Cautious optimism abounds in Baltimore as the Ravens head to Kansas City to avenge last year’s AFC Championship Game loss and kick off the 2024 NFL season. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss all aspects and hopes for Lamar Jackson and the team now that Derrick Henry is in the backfield ready to run the rock from Faidley’s on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
year, team, game, season, january, run, week, win, ravens, lamar, play, feel, early, point, kansas city, diminished, talking, ronnie stanley, offensive line, orioles
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, Dallas, Baltimore, Baltimore positive. We are positively, the most Baltimore positive place I could possibly think of. Ah, Labor Day week is ahead. We are broadcasting from fatales at Lexington market. It is just packed in here. Just start all sorts of being sold. But nothing better than a fates crab cake down here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery, the Gold Rush, seven stumblers I promised to I’ll have the Raven scratch offs on the fourth when we reconvene at Coco’s in laurelville. Mark Viviano has promised a non K Fave visit with me over in Laurel I was over there earlier this week. So air conditions back up. Air conditions running in here and the Orioles have cooled off a tad bit, but just in time for us do some football. Look, we’re gonna have real football here next week, like crazy, nine months of waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. I don’t wanna say you’re more optimistic than I I mean, I am optimistic their playoff team. I don’t think if you were to give me $1 and say they’re going to be a one seat again and play the AFC Championship game here again, I’d say, No, I’d say I’d bet against that if I put a put on that, just based on the numbers and based on how hard it is to do, yeah, what they did last year. And I think we remember 19, we remember 2006 those big years. They’re really hard to repeat. If your name’s not Brady, it
Luke Jones 01:22
really is. And, I mean, I don’t think there’s anything overly pessimistic about feeling that way. I mean, if you thought they were gonna go seven and 10 and we’re gonna miss the playoffs, then I’d say, okay, that’s kind of out of left field. But injuries and just the expectations I as I was driving down here, in fact, because I knew we were gonna talk about the ravens, and kind of looking at this in the big picture, knowing that the preseason’s history and all that they still have five months to go for a potential AFC Championship appearance.
Nestor Aparicio 01:49
So being healthy today doesn’t mean a lot. It means a lot, but not I mean it
Luke Jones 01:53
does, and obviously it’s such a grind. It’s such a grind anyway, but when you are as close as they were last year, when they were as good as they were, last year in the regular season, when they were playing as great as they were in December and early January to conclude the regular season. I mean, that’s mentally, that’s difficult. You know, we always hear about the Super Bowl hangover or a Super Bowl runner up hangover. I mean, I think this is definitely one of those scenarios where I’m not making an excuse for them. Let’s be clear. They get off to a bad starter. They have a season that does not live up to expectations. It’s not an excuse. But I think the psychological aspect of this, frankly, I feel it with fans. It’s kind of a weird vibe this year. I think people are excited. I think people are optimistic. I think everyone has expectations. This is going to be a playoff team, but to
Nestor Aparicio 02:39
your point, they all know what happened last year, rare. And for
Luke Jones 02:43
that to happen now twice in five years, it’s so tough. And I was thinking back to this in 19, of course, when they go 14 and two, Lamar is MVP, unanimous. MVP has this amazing first full season as a starter. They had, I think, before it was all said and done, 13 guys were named to the Pro Bowl. That was a Tennessee loss. And then keep right, and then keep in mind, the world shut down two months later, and you had this 2020 season that was just so bizarre across the board that maybe that served as a distraction in some ways. And look, they made the playoffs. They made it to the divisional round that year, but it was such a strange season, whereas this year, it’s normal, as normal as it can be in 2024 I suppose. And there’s just this vibe with everyone that waiting for for January, and that’s a tough thing to do, because you know how wrong things can go, and how difficult it is to navigate a 17 game regular. I’m
Nestor Aparicio 03:38
an Oriole fan. I know how wrong I mean, June, we’re going to, we’re going to the world. And now you now it feels dicey, right? I mean, and it’s shaky, and it happens quickly. And I think the same thing would be true for the ravens to say, where are they when, hopefully the Orioles begin the playoffs, right, right? So where are they after the first quarter? And billik would obviously be divided season and quarters, sure. And you look, you look you say, all right, Kansas City, they’ll be an underdog Raiders. They better beat Gardner Minshew here, and then at Dallas, and then buffalo here and
Luke Jones 04:12
at Cincinnati after that. And that’s the first five games. So
Nestor Aparicio 04:16
three and two, two and three, four and one, not five, if they’re five and oh, it’s otherworldly. I mean, we won’t worry about the baseball team if you already won the Super Bowl. I don’t know where that is, but it’s somewhere between three and two and two and three, probably not four and one, based on the schedule. If they’re four and one, they’re really good too, no matter how they’re winning the baseball team and the injuries and two seasons ago and three seasons ago, two years ago this week. JK Dobbins rips his knee up. Three years ago, three years ago. 21 rips his knee up in that DC fourth game. Crazy I was I remember being out Frederick watching a game on TV, and I’m like, All right, they haven’t really played any start. So they haven’t had that sort of a we. Weird injury to start a season, maybe Keaton Mitchell, or some lingering from last year. They do begin. This is the plan. Eric’s got his players out on the field next week. That’s all you can ask for, really, right?
Luke Jones 05:12
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they’ve got a few guys banged up. I mean, I expect Arthur millet to miss the first month of the season, whether he’s on IR or not. I mean, but, but he’s your nickel, but they use three different guys at the nickel spot depending on personnel, so he’s not a bona fide starter. I think health wise, they’re in as good a shape as you can expect to be knowing that, as you mentioned, Keaton Mitchell tore his knee up last December. We knew this. I mean, best case scenario, maybe he’s back come November, Thanksgiving. They weren’t going to replace that speed anyway, sure, sure. And even with him. I mean, there’s unknown. When you have a multi ligament tear like he did, don’t know if he’s going to come back full, full speed ever, let alone when he first comes back. So expectations are tempered there. Part of the reason why he went out and got Derek Henry, as you wanted them to so but, but this team’s healthy, but there’s just so much unknown, and that’s where it is interesting, with the early season schedule, with the offensive line, with the coaching turnover, with just some of the defensive depth pieces that they lost, the pass rush, even though, I think at this time a year ago, we were talking about the pass rush, and they ended up leading the league in sacks. So
Nestor Aparicio 06:18
at some point in time, we were worried about it. Oh, absolutely worried. Because away and these, the guys they’ve drafted have not sure been Terrell Suggs, they have not been I mean, Matt abkha has been a difference maker, and part of that’s been because of the ensemble effort of all of it. But as far as homegrown pass rushers, we talk about them whiffing on wide receivers. I mean, you have to go back to Matt Judah on and he was a wild project, as was a Dallas Thomas, right? I mean, these weren’t Terrell Suggs, who was a lottery pick. These are different kinds of players, but finding that pass rush guy has always been about Doomer Ville clown. He’s always been about getting a guy, quite frankly, this time of the year, in some cases, to help you out, to augment things. Yeah.
Luke Jones 06:59
And look that could still happen at some point in time. I wouldn’t dismiss that. I just looked at their salary cap picture as we’re at the end of the conclude
Nestor Aparicio 07:07
his job always being a guy with 14 sacks,
Luke Jones 07:11
not with 14, right? But you’re hoping he can be a guy that maybe picks up five or six, you know? If he can be that kind of guy, if OA can go from a guy that’s been right around five, six to 10, right? We saw this last year. I mean, we talked about the ensemble effort of their pass rush. Yes. Mada BK at 13 sacks, yes. Clowney had nine and a half. Van Noy, I think at nine probably going to be a lot to ask a van Noy to repeat that. A career high year. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 07:35
a factor. How good they all were as an outside Exactly. That’s
Luke Jones 07:38
and so much of it a scheme, right? I
Nestor Aparicio 07:40
mean, we see them, there’s a Ravens, not exactly, exactly. So that’s where
Luke Jones 07:43
I look at it, and say, Look, if you’re going to ask me to predict whether they’re going to lead the league in sacks, again, I’m going to say probably not, in the same way that you’re not so confident that they’re going to be the number one seed in the best team in football. I’ll
Nestor Aparicio 07:54
try to convince John Martin the Orioles won’t be the leaders in home runs next year. She doesn’t give so much money away, you know, but it’s hard to do anything two years in a row. I mean, it is, and Lamar winning the MVP would be another thing. It’s hard to do two years in a row.
Luke Jones 08:05
That’s why the disappointment is what it is. Because they’ve been in the spot twice in five years where they’ve clearly, I mean, not just, not just by looking at certain metrics here or there, record wise, point differential, DVOA, I mean, go through the list of any traditional or more analytical measure, they were the best team in football in the regular season last year’s same in 2019 by just about every
Nestor Aparicio 08:30
sort of enter Kansas City next week. And I said this flippantly this week, well, we were the best team last year. Just weren’t, when you’re on the ball three times at home, that we just weren’t. But it mattered most, that’s that would be the argument for next Thursday to say the Ravens with a better team, if they would have played the Chiefs five times last year, they’d have won three, right? I mean, you think that way, or you’d like to believe that in the aftermath, and you think, well, how diminished are the Ravens? And look, this happens when you have a good team, right? And we talked all of February. I mean, in January was the coaches getting picked apart. February was players getting picked apart. In March, it’s, we don’t want Zeitler anymore. We don’t want mo Sure, so they picked themselves apart a little bit, right? Yeah. We don’t want Patrick Queen anymore. So we’ll let somebody else get I said they were that they were a diminished team. I wrote that you can go find that on the internet. I’m sure. Internet, I’m sure somewhere. You know, as the season begins, maybe I’m all puffed up about who this and that and potential and health, more than they are not a diminished team, because Mark Andrews is better he’s he’s healthy, right? So they’re already a better team to me than they were in January, because they have some pieces that they did not have working at 100% last year. But McDonald, Clowney, Queen mollette, for your purposes, for at least the time being, the whole offensive line even mentioned that. So I but I don’t know how that all sets against King Henry. And, you know, I don’t think the. Del Beckham was a law you know, I don’t look at those fringe contributing guys with big reputations in a podcast. We got to figure out whether Marlon Humphreys that guy or not, whether he’s a big reputation guy with a podcast, or whether he’s still a Pro Bowl caliber player, Ronnie Stanley, we got to figure out whether he is a left tackle. So I think they got a lot of questions, and I’d like to think that they’re not a diminished team going into this game, and they were the best team. I’ll buy into all that. And if they played again the next week, they probably to beat the chiefs, because they would have been stupid enough to run the ball three times. So all that being said, Where are the chiefs in all of this, right? I mean, the chiefs are gonna fly a flag, and Travis Kelsey and his girlfriend, and Andy Reid, and where, you know, was he going to come back? Is he going to coach mahomes? I don’t know. They’re the big bad wolf to me, until I see us go out there and do it. I’m not a believer. Until 1125 next Thursday, when Lamar is doing the post game with Chad Steele standing right behind him, no doubt, doing the post game and saying he beat standing in Arrowhead Stadium, saying I won. When he does that, I’ll feel a lot better about them winning the Super Bowl than I will if it’s not, because you’re going to see them again and you’re gonna say, well, they can’t. Well, they’re gonna be sliding downhill if they lose the opener in perception of them and the chiefs and where that would be in January. And that’s something they should not just want to win because they want to be one to know, but they want to know, but they want to get on top of the perception of that and what happened here last January, it’ll be a little salt in the wounds if they come back. Oh, and one after pound on that for 10 days. And I think that’s the treachery of it all. That’s because they’re not going to win the Super Bowl. Wait, if they win by 20 Well, and that’s why that’s kind of the point that I’ve been making, right? I mean, yes, I
Luke Jones 11:39
think from an early season psychological boost. Yeah, I’m not going to sit here and say it means nothing at the same time. To your point, they go out there and win by three touchdowns. And look what this team did in December against the 40 Niners, against the dolphins, against really good teams down the stretch. They didn’t just beat them. They beat them badly. So we could see them do that. Look, I’m not going to predict that. And you know, I’ll save my official prediction for a little bit closer to kickoff on the fifth but look the Ravens. We’ve seen them take it to really good teams in the past. And look in Kansas City last year, they lost to Detroit on opening night. Now the lions ended up being a really good team, but at the time, that was kind of a shock. So you never know what’s gonna happen in week one. But that said it is only just week one, and as much as I think that would be a nice boost for their confidence and would be a nice jolt of energy early, you
Nestor Aparicio 12:32
forget how demoralizing it is to lose every week in a league. You’re too used to the Orioles losing three times a week for they lose this game Friday. It’s going to be on, it’s going to be an, oh my, you know, for the fan base here, in regard to, so what? Lamar goes 12 and four against the rest of the league. We’re going to now we have to go to Kansas City in January. Yeah, I’ll take my chances. But there’ll be a five point underdog, and it’ll be cold. It’ll be if you get there and you have to win more, you know, like, I just think the league has really set them up with a tough schedule. Just, I mean, these first five games we’re talking about, this is a very difficult time for them. And they can look they could be four and one, and we’d say, well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. That’s what they were. They’re on pace to be that. I think it’d be really hard for them before and one really hard thing, yeah. I
Luke Jones 13:18
mean, I think it’s not impossible, but challenging, sure. I mean, you look at the schedule and just goes back to the offensive line, and perhaps when you and I are
Nestor Aparicio 13:26
one with four in a row, you know, like, sure, and there’s look. There’s
Luke Jones 13:30
also that. I mean, we can think back to look no further than Christmas Day last year. Think back to the world, top of the world for the ravens, Kansas City lost at home to the crummy Raiders that day on two defensive touchdowns.
Nestor Aparicio 13:49
I remember that I’m just no one in the world that was almost like Flacco playing against every really
Luke Jones 13:55
was. And you’re talking about the team that was the defending Super Bowl champ, the team that’s in the midst of this dynasty, that’s only been strengthened since then, with another championship, you don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s why, like even with the Orioles, recently, we’ve been talking about
Nestor Aparicio 14:09
their show ready to turn it on. You can look at Lamar. You can look at any of Brady’s sure subpar teams, and you still didn’t want to see him. Same thing with Manny. You didn’t want to see any of those guys that are that good. Nobody wants to see Lamar in January either. You know what I mean, they don’t want, they don’t want to play the Ravens. They don’t want to play that in January if Lamar gets there. But there is a point for like the Orioles. We don’t know. We haven’t seen them turn it on. Chief siren is in January, no matter what they are in December. Sure, based on that and I, as I see Astros fans running around here. They don’t have many of those players left, but there is a DNA of playing in seven alcses in a row, right? There’s a DNA about the Atlanta Braves of that era and the Ravens right now. Their DNA is they lose games in January, and Patrick mahomes wins them, right? And they burnt. Ad, so that’s, that’s, that’s
Luke Jones 15:01
kind of been my point in terms of not making too much of this week one game, and that’s why I’m more focused on elements of this team. Yeah, we mentioned the offensive line. We’ve talked about the offensive line a lot,
Nestor Aparicio 15:14
and are they the reason they wonder who next Thursday, right? Well, and
Luke Jones 15:18
but it’s not just next Thursday. It’s like, okay, how does it look next Thursday? How does that look in week two? How does that look in week four? How does that look come week nine? I mean, we’ve seen countless examples where whether it’s the O line or some unit of a football team in week one, it looks very different come even week four. Think back to 19, the year that we were talking about a few minutes ago. I mean, they started that year with Patrick Owasso and what Kenny Young as their inside linebackers, because CJ Mosley’s gone, and they’re saying, Hey, we got these young guys well before you know it, before it was even Columbus Day, Josh pines and LJ fort were suddenly playing linebackers,
Nestor Aparicio 15:56
Steelers to save their ass. Yeah, right, exactly. So,
Luke Jones 15:59
I mean, you just don’t, you really don’t know, and that’s where we look at this early season schedule. And yes, there’s so much focus on Kansas City from a season opening game. NBC,
Nestor Aparicio 16:10
man, no, it’s
Luke Jones 16:11
fine. It’s a great night. No, of course it is, but they better have their offensive line ready to play that night, because you’re going up against Chris Jones and the rest of that Kansas City,
Nestor Aparicio 16:22
you think they believe and Joe tell us, and just not a small part of this, by the way. So I mean, of all the places in the team where i is John Harbaugh going to bed tonight, feeling good about his offensive line,
Luke Jones 16:37
feeling good about it in week one, maybe not. I do think there’s conviction that this group is going to get better over the course of the year, because you’re talking about a guy in Andrew Voorhees who, yes, was a seventh round pick last year. Out of circumstance, he was expected to be more of a third or fourth round pick. You know, he’s going to be a day, you know, day two, kind of guy, or very early day three, instead of being seventh round or before tearing his ACL at the combine. You have Roger Rosengarten, second round pick. Now, as much as generally, I don’t view second round picks as great bets to start in at the beginning of a season as a rookie, it feels more and more like it’s trending
Nestor Aparicio 17:16
practice later in the week that you’ll get a look at what it looks like to know he’ll be starting or not. Because I would think right now, if you and I had a better crab cake here at fade lays, you’d say you give me something and say they probably won’t start him because he’s a rookie. But I don’t know that, that, that that holds up. I don’t know. Yeah, I because we haven’t seen anything on the field as fans and preseason to give us any clue as to what’s really
Luke Jones 17:43
and we know, and we’ve seen, we did see this in the preseason games, because other than Stanley and linderbaum, they have been playing the guys that are going to be lining up. You know, the their other three starters have played it assuming they’re not acquiring someone, which I guess is always possible when you’re talking about where their O line is right now. But I could see a scenario where McCary and Rosengarten rotate in the way that we saw McCary and and Ronnie Stanley rotating late last year when we saw foul a lay rotating with Morgan Moses late last year. Could I see that scenario? Because then that gives one, it gives a nod to Patrick McCary, who, by the way, is in a contract year. And I think part of this is they want to Show proper respect to him, and I think he wants to show he can be a starter. Now I still think his best role, and I still think his ultimate role for this team, barring injury, or barring Rosengarten falling on his face completely, is McCary being that six guys still and look, that’s still valuable. And I think one of the best things they could probably do from a roster building standpoint would be getting a respectable extension done with him sooner than later, working under the understanding that Ronnie Stanley is probably not going to play 17 games, just knowing how his career has gone and Rosengarten might struggle, or McCary might need to play center because linderbomb gets hurt or whatever. So to me, he’s such a valuable part of what they do. So I could see almost out of deferring to him, out of reverence for him, out of respect to him, and also giving your rookie right tackle a little bit of cover if things are rough for him early on, and then you can just lean a little more with McCary while you’re still rotating, I could see that scenario. But point I’m trying to make is, I think much sooner rather than later, based on what we’ve seen in camp, based on how he’s performed, which I think of their three guys that are vying for starting jobs right now, Voorhees fall ale at right guard and Rosengarten at right tackle, I might feel, I may feel the best about his upside potential, you know, out of those three guys, and maybe that makes sense, because he’s a second round pick, compared to those guys being more mid round type guys, you know, health issue for Voorhees aside a year ago, but, you know, I just think there’s a lot of unknown when you’re talking about these young guys going into a hostile environment. Like Kansas City, like Arlington, a couple weeks later, I
Nestor Aparicio 20:03
know they’re not gonna run the ball three times next Thursday night. They’re gonna show ball more than that. Sure, there’s no question, you know, for the offensive line will be graded as such, are we in second and two all day long, like, you know, yard 2000 in the good years, or is this a struggle? And where do we find Derrick Henry at this point in his career, not in week one. We won’t judge he’ll be fine next week. You judge him on week 13, when you used him up.
Luke Jones 20:29
And January, you know mid January, well, that’s when you actually where.
Nestor Aparicio 20:33
Where are you later in the year, when you’re getting beaten up, and how much will they treat him with some kid gloves when they’re paying him to be bulldozer, right? I mean, you’ve talked about that, and we talked about Buck Showalter ride, Matt weeders to death, yeah, let the Titans worry about yo Derrick Henry’s tread. We need him to run. We need to win.
Luke Jones 20:56
Yeah, and I think that’s part of what what’s interesting with that acquisition and how it’s going to play out is finding that sweet spot. He’s going to carry the wall more than Gus Edwards did last year. I assume he’s going to carry the ball at least a little bit more than Mark Ingram did five years ago, right? So where’s the sweet spot? I
Nestor Aparicio 21:14
mean, even that means Lamar carries it less. Oh, maybe not. They
Luke Jones 21:18
still carry the ball a lot. I’m telling Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 21:20
feel like monkey was going to have design runs the way Greg Roman loved to run the, you know, right, the wishbone, and run the Navy offense, and have throw his quarterback into that, because his quarterback liked it, and nobody seemed to mind, until he got hurt. And then you all of a sudden, didn’t get hurt running the ball, I got it, but when you’re cool, gets hurt, it’s over. So nonetheless, keep going, you and are gonna fight to the end. I just think it should be given his Hall of Fame speech, and you’ll Oh,
Luke Jones 21:46
he’s gonna be in the Hall of Fame most likely. I mean, he’s a two time MVP. I got it. I’m just saying, look at the list of two time MVPs. Anyway. I think first of all, you need to look at what type of runs he was. You know, what his carries looked like last year. They weren’t design runs for the most part. They were scrambles. And look, that’s still going to be a big part of what they do, because most scrambler in history, one their offensive line and whether they’re going to be able to pass protect and five man protections, which was an issue last year, and two zay flowers aside, there’s still questions about this wide receiver group. I mean, is Rashad Bateman going to take the step forward? Is Nelson Aguilar going to be as dependable as he was last year as a number three receiver who was solid
Nestor Aparicio 22:26
when all that happens and protection happens, he could throw the ball. They didn’t have to run them. Or,
Luke Jones 22:30
yeah, right, oh, absolutely. Or if a team is going to devote all their 21
Nestor Aparicio 22:35
to 10 in the fourth quarter, he’s going to try to go to the phone booth. And that’s what’s going to happen, because that’s
Luke Jones 22:41
what he knows, what makes him great. That’s why, like, when you say you want him to run less, I think it’s nuts. Again, I’m not saying 22 times a game 15 years thinks I’m nuts. I think when it comes to that, because that’s what makes him special. You know, if you wanted him to play like Tom Brady, I don’t, right? And I’m not saying you don’t, but the point is, that’s what makes him special. But part of this is also their running backs carried the ball plenty over the last five or six years. It’s not just Lamar care. You know, it’s not like Lamar has carried it like Derek Henry workload. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 23:14
never been hurt. They haven’t had a running back and been hurt since. But the point
Luke Jones 23:18
is, it’s been way more of a for the most part. I mean, even Ingram, Gus Edwards carried the ball a lot that year. Still, you know, in 20 it was Dobbins and Gus Edwards and Ingram started, you know, got hurt and was an afterthought by the end of the year 21 that was ensemble. That was the year everyone was hurt, right? So, you know, that’s not the best example. But 22 you know, you had Gus Edwards, you had Kenyan Drake, you had JK Dobbins back, and then wasn’t quite right, and then came back late in the year. There are a lot of running back carries to go around if you want to do more of a timeshare. My point is it’s not going to be as much as of a timeshare this year. I mean, Derrick Henry, he had 280 carries last year, and that was on the light side. I mean, year before that, 349 last healthy season before that, 378 that was his 2000 year or 2000 yard season. He’s not going to carry anywhere close to that. I think we all would agree with that he shouldn’t carry that much because, again, this is all about how he looks in December. In January does, but he’s going to carry it. I’d say 280 was last year. 200 was right around what Gus Edwards was last year. I’m thinking he’s gonna be
Nestor Aparicio 24:22
250 let’s be honest, when the ravens, and that’s doing this, right? They’re running less plays than most other teams. They’re having less possessions. They’re eating the clock there. You know, seven plays down the field kind of thing like and it’s chuck, chuck, chuck. It’s Twitch, chunk passes, not King Henry for five yards, second and five Henry for three yards, like that. That’s but that was the Titans. That was what he was in. That’s
Luke Jones 24:48
why the Titans were really mediocre as a team for the most part. I
Nestor Aparicio 24:51
remember the Titans back when they were the Oilers, but so
Luke Jones 24:56
there are plenty of carries to running backs to go around. Justice Hill. I think is going to have a similar work that he had last year. And look, he’s good, like, I’m fine with him as your number two, but Derek Henry is going to be a much more robust number one back than the Ravens have had in a long time. You probably go back to maybe Ray Rice, not, not. It’s not going to look the
Nestor Aparicio 25:16
same effective that is in ball control, sure. Theoretically, on the ground, they should be eating up more clock, right, you know, and they’re still going
Luke Jones 25:23
to throw the ball. I mean, this is the one point I tried to make to you and to so many people about the AFC Championship Game, and everyone going nuts about the fact that the running backs carried the ball six times. Go back and look, there are analytics websites out there that track this stuff. They I want to say, when you look at early down game neutral situation. So what that basically means is early downs and the game is close. I think it’s within 7.1 way or the other. They had the sixth highest pass rate in the NFL in those situations. Point is, they ran the ball as much as they did, in part because they Right, yeah, because they carried it as much as they did in the second half of games, because they were just beating the, you know what, out of most teams. So part of that, what happened in that championship game was, yeah, they they lost the script, especially understanding what Kansas City’s weakness was. But that was also they just, they didn’t stay on schedule. They weren’t picking up yardage on first down, and they and they’ve
Nestor Aparicio 26:21
really, that is my point. So if you’re, if you’re in for, if you’re in first and 10, and you’re you get five, and now it’s second and five, and now you get three, it’s third and two, incomplete. You’re off the field, sure, right? Sure. So incomplete, you’re off the field. That’s, that’s really where it’s at, yeah. So, so first and 10 incomplete. Now you’re in second and 10. Yeah. So the incompletions really feed into the problem, you know, you know, like, and they can’t have that, sure,
Luke Jones 26:50
and that was the thing. I mean, look, I’ll blame the coaching. Mark Jackson didn’t play well in that game. Their defense didn’t gave up two touchdowns right off the bat, right? I mean, that wasn’t part of the formula for how they won all year. And look in their totality, the defense played well, but they didn’t play well in the early on in that game. They gave up a field goal right at the end of the first half. That made it a two score game going into intermission. So there was, there are lots of things that didn’t go well in that game. The coaching and the number of carries for the running backs stuck. You know, that stuck out like a sore thumb, and I get it, but
Nestor Aparicio 27:22
was a lot to prove for a lot, I mean, and this is where I’ll drag hardballs Paranoia into all this. But, you know, sort of effed up the AFC Championship Game years ago. They had a 20 point lead in the Super Bowl and came down to four plays on the goal line. And then there’s, they ran the ball three times against Patrick Willis, He better get back up the mountain, you know, like the way Buck Showalter left Zach Britton sitting there in Toronto years ago, and never, I would say, recovered from that. The team, the franchise, wasn’t it, but he didn’t get another chance, right? And we’re just all Well, look at Lamar. He’s great. He’s going all of it. There’ll be more chances, alright. Well, go beat Kansas City the opening night, if you want to have that chance, to be honest, ocean, that game at home, because that’s going to be a part of that. And it’s it’s out of the gate. It’s a tough game. This is a diminished team we’re seeing here on the road on a tough night, in a place that he hasn’t won. I’m talking about Lamar, and all of them haven’t won. Collectively, this would be, it would be, it would be a great win to have. I mean, it’d be a great win to have. That’s all I can say. And it’s really a tough schedule, I think, for the ravens, at the tough beginning of the schedule, for them to get the kind of traction you want to have with the offensive line they have, and the expectations on top of all that, that they should be four and one in October. They might not be. It might be a little more tough than that beginning.
Luke Jones 28:44
It could be a little hairy early in the season. I mean, the O line, you have a first time defensive coordinator. Hey, Mike McDonald’s the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks two years ago, right around this time, he’s getting ready to be a defensive coordinator for the first time in the NFL. And we saw how those first 3456, games went statistically, that defense was not very good early in the season. Now, roquan Smith came midway through the year. They were already trending in a good direction by then, anyway. But the point is, there were some growing pains there. That’s why I said with this offensive line, no, I don’t think John Harbaugh, if he’s being honest, probably doesn’t feel great about where the offensive line is today and heading into the season opener. But I do think there’s some conviction and some confidence that those guys are going to grow. And when you have young guys, there’s the thought that they have a higher ceiling, rather than having older players like a Kevin Zeitler, like a Morgan Moses, like Ronnie Stanley right now, where there’s a question where they were as Campbell, as you always ask, doing that, but because you don’t know, okay, you don’t know if you’re going to get the same thing. And this is where I would disagree with your description of them being a diminished team. They’re a different team. And that’s part of the challenge of the NFL or any sport there. As much as you want to hold on to what happened last year and just fast forward and get back to the AFC Championship Game.
Nestor Aparicio 29:59
And got five months. It’s hard. We can get better from that. You
Luke Jones 30:03
can only go back. It’s different, I mean, and it’s, but it’s not even that they could be better from a standpoint of being more more, you know, had that metal to be ready to get over the hump in January, but they might go through some stuff over the course of this year to get to that they’re going to go because it’s a season so, so that’s so that’s where I think there’s a challenge. Because, you know, you can even run it back, right? You you hear team say this, we want to run it back, and they can bring back as much as their personnel as they can possibly do same with the coaching staff. They might even look better on paper. Doesn’t always play out that way. So I think that’s where the challenges in not thinking about them in terms of diminished or comparing themselves to last year and say, Hey, let’s go out and exercise the demons in week one again, September, football is not the same as January. We all understand that, but so much of this is just it’s a different team. They are very different in certain areas of this football team. And look, it’s proven out now over five or six years, if you have a healthy number eight, a quarterback, you’re going to win a lot of games. That’s just been the case. They’ve done that every year, whether whether they’ve been the best in the league, or whether they’ve been wild card or just a division winner, whatever. If Lamar Jackson stays healthy, I fully expect them to be there, because that’s what history has told us now for five or six years, but at the same time, they’ve got questions to answer. And when you are talking about some of the new moving parts that they have and some of the pieces that have changed on the coaching side or on the personnel side, there’s a potential for certain areas to be better than they were last year, but there’s also the potential for other things to drop off, and you don’t know if you’re going to be as healthy as they mostly were last year. Keith Mitchell aside, and you know, Stanley was banged up, but it was even a healthier season for his standards. So and He’s a year older, so there are a lot of questions. But that said, other than Kansas City, and I agree with you. I mean, they were the team to beat last year, even when people were trying to bury them back in December, on Christmas day, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, until someone breaks through and beats them. Lamar is in the same boat as Josh Allen in Buffalo and okay, I get it. Joe burrow in Cincinnati beat them once, but they didn’t finish the job in the Super Bowl. So they’re still chasing. You know, they’re still chasing. That’s the standard. They’re the new patriots. If that wasn’t abundantly clear before, it certainly was when they did it again last January and February. But you know, if you’re the ravens, you do have to turn the page. And that’s where I said that. It’s such a strange year. I think. I mean, even by their own admission, players were talking about this during OTAs and mini camp, and for the most part, they put it, put it to bed at that point, at least in what they were saying. But these guys had a really tough time getting over that, and this fan base still hasn’t gotten over it. And I think there’s excitement because there’s a new season, and it’s football, and the NFL is king in this in this town and in this country, but there is, I sense a greater urgency as far as January and yeah, you’re going to enjoy it and go to games and get together with your friends and do all the things you do as your rituals on Sundays. But I think there’s very much, I think there’s a feeling of everything that happens between now and then only matters so much, and that’s a tough place to be because of what we just said, because it is a new
Nestor Aparicio 33:27
the Orioles are getting there. I mean, you know, and it happens quickly. It’s tough expectations. I expect a delicious crab cake, and I know I can expect that because I’m down here. Failies all are brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Have the Gold Rush seven doublers to give away. We’re gonna have the Raven scratch offs. Our friends at Liberty, pure solutions, are putting us out on this crazy oyster tour, beginning on the fifth of September, which is also the day the season begins. We will be back here at fates on the 23rd of next month, eating, I don’t know what kind of oyster she gonna make me. She got a million oysters here. Luke’s gonna be covering a football baseball up late with the Dodgers all week and on the road and getting ready to go on the road to Kansas City next week. You can find him at Baltimore, Luke. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care powering us up. Make sure we get out there and get the oil change. My little lights on in my car right now. So I got to get over to Jiffy Lube. Make sure that I get myself serviced up. We’re going to get serviced up with some proper shrimp salad down here in a crab cake. We’re at fadelies. He’s Luke. I’m Nestor. Stay with us. We’re Baltimore positive.com.
