The dismal 1-5 start of the Baltimore Ravens should have everyone on watch in Owings Mills during a very uncomfortable bye week as the team looks to regroup and get Lamar Jackson back on the field. Luke Jones and Nestor peel back the accountability of an injured and disappointing football team in search of its soul and lesser opponents as the leaves change.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the Baltimore Ravens’ dismal 1-5 start, comparing it to the Orioles’ 16-34 record at a similar point in the season. They highlight the team’s defensive improvements, with 179 rushing yards and a significant time of possession advantage, but note the lack of offensive consistency and the impact of Lamar Jackson’s injury. They emphasize the need for accountability from players and coaches, citing examples from other teams. The conversation also touches on the importance of the bye week for reflection and resetting, and the long road ahead to potentially make the playoffs, requiring a 9-11 win streak.
Ravens’ Current State and Bye Week Plans
- Nestor Aparicio discusses the Ravens’ current record of 1-5 and the team’s struggles, comparing it to the Orioles’ performance at a similar point in the baseball season.
- Nestor mentions organizing a birthday event during the bye week and plans to visit Pizza John’s.
- Luke Jones reflects on the Ravens’ recent performance, noting the team’s defensive issues and the impact of Lamar Jackson’s injury.
- Nestor and Luke discuss the team’s need for accountability and the importance of the bye week for reflection and resetting.
Comparing Ravens’ Performance to Other Teams
- Luke Jones draws parallels between the Ravens’ current situation and the Orioles’ performance, emphasizing the difficulty of overcoming a poor start.
- Luke highlights the Ravens’ defensive improvements in the recent game but notes the team’s overall struggles, including a lack of offensive consistency.
- Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of key players like Lamar Jackson and Roquan Smith returning to the team.
- Luke mentions the historical context of teams recovering from a 1-5 start and the challenges the Ravens face in the current 17-game schedule era.
Offensive and Defensive Performance
- Luke Jones praises the Ravens’ running game, noting Derek Henry’s performance and the team’s improved time of possession.
- Luke discusses the challenges the team faces in short-yardage situations and the need for better execution from the offensive line.
- Nestor and Luke reflect on the team’s special teams performance and the inconsistency in various aspects of the game.
- Luke emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues during the bye week to improve the team’s chances in the remaining games.
Leadership and Accountability Issues
- Nestor Aparicio criticizes the lack of accountability from players and coaches, mentioning specific incidents like players leaving the locker room without talking to the media.
- Nestor shares his frustration with the team’s performance and the need for changes in leadership and accountability.
- Luke Jones acknowledges the need for accountability but notes the complexity of the issues and the challenges of making significant changes mid-season.
- Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of leadership and the need for players to take responsibility for their actions.
Fan Reactions and Future Outlook
- Nestor Aparicio expresses frustration with the fan reaction to the team’s performance, noting the empty stadium and the lack of enthusiasm.
- Luke Jones discusses the potential for changes in the coaching staff and the importance of addressing the team’s issues holistically.
- Nestor and Luke reflect on the team’s past successes and the need for a significant turnaround to meet their goals for the season.
- Nestor concludes by emphasizing the importance of accountability and the need for the team to take responsibility for their current situation.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens football, accountability, bye week, Lamar Jackson, offensive line, defensive issues, Cooper Rush, John Harbaugh, player accountability, fan frustration, injury impact, playoff chances, team performance, leadership, fan expectations.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. Putting together the birthday tour for me. It’s a it’s a birthday bye week. Who one in five. We have Raven scratch offs giveaway. We’re going to be at Costas later on the week, I’m organizing a little birthday thing here this week, through a bye week, we’re also going to be a Cocos in two weeks. I’ll be telling you more about that. I’m gonna get back over to Pizza John’s, because it’s my birthday. It was Luke’s birthday two weeks ago. Usually our October’s are meant for having our noses pressed up to the glass, at least watching the Yankees or the Dodgers participate in the playoffs. So it’s kind of nice watching Seattle and Toronto, but this one in five football team thing, Lucas, I been here a long time, 30 years. I was actually a reporter the first 26 and a half of them, one in five, they say rarefied air when it’s good, lowest lows, I don’t you have added, I’m going to give you the opportunity. You were in the Kevin Byrne press box on Sunday afternoon for the proceedings. 3.1 and five players scattering out the back door the locker room, not talking to anybody before the buy. Lamar still hurt, but he’s coming back and going to save them. A lot of narrative here. None of it’s good. None of it’s good, man,
Luke Jones 01:27
no, it’s not. It’s funny. I was making the comment to a couple other people in the press box, you know, in the aftermath of a 17 to three loss, I said it feels like this just picked up where baseball season left off. I mean, you think about where the Orioles were Memorial Day weekend, which, you know, we’re a similar part point in the calendar, right? I mean, as as football season goes, I mean, you play once a week, it’s a different ebb and flow to it. But they were 16 and 34 and at that point in time, I think I made the comment over and over and over that, no, I didn’t think they were going to lose 110 games, which was the pace at that point in time. And I was right about that. They played better. But the question was always going to be, how much better that you’re going to overcome the hole that you dug yourself into? And I feel a very similar way about this football team at this point in time. No, I don’t think the ravens are going to go three and 14. I don’t they’re
Nestor Aparicio 02:27
not done. They’re just d o n, it’s just, yeah, you look
Luke Jones 02:31
at this now when you’re one and five, and what’s ironic about this game, I’m not shocked, or even in a vacuum, overly discouraged by what I saw solely on Sunday. I think what we saw against Houston last week was just a total embarrassment, right? You questioned the Aparicio question the heart. You questioned the fight. They were terrible defensively. Offensively, they they’ve scored 10 points. It was a game where you looked at that and said they wouldn’t have won with that kind of effort, even if Lamar Jackson had been playing, whereas Sunday felt much more winnable. If you had Lamar Jack, it
Nestor Aparicio 03:06
felt like Tyler Huntley might save him.
Luke Jones 03:09
There were positives here. And just humor me for a moment, because I’m not going to be very positive overall, but they ran for 179 yards. Derek Henry eclipsed the century mark for the first time since week 117. Points allowed, from what we’ve seen from this defense, is a step in the right direction, and certainly that group put up a much more representative fight than they did a week ago, and should have with Kyle Hamilton and Marlon Humphrey back on the field, and obviously we talked about some of the changes with elohiy Gilman and three safety packages and all that. They’ve showed that. And I think there were some elements of that that you can move forward with and be better as a defense. They won the time of possession for the first time all season. And not only did they do that, Nestor, they bought they won it by more than 15 minutes. I mean, they, I don’t want to say control the clock, because there’s a different way of you know, connotation to that. But certainly they their offense was on the field far more than the Rams offense was on the field. These were the kind of things we were talking about that were necessary for this team to pull off an upset in either of these last two games, understanding that, no, you’re not going to win a ton of games with Lamar Jackson on the sideline. In the same way that I don’t think the Chiefs have much of a chance to win without Patrick mahomes or the bills without Josh Allen. We’re seeing what the Bengals look like without Joe burrow, right? They’ve lost four in a row. So there were, there were elements to that where, and John arboll alluded to that in the post game when he said, there are plenty of things we can build. Can build on, but that rings hollow when you’ve lost four in a row, right? That rings hollow when you’re one in five. And now you look at the math, and historically speaking, four teams since the merger have come back from a one in five start to make the playoffs. And you just look at where we are in the seven team game schedule era, 10 and seven has been the magic number. There’s been one team that’s gone 10 and seven since they switched to this 17 game schedule that hasn’t made the playoffs. It was Seattle last year. So that’s the magic number you’re looking at without needing a ton of help. And like fluky, eight and nine, nine and eight, you know? I mean, Washington won the NFC East five years ago with a SEVEN and NINE record. So if we’re going to throw out those elements because that’s relying on so many other teams to be really bad, you’ve got to win nine of your last 11 here. I mean, that’s what we’re talking about here. And sure Lamar Jackson is going to come back, and sure roquan Smith’s going to come back, and sure Patrick records going to come back, and chatobi is going to come back. But guess what? That doesn’t mean you’re exempt from injuries the rest of the way, as we learned on Sunday when tavius Robinson breaks his foot and now an edge rusher group is down two guys from where they were a week ago at this time, because you traded it off a OA. And I’m not not criticizing the OA trade, per se, but that’s what you’re talking about here. That doesn’t mean you’re going to just because you had a bunch of injuries through the first five or six games of the season. Does not mean that you’re going to be injury free the rest of the way. So that’s where you look at this thing and just say, even if they can solve these issues that they’re having in all three phases. I mean, Let’s call a spade a spade. I mean that we don’t talk as much about the special teams, but it’s not as though the special teams has been so good that it’s helping them win football games. Although they got a nice punt return on Sunday, that was good to see, I suppose. But I mean, they’re just, you know, the consistency. Is it going to be there with the offensive line? Is it going to be there with the defensive line? Are you going to stay healthy enough? Are you going to figure out how to run the ball in short yardage? Can you, can you punch the ball in from the one yard line? We’ve seen that issue more than once in this 2025 season, and the play calling, sure, sure. But also, but also the execution. At some point in time the offensive line has to, you’ve got a yard move people, right? Yeah, because we’ve seen the funny thing is, and look, I’m not saying I like the play calling in that sequence, just to humor that specific part of the game, but I’ve also heard people clamor for the ravens to run the tush push more at some other short yardage opportunities this season, at some point you just, you’ve got to execute. And yeah, they ran the ball better, and that was good to see. I was happy to see that, you know, 179 rushing yards, and Derek Henry getting some space, and the offensive line getting more downhill than they’ve been in quite some time. But you also are going to be in spots where you need one yard. The defense knows you need one yard. They know you’re going to run the football. You got to be able to pick it up sometime, at least at a far higher rate than they’ve been able to do this year. So it’s a lot of ifs that I just went over, a lot of ifs and buts and hypotheticals. And look, I am not going to sit here and downplay the absence of Lamar Jackson and what that does for your football team, right? And like I said, the bills aren’t winning Jack without Josh Allen. The Chiefs aren’t winning without Patrick mahomes. We’re seeing the Bengals in real time without Joe burrow. So I’m not going to sit here and just say, Well, you know, next man up when it comes to Lamar Jackson and going to Cooper rush, although I’ll say the Ravens whiffed trying to upgrade the backup quarterback, because he was terrible on Sunday and wasn’t good last week. But so many other things went wrong last week that Cooper Rush was like number eight or nine on my list, but he was high on the list this week. I mean, he was bad. So you’ll get Lamar back, and that’s great, and that’s very important. That’s the captain obvious statement. And they will absolutely be a better football team with him back on the field than they’ve been the last two games. But that said so many of these issues that I mentioned, they were having even before the injuries, even before Lamar, they were having issues running the ball with Lamar on the field, which is kind of the first time that’s ever happened, right? So got a lot of soul searching to do. They’ve got a lot of looking in the mirror to do during this bye week to get right, physically reset. Coaches go back into the lab and try to find answers, players talking to each other and work, putting in some work this week before they get a well deserved respite. The long NFL season’s brutal on these guys physically. I’m not going to deny that, but I mean, it’s they come out of the buy. It’s go time. Your margin for error is none, right? I mean, you to win nine of 11, sure the Ravens have gone on some runs like that with Lamar at the helm. They absolutely have 2019 and certainly two years ago, when they got on an absolute roll to clinch the number one seed. And even last year, they finished off on a really good second half of the season. But. Nine of 11, that’s a tall order, even when you’re firing on all cylinders. This football team is not close to that right now. So it’s not over, I’ll continue to say it’s not over, and because what else are we going to do here if we’re going to say it’s over, then I’ll, I’ll go watch something else on Sundays, right? So I’m not ready to say that, but I’m not going to sit here and paint a rosy picture, because there’s anything but that when you’re one and five and and looking at a heck of a run of football that’s going to be required here just to get to the playoffs, let alone talking about any of the goals that you and I have talked about for this team and what you know, Super Bowl or bust and all that. I mean, you don’t even deserve to utter the word Super Bowl when you’re one and five,
Nestor Aparicio 10:41
Luke Jones is here. He is a Baltimore, Luke, we’re trying to be sane in our observations of sort of a new low for the Ravens at this point, at one and five, I don’t you know, know where we go. Harbaugh and I, and I, I wrote a letter to Harbaugh. I hope everyone reads it. A dear John Harbaugh, as it were, the headline is, and no shocker to me, still searching for the accountability and integrity that none of you seem to possess. And I said, let’s start with an opening proclamation, I won’t be the fool who ignites the fire. John Harbaugh, chance, but there’s plenty of fire. Zach Gore, right? I mean, there’s plenty of do something. Give us someone’s head. Give us Todd monkins head for running the ball four times at the goal line, and chicanery of of Mark Andrews and taking Derek Henry off the field in circumstances and and just the fact that they ran the ball really well and still scored three points on Sunday like there’s just so much low hanging fruit of purple bad here that I want to give you the the choice of whether you want a plum or a pear. Yeah. I mean,
Luke Jones 11:51
three points scored is it’s their lowest output since they were shut out by Tampa Bay in the home opener in 2022 I mean, that’s, that’s what we’re talking about here in terms of a home game. Scoring output, 23 years.
Nestor Aparicio 12:03
It’s you said 2022 was, Oh, two 2000 Yes, there you go. You know, I meant to, and that was the week to Johnny. Johnny Nestor, Chris Redman,
Luke Jones 12:11
wearing the black high tops, and they were shut out. Yes, I obviously meant 2002 that
Nestor Aparicio 12:15
was Brian Billick. My god, that was a long time ago. And,
Luke Jones 12:19
well, you score three points, right? I mean, unless you’re talking about a safety, there’s only one other alternative. It’s being shut out when you when you manage three points in a football game. So look, I mean, it was nice to see the running game get going to the degree that it did, because we haven’t seen that. I mean, I, I know I shared this with you at some point last week where, you know, they were that long Justice Hill touchdown in garbage time in Kansas City away from being having four straight games without 100 rushing yards as a team, right? I mean, that’s what kind of stretch they were on. So I like seeing that. You know, I’m that. That’s why I said, in a vacuum, look, I’m not shocked by what I saw Sunday. From the standpoint of Cooper, Rush is not good Lamar Jackson’s one of the best football players on the planet that that right there alone, before you get to anything else, is going to make a difference. But you’ve got to be able to get one yard when you’ve got three shots at the one yard line. I mean, I don’t care what the play call is. You know, whether you and look, they’ve run the tush push with Andrews going back a couple years now, and that’s something that they haven’t run with the degree of success that Philadelphia has. No one has to that degree. But they’ve certainly been able to do it in the past. So now doing it back to back plays out here, doing something different there. I’ll hear giving Derek Henry, another shot at the one yard line, but at the same time, your offensive line is to move people, and that’s where Sunday, you know, the better performance aside, that’s still been such an issue for them here in 2025 to be able to move people at the line of scrimmage and block, run, block consistently, and pass protect, obviously. I mean, so offensive line has its woes. I mean, we’ve been talking about it for a while now, at some point, don’t you gotta, don’t you need to try to put some other guys in there, give someone else a look. I mean, are you really that invested in Daniel file, Lele and Andrew Voorhees? Ronnie Stanley exited a game for the second time in three weeks. The other game he was inactive. You know that ankle continues to be an issue. That’s three straight games now where they basically haven’t had him on the field very much. That’s a problem because Joseph, nope, nope, boom, is not
Nestor Aparicio 14:32
ready for not ready for prime time,
Luke Jones 14:34
not even as good as Patrick McCary as a backup to Ronnie Stanley, I would say so. You know, talked about the McCary thing. And look, that’s not a criticism of saying the Ravens should have paid Patrick McCary 12 or $13 million a year like he’s getting in Jacksonville. But, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 14:49
maybe they could have done better than Cooper rush if they needed it.
Luke Jones 14:52
Sure, sure. I mean, look, Eric da Costa has to wear this too when you look at what.
Nestor Aparicio 15:00
I pointed that out. I didn’t write to him. I wrote the hardball, but he can see everybody. Yeah, I told him, everybody. I mean, come on now, this is about Steve, too. On Steve, by the way,
Luke Jones 15:09
one in five is not on one person, one coach, just the coaches, just one player, just the absence of one player, all of the it’s everyone, right? I mean, it’s everyone. When you’re one in five, there is plenty of blame to go around. But, yeah, I mean, they, they signed Cooper rush in mid March. And don’t get me wrong, you know that it’s not as though he’s making insane backup quarterback money, but he’s making more than the vet minimum, and I’ll say this much for what we’ve seen at him in two weeks. I just assume a run it back with Josh Johnson at the league minimum, right? I mean, the little time that we saw him look better than what we’ve seen from Cooper rush. And you know, it’s not a high bar, but you know that that didn’t work out. Jair Alexander continues to be a zero in terms of, I mean, he didn’t even play on Sunday. Was active, but didn’t play, right? And you know that, not saying it was big money, but still $4 million right? I mean, that’s $4 million that can go to another depth spot, or however you want to invest your you know, we talk about it, and every time you spend money, there’s opportunity cost, right? That you could have spent it somewhere else, on augmenting your depth elsewhere. Jair Alexander, not good enough to play, apparently, right? I mean, continue to ask about him, and he’s not out there. So, so you have that DeAndre Hopkins look, DeAndre Hopkins has played well, that said, has it resulted in the offense being better? Collectively? No, it hasn’t. And you know, they’re the offensive line has its issues. And, you know, Rashad Bateman’s disappeared from the offense entirely, right? I mean, so you look at these offseason acquisitions and you just kind of say, what’s really worked, you know, what’s worked to make this team better? And it’s tough to kind of look at it and say, Oh, wow, that was a move that really paid off. Like I said, Hopkins has played well individually, but has it made their offense better collectively? I’d say no, just because of and that’s not his fault or but just the group as collectively is not as good as it was last year. So lot of questions, obviously, I mean, lots of areas they can address. They have, what, three weeks until the trade deadline. You know, how much do you try to salvage this roster? Or are there so many holes where you say, is it worth it to do that? Because you are one in five and, you know, unless you’re acquiring someone that you say, Okay, we’ll have him for next year. You know, one of those kind of deals, you kind of look at this thing and say, What? What can you realistically do to save this thing in terms of player acquisition? I mean, they’re going to need another outside linebacker at this point. I mean, they have three healthy ones on their 53 man roster, and one of those guys is David ajabo, right? I mean, who, you know, we don’t need to belabor that point after talking about him for three years. So there’s, there’s a lot of soul searching going on right now, and a lot that could happen. John Harbaugh was asked again about changes to his coaching staff after the game. Seemed to, you know, expressed an expectation that there won’t be any, you know, for fans that are demanding a pound of flesh. As I said, the defense played better on Sunday than we’ve seen in recent weeks. I mean, good. That was good to see, but they certainly haven’t earned the trust to say that they’re going to be consistent enough now moving forward to again, go back to needing to win a nine of 11 games, right? I mean, there’s no, there’s no kind of trust in that way. So, I mean, if they’re not going to make coaching changes and look like you said, people are mad. And I get that people deserve to be mad at one in five. I totally understand that in the same way we talked about it when the Orioles were 16 and 34 I completely get that. I’m not going to belittle that people can be ticked off. They should be ticked off because this team was supposed to be the overwhelming Super Bowl favorite in the eyes of so many but at the same time, can I sit here with conviction and say, Oh, things will definitely be better if they would just fire Zach, or they would fire this coach, or fire that coach, or make this specific change. I certainly think you need to look at this thing realistically and say, I don’t think you can maintain the status quo across the board in terms of lineup and play calling and all that. But I don’t think this is necessarily Oh, well, fire Zach gore and put Chuck pagano in place and everything’s fine. Well, who’s playing on the defensive line, who’s getting any pressure on the quarterback whatsoever, right? I mean, go through the issues there. Go through the issues. As they have at linebacker right where, you know, Teddy Buchanan and Trenton Simpson are playing, and yeah, roquan Smith will come back, but we haven’t seen the best version of roquan Smith so far this year, either, other than the Cleveland games. So there’s a lot. I mean, there’s a lot, and guys like me can point out the run they went on in 2019 where they won their last 12 in the regular season. Or they’re they won their last five in 2020 when they were in peril, or winning 10 of 11 in 2023 or winning seven of their last nine last year, right? We’ll hear that. And by all means, it’s worth pointing out they are going to be better with Lamar Jackson back on the field. You How could you not be comparing them to Cooper rush or Tyler Huntley? You know, that’s captain obvious stuff, but are they going to be is that going to cure all that ails them right now? No, because, again, these issues were there even before the injuries really piled up these last two or three weeks. And as I said, and we saw this with the Orioles, the same thing, right? Just because you have a rash of injuries early on, that doesn’t mean it swings in the opposite direction the rest of the way, and you’re really, really healthy. You talk. You heard me talk about their health a lot last year and in the offseason, lamenting the fact that they stayed as healthy as they did, and they didn’t take advantage in terms of being able to make a deeper playoff run, just knowing that you don’t have extremely healthy years like that every year, because it’s the NFL and it’s a violent sport, but and you just look at all that needs to go well the rest of the way. It’s not impossible, but, boy, it’s a tall order at this point in time, and that’s before we even get into some of the things that you were alluding to. In terms of, where is this team from a leadership standpoint, coaches and players, where is this team from an accountability standpoint, coaches and players, and where is this team purely from a belief standpoint in terms of, do they believe in one another as players? Do they believe in the coaches? Do the coaches believe in the players? Is there trust that’s going to be required to go on the kind of run that they’re going to need? And I have my doubts about some of those things, because you know what I’d say, if all those things were truly where they need to be. They wouldn’t be one in five right now, that that’s just how I feel. So, man, I don’t know what the magic elixir is, Nestor, I’m I’m not smart enough to figure out exactly what can get them perfectly on track here to the to the degree that they’re going to need the rest of the way. But as it’s presently constructed. And we were saying this even a few weeks ago, whether it’s the sum isn’t as great as the parts, or however you want to describe it, not good enough. And that’s the obvious statement. When you’re a one in five football team going into your buy
Nestor Aparicio 23:00
looking for somebody’s head, looking for somebody to be fired, whether the defensive schemes are good enough, whether the players are good enough, whether the players will be good enough, walking through the locker room. And this is what I wrote to HAR ball, that the fact that these guys run out the back door and want me to respect them as a fan on the outside, or as a reporter on the inside, or somebody just sort of paying attention to what King Henry is willing to do. You know, each and every week, win or lose fumble or no fumble, his fault or not his fault. There’s a level of accountability throughout this thing that I’ve called Marlon Humphrey a pretend leader. I called Terrell Suggs a pretend leader. They never won the Super Bowl with him alone, right? Like that, with him, without Ray Lewis, without Ed Reed, without the other real leaders that I’ve seen, right? Speaking of real leaders, even Matt Burke was on my LinkedIn page the other day. He must be reading my thoughts about his king. And I don’t mean King Henry, but you know, like there’s a point here where the fans want X you and I don’t swim there. We just don’t. I mean, sometimes, while we don’t get along with fans, because they’re all yelling dumb stuff, like fire the coach, the coaches $60 million on his deal. If you’re writing on Facebook that you think John Harbaugh should be fired, he’s not getting fired so, and nor would that be a good idea for the season at this point right now. I mean, man, salino, or whatever that is, you know what? I mean, like, yeah, let me just interject for a moment. Look, he’s unfireable, which was my point. Which is, I said, sort of is the root of the problem that he’s on fireball really. I
Luke Jones 24:39
mean, I’ll say this much. Look, these are we’re talking about billionaire owners here. So whatever’s owed on his contract, if an owner feels that that’s the right move to make, they’ll do it, but they’re not firing an 18th year head coach six games into a season. I mean, let’s live in reality. People, if they go six,
Nestor Aparicio 25:04
you are right. Let’s live in reality. One of the nastier things I’ve ever heard you say, and it’s hilarious talking right now, it’s true. If they
Luke Jones 25:11
finish six and 11, if they finish seven and 10 and miss the playoffs, as you know, I mean, the percentages say they’re probably gonna miss the playoffs, right? I’ll hear that. And that’s a way different discussion at the end of a season, when a season goes as poorly as this one is gone, and if you’re questioning leadership, you know amongst the players, and whether the heat the coaches have, the the ears of the locker room, all that. I’ll hear all of that when we get to December and January, absolutely, because it’s a discussion now. We can certainly still debate whether the Ravens will actually Steve bashati would actually do it. But what team is firing an 18th year head coach six games into a season, six months after they just gave him a contract extension? I mean, again, let’s be realistic. Okay, like, let’s be realistic in terms of John Harbaugh status in week seven and week eight, right? Week 17, week 18, the off season, we can have a discussion. But that’s that, you know, that’s so Okay, Zach, or look, if you and I are reconvening 24 hours, 24 hours from now, and this is a cam Cameron or Mark tressman kind of situation where the Ravens made a decision to move on from Zach. Or I’m not going to sit here and argue on behalf of Zach or but at the same time i i see woes from a personnel standpoint, with the Matta BK injury and now the state of the edge rushers and and say, Okay, maybe Chuck pagano does better, but they’re still going to have, you know. So look, I understand fans are angry. I understand that typically correlates with wanting a pound of flesh, you know, someone to pay for it. And I’m not going to even jump on the table and say, no, no, no, the Ravens absolutely can’t do anything like that. No. I mean, I wrote on Friday at Baltimore positive.com asking if Sunday was going to be the last stand for Zach core defense played better. I mean, you couldn’t be any worse than they’d been the last couple of weeks.
Nestor Aparicio 27:12
Well, the first five minutes in the second half aside, it was a three, three ball game. Well, it
Luke Jones 27:16
was any and even that second touchdown, I mean, that wasn’t on the defense. I mean, zay flowers fumbled, and they’re on a short field after the
Nestor Aparicio 27:23
game, by the way, huh? I mean, he makes all the credit card my town. I love Baltimore. Been here five minutes. Um, it’s just the whole theater of it all that I took on in the Dear John Harbaugh letter this week that I hope everyone reads for my birthday this week. It’s just sort of like, how hard is it to stand up and be accountable after you win or lose or just be a pro, be a professional, like there is a level of just straight accountability of, I was on the field, I caught the ball, I dropped the ball, we won the game, we lost the game. That is just sort of a quid pro quo for ages amongst fans and a team I don’t, I don’t trust most of this, and I went back to Justin Tucker, because how dare I go there when nobody else would, and nobody else does, and their special teams aren’t, and it dominated the offseason conversation, except everywhere inside of their building, and I still have so many questions that I’ll never be able to ask, but the team’s one in five, and looking for the pound of flesh that you talk about from the fan base. Dude, you were there. Tickets are 20 bucks. At 65 degrees, nobody came like it never rained. The tickets are paid for just all of the quit in the fans and the emptiness of the stadium before the game began, through the game and at the end of the game after what happened last week, now going into a bye week, sitting on one and five, and stew went on at the next 13 days before you can even possibly get the two and five. And you know, I look over the hill at this schedule and say, NFC teams, they kick their ass. Lamar is back. They’ll be fine. They’ll win two games. They’ll be three and five. We start talking about them. It’ll be four and six, and I said to John, and you will, maybe you’ll chuckle at this, because you haven’t read my piece yet. I know you haven’t, because it’s kind of lengthy, curiously lengthy. I only write to John every three years, so you know when I can, I’m thrown out every day you have to double duty every day they run out the back door when you’re in the podium room every week. So So I got my pound of flesh from John, because I hate him, according to his text that he he thinks I hate him for holding him accountable. It’s these are like children. It’s like professional wrestling, where he hits me with the brass and. Knuckles, and nobody sees it. Nobody will have no audience. You have no audience. It’s absurd. All of it is so absurd. But the basic accountability of where they are as a franchise, when fans are leaving, nobody’s there, and he’s saying, like, one in five, what an opportunity. Who’s got it better than us? John, as my seventh grade friend Lisa bocklage wrote on her Facebook page. Lisa bocklage Moses, she always be back to me. She married 40 years. She wrote, everybody who’s got it better than us? Everybody? I said, No, no, not the Jets, not the Jets, except the Jets, not the Jets. But, but, but like, people are making fun of them all over the internet. People are pissed. People left the stadium, to your point. Everybody left the theater right around June 15, with the Orioles, right? I don’t know when that happens with this football team, because, quite frankly, other than the Flacco bad year when my wife was dying and I was barely paying attention in 15 they haven’t had a lot of like, throw ins, even the years when Lamar has been hurt, he’s given him some rope to get to the end. And I mean, Huntley almost won a playoff game, and he looked like a water bug again out there on Sunday like and that’s kind of hard to stop, even though you look at him and say, Can we give him six inches? You know what I mean, like, but you know, he does things that Lamar does, that, you know, at least power the football forward on a day with Derek, Henry can move the ball and the offensive line isn’t holding, jumping, jumping, holding, which obviously the other team had a hell of a problem on the line with hard count.
Luke Jones 31:43
Sure, no question. I mean, a couple things. Want to go back to Utah, Cooper
Nestor Aparicio 31:47
rush, they paid him for his hard count.
Luke Jones 31:51
I mean, you probably get, you know, maybe just have Mark Andrews do that.
Nestor Aparicio 31:55
I’m gonna work in comedy here. This I’m getting with Mickey Coachella. I’ll have it Act worked up by the time they hit Chicago. But
Luke Jones 32:00
I wanted to go back to what you mentioned as far as players after the game. I’ll, I’ll repeat what I said about Mark Andrews in Buffalo. Look zay flowers and whoever else doesn’t talk after the game. They owe me no accountability, right? I’m, I’m not that important, right? I don’t have an inflated sense of self importance whatsoever, but they’re talking to their fans. And clearly the Ravens view that as talking to their fans. Otherwise they wouldn’t broadcast on Facebook Live and on a live stream the post game press conference. So clearly that is done for the fans, right by the way,
Nestor Aparicio 32:38
Harbaugh should read the threads underneath it there, he call his buddy Trump and have meditating down as a platform if he saw what is written about him while his lips are moving in front of 1000s of fans in real time. I mean, there’s no way he could even possibly know about it, because he’s not even in charge of his own building. Chad steel is, is what he tells me, still to this day on text. That’s, that’s how full of menor John Harbaugh is in dealing with me.
Luke Jones 33:06
So you’re speaking to your fans. And then the other element, and I talked about this a lot, you know, when we were talking about the mark Andrews thing last January, it’s being accountable in the sense that don’t leave your teammates out to dry to answer for you, right? DeAndre Hopkins was asked about zay flowers fumbles. Why? Because, well, zay flowers wasn’t there to ask about it, right? To ask. So, you know, those elements look accountability. And I said this to you a couple weeks ago.
Nestor Aparicio 33:37
Tells me whether you’re a grown up or not. This was my kid. I was Mark Andrews father, and he walked out of buffalo without taking the put Joe Flacco, old man would have been there to kick his ass. I’m serious. Joe told me as much, by the way. He you know, he didn’t play well when, but he’s playing 16 is a weird number on him, too. I just want to point that out, but I
Luke Jones 33:58
want to be clear accountability when we’re talking about players and coaches, it’s much more than just talking to the media, right? Ultimately, they need to be accountable to each other, but it’s like I said, you’re speaking to your fans, and you’re not putting your teammates in a position where they must answer for you. So that’s what I said with Mark Andrews said, I’ll say the same thing about zay flowers,
Nestor Aparicio 34:21
the old Roger Daltrey. Who are you? Who are you?
Luke Jones 34:24
Because I want to, I want to. I want to point out a really good example. You mentioned Derek Henry, but I want to point out another example that I saw this past week, Philadelphia, Phillies, Orion, Kirk rings error, which was absolutely horrible, right? I mean the epitome of season ending, panicking and making an error, a bad decision, and bad execution and
Nestor Aparicio 34:50
play’s been the first place since you were seven years old, right?
Luke Jones 34:54
Orion Kirk ring is 24 years old. He stood at his loft. Nestor at Dodger Stadium and answered all the questions. Look
Nestor Aparicio 35:05
and it’s so Did Lee Evans, so did Billy convive, so did Joe. I’m trying to make it, but I’m trying we have a long history in this organization to be upstanding, right? But I’m trying to give an example
Luke Jones 35:15
that happened four days ago, right? I mean, I hear you Orion Kirkland answered every question. And you know what other part element was there? Bryce Harper was right there. And Bryce Harper almost talked him through it. And you know what Bryce Harper repeatedly noted how much of a zero he was in that series. Bryce Harper, despite some past clutch moments in Philadelphia, 2022 he was an absolute zero in that series. So there’s an example where the guy that was the goat, and I don’t mean the modern version, I mean the old school version of connotation of a goat in a game, faces the media, faces the fans go it goes through and answers every question. And then the leader of the team, who played very poorly himself in that series, was right there to note, hey, this isn’t on him. This is on me, and he took the accountability for it. Now, look, that’s one example, and I’m not saying the Phillies are stand head and shoulders above other teams in that way, but there’s an example of how it’s done. And there’s an example of, look, Philadelphia is a brutal market, you know? I mean, you want to talk about a much tougher market to play, and then then Baltimore, Philly’s it? I mean, boo, Santa, Claus, all the different stuff that you’ve heard over the years. But there’s a situation where a 24 year old, you know, he could have, he could have run and hide, you know, he could have been, he could have tried to run and hide. He didn’t. He faced the music, and the team captain, so to speak, was right there with him, lockstep, saying, Don’t put this on him. I was bad in this series. It’s on me, you know, it’s to me. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a pretty, pretty stark contrast compared to, you know, Sunday. And look, Sunday wasn’t a season ending loss, although one in five, you know, it’s feeling more and more that way. But there’s just, there’s a lot, and I certainly hope players are being more accountable to one another behind closed doors compared to that example. You know, just one example from Sunday’s loss
Nestor Aparicio 37:29
accountability is our bye week theme. I have inked a dear John our ball letter that I hope you read. I bit my lip open doing it. So be a little more quiet around here this week. Watch a little bit more Getty Lee, a little bit more baseball this week as we gear up for Al and NLCS, we’re on by I’m going to be talking football all week. I’m inviting a lot of my best visitors on to talk about sports and media and baseball and football and life, as well as put the Maryland crab cake tour together. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland the lottery. I’ll have Raven scratch offs to give away. I did have a little lucky batch there last week as we took the show back out on the road to faith these we cost us later in the week. It is my birthday week, and I will leave leave this accountability segment with what I have written in both of my books about the football team 25 years ago, a dozen years ago, which is my John Wooden ism for the week, because Tuesday was John wooden’s birthday. My birthday, October 14. John wooden’s my all time favorite coach. I have books in here. I have quotes all over the walls. I’ve shared them with John Harbaugh many times. I used to have them glued down onto my laptop when I employed a lot of people here, and I would read these axioms to him when we would have breakfast out in the cafeteria, same cafeteria that Chad steel tried to bully and intimidate me, and back three years ago when he took my press credential away. And I would say this, I learn a lot about teams. When they lose, everyone’s a hell of a winner. It’s when teams lose that I learn where the bar for the character and integrity and the accountability is learning a whole lot about the Baltimore Ravens, one and five. Don’t read my work. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S T, am 1570, Towson, Baltimore, the Ravens will still be one and five, and we’ll still be here talking about it at Baltimore. Positive you.
