewarm to the idea of Derrick Henry. Not because I did. I didn’t like Derrick Henry. It’s because of this, this idea that you’re going to replace three starters on the offensive line. And. I mean, okay, Rosengarten was a second round pick. He was a late second round pick. Well, you
Nestor Aparicio 10:04
don’t have a real answer. I mean, when they went in the camp at the end of July, they had a bunch of rookies, a bunch of question marks, and Ben Cleveland and Patrick McCary, you know, that’s we’ve been talking about this for six months well, and this is why I looked at giving $9 million to a running back and saying, Okay, again, it’s
Luke Jones 10:26
not that I think Derek Henry’s too old, or that Derrick Henry isn’t a fantastic running back, but you saw it last year in Tennessee when the Titans couldn’t block. Go look at what Derrick Henry’s numbers were. They weren’t, they weren’t very impressive. He averaged, I think, 4.2 yards per carry. That’s not winning your football games at the end of the day. So, I mean, that’s that was part of my trepidation, errors, the opportunity cost. It wasn’t, oh, you know, never, ever pay a running back, although that’s kind of my philosophy. And by the way, I’m not alone in that. A lot of there are a lot of teams out there that don’t want to do that. My God,
Nestor Aparicio 11:00
call two swing passes a quarter for him and just give him the ball in space. It’s better than handing it off to him, spread everybody out, throw it over the guard’s head and let him get into space and maybe run over a linebacker something. I mean, it worked when they tried it, but this, I mean, the play that they called, where he moved his foot, where are you aligning? What are you doing? You have the NFL MVP and and a hall of fame running back, and you’re going to play pokey with the football and with the game on the line. It was just, this is the paranoia of John Harbaugh out thinking himself in a lot of cases.
Luke Jones 11:39
Well, I mean, the tush push has become a big play around the league. I’m not, and I’m not saying I agree with it either, right?
Nestor Aparicio 11:45
But execute it well,
Luke Jones 11:46
Derek Henry didn’t do much. I mean, okay, he finally busted a couple runs. He did nothing in the first half. They couldn’t move anybody. I mean, that that’s part of the problem their their offensive line. I mean, we could talk about the pass protection and the concerns there. They’re not moving anyone in the run game consistently. I mean, they’re just not. So when you’re when you’re struggling to do that, that’s when you tend to think of, oh, we might need to do the the brotherly shove, or the tush push, or whatever you want to call the play that the Eagles have made famous, which, by the way, they can’t run as they haven’t run as well, at least in week one without Kelsey at center. I mean, you know, you kind of all Hall of Fame Center makes that play Go and but you know that you sure as heck are going to execute it when you fall start on that play. I mean, Derek Henry doesn’t get a pass. There is a bad penalty. Again, just another example of all the things they did late in that football game to lose. So, but I look at this offensive line, and again, my question was always not that you had to run it back and bring back John Simpson and Kevin Zeitler and Morgan Moses, but when you move on from all three, and you’re talking about relying on young guys, and not necessarily, you know it, linderbaum aside, we’re not talking about first round picks here. I mean, even Roger Rosengarten is a late second round pick. Now I’m not saying he’s not going to be good, but for right now,
Nestor Aparicio 13:06
that’s a big question mark, right?
Luke Jones 13:07
I mean, that’s not someone you don’t draft guys with pick 60 something and plug them into the starting lineup on the norm in the National Football League. That’s just not something that it and block Max Crosby too, right? It does happen. There are guys who can do that, but that’s not the norm, and that’s not to me, that’s not a good enough plan a for a team that has Super Bowl aspiration. So again, that that was much more the root of my not doing cartwheels over the Derrick Henry move. It’s not that I didn’t like Derrick Henry was the opportunity cost, and looking at the state of the offensive line now a month from now, maybe they’ll have that straightened out. Maybe they’ll pivot to Ben Cleveland and and he’ll give them a higher floor than what file a Lay’s doing. Maybe Roger Rosengarten will settle in. I And again, I I expect him to get better. I expect Voorhees to get better. But that doesn’t mean they’re all going to be good enough over the course of the season. And to the point that you’ve made that I was much more dismissive about because I didn’t think they’re going to lose to the lost. Hold on everybody. Stop
Nestor Aparicio 14:06
everything. Listen up, Luke’s about to give me credit. Go ahead, Luke. I’m giving you credit because
Luke Jones 14:11
you you continued to point to this early season schedule, not that I was ignoring it, but you look at them, at Owen two Nestor these next three weeks at Dallas, and I get it. The Cowboys got their feelings hurt by New Orleans, who might be pretty good actually, the way they play the first two weeks. Then you come home against buffalo, who, to me, the bills have looked better than I thought they would early in the season, especially considering some of their turnover. Now they’re really hurt on defense. But Sunday night game, Josh Allen, enough said, right, two of the best quarterbacks in the league facing off, and then you go to Cincinnati in week five. So Nestor, there’s not even that much of a disastrous scenario in terms of like going out there and three eggs in a row or anything like that. It’s not an impossible scenario to say that they don’t play horribly over the next three weeks, yet they still find. Themselves one in four. I mean, that’s that’s in play. I’m not saying that’s the most likely they can play well and be one in four, right? That’s my point. So, so you look at this and you say, look, oh and two, and people are going to start citing all the statistics. Well, the reason why is most Owen two teams over the course of the history of the league stink, right? So, of course, the percentage of teams that start oh and two aren’t going to make the playoffs, right? That’s going to be a high percentage. But, and I still think this is a good football team at the end of the day, I still think they’re going to figure it out to the degree that you know this isn’t going to go like 2015 for example, which you start to think, can
Nestor Aparicio 15:36
they get to 10 or 11 wins? Now not are they going to get 13 or 14 when you start Owen too
Luke Jones 15:41
sure Well, and I said it in the aftermath of the chiefs game, and I think you mostly agreed with me. Nothing about how they looked in Kansas City drastically altered my trajectory as far as what I thought they were going to be in the regular season. But when you lose at home to the to the Las Vegas Raiders,
Nestor Aparicio 15:58
that does make me take a longer than the Raiders. Weren’t lucky. The Raiders came and beat them. The Raiders had the better players on the field. The Raiders made the plays the Ravens made the gas. It wasn’t it wasn’t as lopsided as I thought it was going to be from a talent standpoint. And I think that’s the part that should be alarming, is that we brought our best players. They brought their best players, Devonte, Adams, and to your point, Max crossbar, the best players on the field. The Ravens didn’t have an answer for them when the game was on the line. And you could say, well, Lamar is the best player on the field, by the way. I had dinner with Marvin the other night. I ran into Gardner Minshew in the lobby, you know. And I thought he’s bigger than I thought he was going to be, you know, like, that’s football players, right? But I Gardner Minshew in the lobby of the Marriott on Saturday night. I looked at him and thought, how’s that guy beating Lamar? You know, like, roll the ball out. We have roquan Smith, roll the ball out. We have Kyle Hamilton, roll the ball out. We have Derek Henry. Doesn’t work that way when the offensive line can’t move. You talk about all you stars you want, but if the offensive line isn’t making holes for anybody and isn’t protecting the quarterback, talk about zay flowers, Mark Andrews disappearing Isaiah, likely from last week, you have time to distribute the ball. And we knew that all along, but I don’t think they realize what a dumpster fire of this offensive line was going to be. I think they realize all along there were questions, but they thought that these guys would answer the bell when it rang, and they haven’t. Ronnie Stanley’s been, you know, less of a question mark than any. We haven’t talked about him, but he hadn’t been awful. I mean, yeah, you know, and he’s not hurt. So from that perspective, I get my point on that and Linder, I mean, you talking about the weak points of it, the weak points are Max Crosby just going to go after the 380 pound guy that can’t move all game, until you go the other the other way, and then you have to run away from Max Crosby the whole game.
Luke Jones 17:55
Well, and it’s not just foul Ale, but whichever guy’s lining up at right tackle, your left guard has had his issues. It hasn’t been maybe as pronounced, but you know, they’re not getting above average play from those positions. I mean, Ronnie Stanley, the penalties aside, has been pretty, pretty darn good, probably as good as you can expect him to be at this stage of his career, given the injury history, linderbaum has looked like Tyler linderbaum, but you still have three fifths of your offensive line that you’re looking at this and saying, This isn’t championship caliber. Now, does it need to be in week two? No, it needs to beat the Raiders right? As as I said to you going into the season, to me, you wanted the floor to look somewhere in the neighborhood of average at the beginning of the year, and then you have optimism that it can be above average and better as the year goes on. But, you know, at those positions, and specifically at the guard positions, and then whatever you’re going to do at right tackle. I mean, yeah, I saw someone say it on social media. I can’t remember, you know, it was someone that I follow. You know, it wasn’t just a random fan saying this. It was someone who pays attention to the rest of the league suggested they might have the worst starting guard tandem in the NFL right now. I mean, that’s what we’re talking about here. So it’s concerning. It really is. And then when you couple that with whatever that defense was in the second half, and I get it, people were mad about it. Some of the penalties the MATA BK face mask call was a Phantom Call. Yet, two plays later, Nestor, they still had the raiders in second and 20, and then they gave up 50 yards through the air on the next two plays. I mean, I can’t just give the defense a pass on the rest of it drive because of a bad face mask call, especially when you still had them in a bad down and distance two plays later, and look, I get it Third and goal from the 17 the end zone played to Devonte Adams. It was a questionable call. It was a borderline call, one way or the other. But guess what? Davante Adams is a multi Time Pro Bowl player, and he sold the heck out of it. That’s going to happen and and by the way, Mark Andrews can do that kind of thing. And zay flowers will hopefully do that kind of thing that happens. How about make it a stop Gardner Mitch, you to your point. He’s not Patrick mahomes. And you know whether you’re talking about Devonte Adams, forget about Adams. Okay, he’s a great player that Brock Bowers running wide open down the field. And look, he’s he’s a first round talent. Anyone who watched him in college can’t be shocked by him,
Nestor Aparicio 20:22
right? He’s, he’s going to be a good player, but
Luke Jones 20:24
he’s running wide open on a lot of those plays. I mean, they started running some of that. I think one of the big adjustments they made because, I mean, the first half, Gardner Minshew could not have looked any less interested in holding on to the ball. He wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible. And it reflected in his halftime numbers. I think he was, what, 14 of 16 for 64 yards. I mean, he was averaging four yards per pass attempt. That’s awful. But what they started doing, they started running some of that boot action and getting him moving. And, I mean, they were losing Bowers. And, you know, Adams made some great contested catches. I mean, he’s Devonte Adams. He’s still a heck, a heck of a player, even if he’s not necessarily in his prime anymore. He’s still an excellent player. But, I mean, a rookie tight end, you gotta, you can’t lose sight of him. I mean, the Raiders, it’s no secret who their two big pass catching options are. It’s Adams and it’s Brock Bowers, rapidly emerging. So as well as the defense played in the first half, and they, I mean, they held him to 43 yards. You know, it was 43 yards when I think 26 plays? I mean, that’s phenomenal, but football’s a 60 minute game, and for as well as they played in the first half, they didn’t stop them at all, really in the second half, even the turnover on downs on that opening, that first drive that the Raiders had in the third quarter, I thought that was some head scratching, play calling after they finally got the big play, you know, they just ran the ball twice and then, you know, they tried to go for it on fourth down. It was just, it was bizarre. It was a weird sequence where they netted zero points, so they didn’t make any stops in the second half. So, okay, the defense was great in the first half. Awesome. They were bad in the second half. So what am I supposed to do with that? Right? I mean, I can look at the final number. The final numbers and say, Well, you only gave up this many yards, and you only gave up, you know, 4.3 yards per player, or whatever it was, but wasn’t good enough, right? I mean, it wasn’t nearly good enough in the second half. So you look at that, and then you remember, yeah, you don’t have Mike McDonald calling the defense yet. And I’m not trying to take a good Zach or that he’s not going to figure it out and be a good defensive coordinator. We’ve talked about it. Mike McDonald that defense had its hiccups to your two years ago early in the season, so I’m not shocked by that, but you better start overcoming it quickly, because it’s not going to get any easier going to Dallas or playing buffalo or going to Cincinnati in week five. So and you know, Nate Wiggins aside, who didn’t play a whole lot in week one anyway. You know they were, they’re pretty healthy on defense right now. Okay, Arthur MILLETTE, I’ll hear that. But you know, they’re not your all pro talents. To your point that, you know, where is roquan Smith? Where is Kyle Hamilton, these first couple games? I mean, I talked about it in week one, that you’re not going to find a game, that they’re not going to play worse in tandem together than they did in Kansas City. They weren’t that bad against the Raiders, those two individually, but they’re your two best players on defense. Where are they?
Nestor Aparicio 23:14
They got to push in regard to the passing game, right? Blowing up the running game. They got it, you know? Oh, we got off. You know van Noy, which, you know, wins the James McCann award for me in in just showing up and playing. But they, they had something that they lacked in the third It was certainly in the fourth quarter where I keep wanting to call him Oakland. Stop me, because I did it 100 times on Sunday, where the raiders were passing the ball at will and weren’t dealing with, I mean, they kind of got winded. Don’t think. I mean, whatever happened at the end of the game, it was a different defense in the fourth quarter than the first quarter in how they were playing the pass. And, you know, once the Raiders started passing it, and they had no success running it, and minshu was moving around a little bit and making his own space and getting rid of the ball. Um, it really neutralized the defensive pass rush, which I thought at the beginning of the game would be overwhelming to think that Gardner Minshew was going to throw them back into the game in the fourth quarter, I would have thought that would have been intolerable for this defense.
Luke Jones 24:21
Yeah, yeah, exactly so. And look, I mean, the pass rush for them, they finished with, you know, they, they got sacks. I mean, OA had a great day, but only had a great day. I mean, it’s not as though the pass rush was non existent by any stretch of the imagination, but you got to cover some people downfield. Like, you can’t, you can’t just, well, Oh, we didn’t get to the quarterback. They’re like, like, you’ve got to cover some people. And, like, I said, I mean, it’s one thing if Davante Adams is going to make great contested catches, which he’s apt to do, and Brandon Stevens found that out on a few occasions. But I mean, again, Brock Bowers is running wide open down the field. Like, what is that? You know? So what’s going on with the coverage there? You know? What you know is there just. Spacing on dropping it in the zone from short to intermediate. And you know, your safety is slow to react. I don’t know. Again, I
Nestor Aparicio 25:07
Well, the breakdown last week. You know that Humphrey and Hamilton had cost them a touchdown. You know, just takes one ball to go over your head, right? So the the breakdowns were there last week as well in communication, and how are we playing this? And who’s got what responsibility in a defense that’s very multiple and still young, Trenton Simpson, like a lot of guys running around out there that don’t have a lot of in game experience, and it is funny because later in the afternoon, I saw Gino stone running around on the sidelines with the bangle. I saw a familiar face like, oh, that’s, you know, do you start to see these familiar watch chargers play. You see all of them. You see half of our former team when you see the Chargers play. But this is a new group of personnel on the backside and communicating back there. You know, I did see one point where Marcus was running around back there, making some plays as well in in shadowing Devonte Adams in the end zone and keeping a play from becoming a touchdown, but in the general sense, the back end of the secondary, I I haven’t seen enough of it. And certainly the last two weeks, mahomes is one thing. Mahomes is Kelsey. You know, I hear that all day, but this was certainly you knew who you had to stop. You looked at 17 and said, We have to stop him. We have to stop 89 the big tight end. They couldn’t do it at the end of the
Luke Jones 26:27
game well, and, and I’ll disagree with a little bit of what you said in terms of, I mean, the secondary supposed to be the strength, right? I mean, okay, I get it generous. Jones not there. They brought in Eddie Jackson. He’s a former pro bowl safety as your number three safety, but Marlon Humphrey has got plenty of experience. Brandon Stevens started all last year. Kyle Hamilton’s an All Pro. Marcus Williams, when he’s been healthy, you know, and that’s been an issue the last couple years, but he’s played at a high level. So yeah, Brandon Stevens
Nestor Aparicio 26:54
looks like a liability right now.
Luke Jones 26:56
I mean, he did, he did on Sunday. I mean, that he struggled, there’s no doubt about it, but, but really, Trenton Simpson is the only new major piece. And you know, I’m not going to put it all on him. I mean, you’ve got all pros back there. You’ve got former pro bowl players back there. You got to make plays. You know, they didn’t make a play in the second half defensively. And that’s why I said, you know, I’ll hear the the MATA BK phantom face mask call. I agree it shouldn’t have been called, but they had him in second and 22 plays later. I mean, what a blown call, and then the defense just gets completely exonerated. No, that’s not how this works. And again, I’ll hear the 5050, questionable nature of the PI in the end zone on third and goal from the 17. But how about making a stop before you even get to that point again, to your point. Gardner Mitchell is not Patrick mahomes, so at some point in time you need to make a play. That’s why I said over the final 12 minutes. I mean just a collective breakdown. You know, offensive line and you know the Derrick Henry falls start on third and one and the sack on the first down, where the Ravens go three and out, and the Raiders get their ball right back with a tie game and the defense and Jordan stout shanking a pun, and John Harbaugh wasting another challenge and a time out that would have been really helpful at the end of the game. I mean, you just go down the list. I mean, how about this was before the final 12 minutes? But I’ll make mention of this. I think the moment that really foreshadowed what was going to happen was actually the Lamar interception intended for Bateman, you know, throwing in the tight coverage, Bateman bobbled it, you know, was it a good defensive play? Was it a bad throw? Was
Nestor Aparicio 28:35
it a drop? You know, he didn’t battle for the ball either. You know, he just look at the clean and pull it in.
Luke Jones 28:40
I mean, either way, it wasn’t a good play, right? And that was the play to me, when you saw how this the second half began. The Ravens come out. Great drive to open the second half. I mean, that very complete. They got some got it going, run and pass, score a touchdown. 16, six they the Raiders move the ball, but they get the turnover on downs, right? So it’s 16 six, and they have the ball, and it feels like Oakland, who Oakland? I just did what you said, Nice Las Vegas. It felt like that might be the moment where you say, all right, is this going to kind of be like the Texans playoff game last year, which, remember, that was a close game in the first half, and the Ravens took control, and it ended up, you know, they ran away with it, right? I mean, ended up being a blowout in the second half, but instead, Lamar throws that pick again. Whose fault is it? You know, in the eye they’ll put Beholder either way. It wasn’t a good enough play from the Raven side, and the Raiders score touchdown then. And it’s, you know, it’s game on after that, right? So even though they did rebuild a 10 point lead in the fourth quarter, that moment midway through the third quarter, yeah, that kind of felt like that was the game was teetering on, maybe the Ravens really, really season control that one. And instead they gave them the ball in a short field, and the Raiders scored their first touchdown of the day. So I think that was like, that was the four. Shadowing to what we ended up seeing over the final 12 minutes. And I mean the final 12 minutes, like I said, that was a master class in self destruction. I mean, penalties, special teams, coaching, offense, defense, none of it was good enough. I mean, it just wasn’t. No one made a play. They needed someone to make a play in the way that even
Nestor Aparicio 30:19
a good punt, for crying out loud, would have shaved her ass. You know, it
Luke Jones 30:23
would have given them, given them a chance, right? I mean, they that punt gave the Raiders the ball and ravens territory. I mean, they barely, they didn’t even have to go that far, right? So, I mean, it just wasn’t good enough. They
Nestor Aparicio 30:35
also had a kicker. They had the better kicker. Matter of fact, let’s break because I want to come back and just pick the whole last 12 minutes up, because Luke Jones is here Friday. We’re going to be at fadelies the following Friday, we’re going to be at Costas on the 27th it is the Maryland crab cake tour. It’s all presented by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I do have my liberty pure shirt on. I Oh, I have my bottle of water. Your one 800 clean water. They’re putting us out on the road along with our friends at curio wellness for 26 oysters in 26 days. I’m about 10 days into this. I just had the most creative oysters, the most delicious way i I’m so pleased with myself and doing this tour, because the crab cake tour was like, Oh, you’re gonna eat a crab cake every day. I said they’re gonna taste different. They’re all gonna be different. My former partner, Ray Bachman, pointed that out last week down in Arriva, Maryland, and Mike’s. And if anybody knows about Ray Bachman, I’m going to be sharing a lot of information. We’re working on some things to help ray. So if anybody out there knows Ray, if you don’t know about Ray, please see the internet. Ray’s battling cancer, and we’re going to be Ray strong around here and supporting him. So But Liberty, pure solutions, 800 clean water they send me after this oyster tour. So I get to eat oysters with my buddies like Ray down and dragging my ass to Reva, Maryland, down in Annapolis and Mike’s, what a great place. That was, um, the videos are coming up, and all be out at the front of Baltimore positive. We’re doing it all for the oyster recovery partnership in, uh, learning about how all this works. We had the oyster festival over the weekend. By the way, shout out to Patrick, uh, Russell at Coopers, they sold 26,000 they shocked 26,000 oysters down on the square on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Fells Point, we broadcast with Coopers. Had a great show. Dave shining from the Washington Post came down. He hung out, and I had a very interesting guest for you. Luke. Chad Weasley, local NFL agent who represents Josh Jacobs, which is most of the Packers offense at this point, uh, sat in with us on Friday. So great football conversations. Crab cake tour, converging with the oyster tour. It’s happening all week. We’re doing our show on the 26th from the bno Railroad Museum for the oyster recovery partnership. We’re going to learn about oysters, talk to oyster farmers, and I’m going to eat the hell out. By the time I get to the end of the month, I’m gonna start eating a dozen a day. I’ve been trying to, like, low key it here, and just stick with four or five or six a day here. But it’s great month. It’s September. The Orioles were in a pennant race. The Ravens were supposed to be four. No, this month. It never works out the way it’s planned, which is why Luke and I get together and we discuss it. He’s Luke, I’m Nestor. We have plenty, and I mean plenty of football, baseball. We got a lot of things. I don’t know we have any solutions, but we certainly have some conversations on the Orioles and the Ravens that we’re going to be getting to here right after this on Baltimore. Positive. You.
