As a hefty 9-point favorite at home against the woeful Las Vegas Raiders, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the importance of the Ravens’ running game and getting win before heading to Dallas, entertaining Buffalo and going to Cincinnati as the schedule promises to stiffen after Gardner Minshew.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
week, ball, lamar, team, game, ravens, run, chiefs, raiders, marlon humphrey, play, defense, hamilton, henry, derrick henry, offensive line, baltimore, tackle, football game, talking
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call ourselves Baltimore positive. You can find us anywhere on the internet, but if you’re out in the radio world, set a little spot. Reach down right now on your dash and just say, I can be number six. I don’t need to be number two. Number one. You can leave 98 rock, b, a, l. Do what I do? Put the bay on number one. I’m on number six on my own dial. So do that. Also meet me down for the Fells Point oyster Festival this weekend. We’re going to be at Cooper’s on Friday in the afternoon, about 11 to three of Springsteen’s in town. Sticks is in town. I’ve got nose Lofgren on the air from the E Street Band. I’ve got Lawrence Gowan from sticks on the air. And a big football game on Sunday. Marilyn lottery is giving me the gold rush sevens doublers, but also I’m gonna have the Raven scratch offs for the first time on Friday, crab cake tour moves around. I got Costas. I believe that is, let me get the dates out here for everybody, because everybody wants to know what’s going on next Friday. Fade leads the 20th. We’re going to be at state fair on the 24th in the afternoon with Angela Ulster books. We’re going to be at Costas on the 27th and then we’re going to be a pizza Johns, which is Luke’s favorite place for our birthday. His birthday is in early October. Mines in mid October mine’s closer to Jim Palmer and Sammy hagars and his so I feel better about that. Luke Jones joins us now. I always call him the Oakland Raiders, dude. I messed that up. I’m going to do that with brick when he comes on too, because they’ll always be the Oakland Raiders. To me, I never got used to calling Los Angeles Raiders, even when they were giving Joe Theismann a hard time and Marcus Allen was running around. But here come the Raiders. And boy, you said to me in the Orioles segment, you got all flippant with me after another Orioles loss, they better win on Sunday. And you sort of sound like my dad, or maybe even your dad.
Luke Jones 01:43
Well, I mean, they’re, they’re a big favorite Vegas. And I don’t mean the football team, but the sports books certainly think the ravens
Nestor Aparicio 01:51
are gonna live long enough for you to use the for you to use that that’s pretty good.
Luke Jones 01:56
There you go. There you go. I don’t mean the football team, but I mean, look, this is a way better team on paper than the Las Vegas Raiders, but you got to go out and play play well. And I think, if nothing else, this week, you do get a reminder that Gardner Minshew was the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts who came in the Baltimore early last season. And if you watch that game, it wasn’t much of what he did, but a reminder of if you come out and you don’t play your best football, and you turn the ball over and you make silly mistakes, like a fair catch on a kickoff, for example, in a clock management situation where they left time on the clock when they didn’t need to, you do things like that, you can certainly get beat. And I think, you know, having, having had an opportunity to watch the Raiders that you know, I’ve watched the condensed game replay of the Raiders going up against the chargers, uh, JK Dobbins had that big day, right? Good for him, you know, hope he can stay healthy, because I think we know here in Baltimore that he’s talented, but the injuries just completely derailed his time here. But if you kind of look at that game, their defense basically gave up three big plays and was pretty darn good other than than that. Now, of course, those three plays count, and when you have bad run fits or you miss tackles, then yeah, the ravens, whether it’s Lamar Jackson or Derek Henry or Justice Hill. They’ll make you pay in that regard. But my point is, if you watch that game, at least defensively. Now, offensively, okay, they have Devonte Adams. They do have two good young tight ends, but you know that’s that. That’s not an overly impressive offensive unit. You know, an offensive system there, but defensively, it’s a pretty talented front. And I, you know, they’ve added Christian Wilkins, you know, Max Crosby, of course, it can be a is an absolute game wrecker. They have Robert Spillane, who all fall linebacker previously with the Steelers. You know, he played well on Sunday against the chargers, yeah, they’ve got a decent front seven. So
Nestor Aparicio 04:05
for them, I mean, oh sure, game record. You game wrecker. We have one of those last weekend. You know, I didn’t wreck the game, but it didn’t help the game. And I think this offensive line, smart defensive coordinators are going to identify things, and they’re going to find who’s the weak guy. Remember the old Billick thing? Let’s pick on that little cornerback, you know, like, literally, that’s how they’re going to go about this, until you figure it out. You got Justice Hill blocking Max Crosby with the game on the line, you know, crazy,
Luke Jones 04:33
yeah. And I think this is going to be a different kind of front than what they saw against Kansas City, which, you know, Chris Jones moved all around we know what he did, but the Chiefs something that was kind of lost, because we talked about this leading up to the season opener, but the Chiefs ended up not actually blitzing all that much in that game, when that was something that we kind of expected, because they had done more of that against Lamar in the past. But I think one. If this team, I think the Raiders, will be a little more inclined to blitz a little bit more, again, using a small sample and one game against the Chargers. I mean, none of these teams are, can we say that there are tendencies yet, right? I mean, it’s one data point to kind of look at, especially when you talk about teams that have new coaching staffs or changes at the coordinator spots, but I think it’s a Raiders team that will pose some challenges with this offensive line. It should be a good test. John Harbaugh. Jim Harbaugh, in his post game speech, any coach will tell you that improvement from week one to week two is usually I don’t know if I’d agree with the assessment that it’s the biggest jump you’ll make, but I think it can be very telling good or bad in terms of what you look like in week one and then what week two looks like, especially talking about young players. And we’re talking about young players on this ravens offensive line. So that, to me, is the potential. You know, that’s the potential, if the ravens are struggling in this game, and it’s the Tie game late in the third quarter, something along those lines, I’m guessing, a big reason why will be that Raiders front giving the Ravens offensive line problems. So the ques, the test is to start fast, get yourself an early lead, which you know, they technically had against the chiefs, but that was pretty fleeting, of course, and be able to lean into your running gate. I mean the Ravens. I saw a great stat. I can’t remember the specifics off the top of my head, but I saw sharp football. Noted how many plays the Ravens ran last week trailing and Nestor, the number of plays they ran last week trailing was an overwhelming percentage of the number of total plays they trailed last season. In the regular season, think about it, that colts came. They lost at the very end that Steelers game. They lost not not the second one, the first one that actually counted. They lost that at the very end the Browns game that they lost when Watson had the really good second half and they lost at the very end. Right? This was not a football team that trailed very much at all last year. So right off the bat, and again, it’s Kansas City. I’m
Nestor Aparicio 07:15
not, I’m not drawing some damning conclusion about them. It was just an observation that, well, you can’t play from behind unless you’re playing from behind, right? Literally, like they were that good, that they played from ahead, that they didn’t have to think about playing from behind, which is, that’s Lamar ball, and you gave me this lean into the running game. I mean, I’ve talked about
Luke Jones 07:37
it has to work for you to lean into it, you know? Otherwise, have a lead. Yeah, you’ve got to have a lead. I mean, anyone will tell you, and this is why I keep saying that they’ve got to be good with their passing game. Has to be good. You know, the idea was not to acquire Derek Henry. And then you go back to how you played football in 2018 that’s not the point. And John Harbaugh even said that this week they didn’t sign Derrick Henry to give them the ball 30 times every week. I mean, that’s you’re not winning football games consistently in the NFL in this day and age, doing that now, what you can do and what we have seen, and this is really again, what was so lost in what happened in the title game last year was people fundamentally not really recognizing what the Ravens makeup truly was. Last year, I said this over and over, and I know people don’t want to hear it, because they’d rather just yell at the coaching staff, right? They didn’t run the ball enough. And I’m not saying they couldn’t have run they shouldn’t have run the ball more. However, when you looked at the Ravens passing rate last year in early down game neutral situation, so what that means is first, talking first and second down and talking about games in which you’re either ahead by seven or trailing by seven, right? Talking about close games here, early downs, close games, the Ravens had one of the higher passing rates in the NFL in those instances last year. The reason why they ended up having such robust rushing totals is they led games because they were so much better than most opponents, and in the second half, then they ran the heck out of the football. So in order for that formula to work, you’ve got to have a lead. So they didn’t have that in the AFC title game. They didn’t have that very much, you know, other than the after the first drive, well, last Thursday night. So you know that to fully maximize the Derrick Henry thing, don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean you don’t run the ball at all in the first half. I’m not suggesting that, but to truly maximize things in the modern game, you know, you run to protect the lead, right? You pass to get the lead, and you run to protect it. I mean, that’s really what it’s about. And that’s, you know, the Ravens have obviously, four or five years ago, they were much run heavier than they are now, but they’re still run heavy relative to most teams out there. But again, it’s fundamentally it’s recognizing game situation, and yeah, the Ravens last year, they were aggressive throwing the football early in games, in early down situations. Analytics will tell you the. Formula is not run the ball on first down, run the ball on second down, throw it on third you know that that was kind of the way it was done 30 plus years ago in the National Football League, the most efficient way to do things. And of course, this is assuming you have to have a decent passing game to do it is actually to throw the ball on first down, get yourself in second and short, and then you run in second and short. Or if you throw it in completion, throw it again, and then you run in third and short. Right. Teams get too cute trying to throw the ball in third and short, when the analytics fully support run the ball in third and short. So yeah, my point is the Ravens last year did throw the ball a whole lot in early down situations, in close games early on, and then they got the lead. And then that’s when they’d hammer the hammer it with Gus Edwards and Justice Hill and and all that. So you know, you want to get a if you get an early lead against this Raiders team that, like I said, there’s overall success rate on defense was actually pretty good last week, but they gave up a few really big chunk plays that were the difference in the game. If you can get an early lead on them, you know, get to get yourself in a position where you’re up 10 points, then I think Derek Henry can have a huge day, because the Raiders, as much as they might have stopped the the Chargers run for stretches of that game, inevitably they missed a tackle, or they had a poor run fit. And you know, the difference here is, if that happens against Derrick Henry, I don’t think they’re catching him, you know, JK Dobbins, they were able to run down. And, yeah, we kind of talked about that with Dobbins a couple years ago. Is that, because of his knee injury, does he not have that highest gear, whatever? But Derek Henry, if he gets a full head of steam, no one catches him, right? I mean, that’s it takes him a little while to get going speed wise, but once he gets to the outside, if he busts one tackle, and he’s in the open field, then, I mean, he’s gone. You know, that’s how fast he still is. So, you know, I think for the ravens, it’s, you know, it this, this, to me, is a game that shouldn’t be all that complicated in terms of your formula for trying to win against the chiefs. You go into that knowing you need to play great football. I don’t think the Ravens need to play great football to play this game, but it needs to be clean, competent, good, you know, rock solid football. And if they do that, and they do that on both sides, you know, all three phases, but specifically offensively and defensively, and you clean up some of the missed, you know, miscommunications and blown assignments on the defensive side, you know, against an offense that respect for Devonte Adams aside, doesn’t have a whole lot that scares you. They shouldn’t have too much trouble winning this football game. But you kick the ball around, or your offensive line, you know, doesn’t have its protections in order, all those different things that can potentially happen, where you give up a return in special teams, something like that. Then, then, yeah, this could be a close game in the fourth quarter. You know that when you’re rowing one, you can’t be thinking about anything as a layup until you go out and you could say, well, they blew teams out last year. Well, that’s last year. So play a good game. I’m
Nestor Aparicio 13:01
with you. Yeah, play a good game. Yeah, right. It doesn’t
Luke Jones 13:03
have to be perfect, but you’ve got to go out and play your game.
Nestor Aparicio 13:06
No question. Bunch of things that get the ship blown up. You know, I wrote my Eric to Costa letter this week that I wasn’t in the locker room out in Las Vegas, maybe, or Las Vegas. What am I saying in Kansas City? Wasn’t I see new locker rooms there, by the way, because that place was always a dump underneath, till he fixed it all up. Um, and not there to ask Marlon Humphrey what happened on the play. Uh, three days later, Kyle Hamilton stands in front of all of you and offers that, my bad, right? Um, you know these are, these are, these are the guys you’re not you’re counting on to not make those mistakes, right? They cost you games where the miscommunications between Marlin Humphrey, your highest paid player, and, you know, Kyle Hamilton, you think he’s your best player? Roquan Smith, I’ll make an argument for all these guys, because they have a very good cast of players. That’s why they are, that’s why we expect them to win. That’s why they’re a nine point favorite down from nine and a half. But Kyle Hamilton, you know, I, I’m on the outside. I don’t know. You have to tell me the tenor of all of it. You’re there, standing there. But he seems to be a grown up. I, you know, I’ve never met the kid. I have met his father.
Luke Jones 14:16
Well, it’s why you know me. Nestor, I’m not Mr. Hot take, right? Or I, I certainly hope people don’t think that, because I try to be thoughtful, and I try to, you know, if I tell you I’m not sure about something, if I tell you I’m on the fence about something, which doesn’t always make for the most compelling radio take, but I want to be honest, I’ve said to you that I think Kyle Hamilton has the potential, and part of that is accountability, right? Part of that is leadership as a young man, who’s, what, 23 years old. I mean, he’s still, you know, he, he’s, he’s gunner Henderson in terms of age, right? I mean, you know, you’re, that’s what you’re talking about, right there. Adley rutman is a couple years older when you’re talking about young players in Baltimore sports landscape. But you know, part of that accountability and part of that maturity, you. In addition to just the unbelievable talent and skill set and his ability to play five or six different positions on the football field for a defense, is why I’ve said to you that I think Kyle Hamilton, it’s a long path, let’s be clear, and I’m not saying he’s anywhere close to that or or even will be in the next two or three years, but I think there is a pathway for Kyle Hamilton, if what we’ve seen through two years, which is him becoming a first team all pro safety last year, and how young he is, the maturity, the ability, all those different things, I think he’s got an opportunity to be one of the three or four best defensive players in the History of this franchise. That’s how highly I think of Kyle Hamilton, so look what happened. Ed Reed, busted coverages before Ray Lewis missed tackles in his career. You know, we always think about these guys in the past tense of like they they were invaluable. No. Every gambled and lost and sometimes guessed and was left a corner out high and dry at times.
Nestor Aparicio 16:00
Let me imitate Brian. No, no. Ed, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We can
Luke Jones 16:07
remember Ed Reed trying to lateral ball and okay, for every time it worked there. There was a time where it potentially landed on the ground and you’re trying to get it back. So,
Nestor Aparicio 16:16
yeah, you don’t tell Ed Reed to get down.
Luke Jones 16:20
So the point I’m trying to make, you know, Hamilton showing accountability there. And I think as people reviewed that more and more, I think it looked, you could kind of say, and it looked like they should they were Marlon Humphrey definitely played that, looking like it was a too high safety look. And, you know, and you kind of look at how everyone else was playing their coverage, you know, that’s what I started to think it was. But it was nice to get that confirmation. And what I was impressed by was when he said it, he made clear. He said not just it wasn’t Marlon Humphrey. He also stood up for his coach and said that wasn’t on Zach or at all. You know, it wasn’t like that. That was a bad I messed up. I needed to be back, and I wasn’t, and I take ownership of that. And he went on to say that he didn’t play a very good football game, which I said to you, you know, when we were breaking down the the aftermath of the loss to the chiefs, that I’m not sure you’ll find a football game where both roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton play as poorly as they did against the chiefs. Now, okay, that that’s frustrating, because it’s the chiefs, and that’s the team you’re chasing, and that’s the team that, if you want to get there and break through in January, you’re probably going to see them at some point in time, right? So, but at the same time that, to me, there’s a certain level of encouraging, you know, an encouraging reality that I don’t think roquan Smith is going to play that poorly moving forward. I don’t think Kyle Hamilton’s going to play that poorly moving forward. And they still almost, you know, had a chance that they potentially could have beaten the Chiefs at the end. So to me, it’s a case where you’re looking at the upside, and you say, roquan will be better. He’s going to bounce back. Kyle Hamilton will certainly bounce back. I think their defense, and I talked about this before week one, go back and look at Mike McDonald’s defense his first year. You know, the first 678, weeks of the season, they had some hiccups. They had some breakdowns when you do, and I asked Hamilton about this on Wednesday, when you do as much pre snap as they do, whether it’s, you know, looking like they’re going to be in man and then they switch to zone or vice versa, the sim pressures up front, blitzing or not blitzing, I mean all the different things that they do. I mean the way they value on the back end of the defense of being positionless, where you’ll have five or six defensive backs out there, but you don’t exactly know. You know that Marlon Humphrey is a corner, but he might be the nickel, or, you know that Brandon Stevens is a corner, but he might drop and be a deep safety depending on what they’re doing with their coverage on a given play. So when you do all that, that requires a lot everything to be synchronized, right? That? That requires everything to be tightened up and everything aligned the right way. And I asked Hamilton, understanding, it’s a week to week League, but in your experience, the last few years, whether it was Mike McDonald or now Zach, or does, does that take some time to really get that finely tuned? Because you’re talking about new players and new coaches, not just a coordinator, but a couple new position coaches as well. And, you know, I mean, he kind of said, Look, that’s, that’s something that’s, you’re never at a you never get to a point where you say, All right, we’re done building. This is who we are. I mean, you’re always, you always have a different challenge because different personnel and different matchups that you’re gonna have over the course of the season. But I think it’s inherent to say, Yeah, week one, week two, week three, their defense probably won’t be quite as good as you expect it to become week seven or week eight, as you do for it to be week 17, week 18, and in the playoffs, and that goes for Zach Gore or the guys on the field. I mean, I think that, you know, that’s kind of a natural progression, right there. So, you know, not to, not to make excuses. Their defense was not very good for stretches of that game. I mean, Let’s call a spade a spade. You know, they did some good things. At other times. But, yeah, just like we were talking about it on the offensive side, and just talking about it in general, I want to see a tighter, cleaner performance from the defense, you know, where you don’t have a busted coverage, you know, you don’t, certainly don’t want to see Devonte Adams getting free, you know, downfield, or these two tight ends that they have, you know, obviously they got some, you know, some nice contributions from Brock Bowers, who was a first round pick, highly touted tight ends. So so they’ve got some they’ve got some pieces that can test you at the same time, Gardner Mitch being behind, you know, in the pocket, under center, compared to Patrick mahomes, is a much different that’s a much different challenge, a much, much easier challenge on paper. I think the biggest thing with Gardner Minshew, and this applied in the past, but watching him operate that Raiders offense in week one, he wanted to get the ball out very quickly, and when he did, it looked okay. But when he either couldn’t find someone open downfield or he was pressured in the pocket, it did not look good. Like it for him, it did not look good. I mean, so the Ravens barely blitz Patrick mahomes, and that’s, you know, that’s the MO against him. Everyone knows mahomes dices up the Blitz. I fully expect the ravens, not necessarily. I’m not saying they’re going to blitz on half their defensive snaps, but I think you’re going to see them try to dial up pressure and try to really confuse Gardner Minshew, because again, he looked like a quarterback to me that wanted to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible and look that. That’s a lot of playing quarterback in today’s day and age. So I’m not going to say that that’s incredibly unique, but anytime the Chargers were able to pressure him or to force him to, you know, pump or try to try to extend the play, generally speaking, it did not look very good for them. So I think especially playing at home, hostile environment, crowd noise being more of a factory, yeah, that was kind of, you know, that was in LA, there are Raiders fans there. I mean, that’s always a weird environment when the Raiders play anywhere out there. Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 21:58
it’s also just an enormous bill. I
Luke Jones 22:00
mean, you know, yeah, noise standpoint, so buildings, not much, yeah, so, so certainly, this week, I’m sure there’ll be a handful of Raiders fans, because, I mean, they’re everywhere, right? Cockroaches, they’re everywhere. Any NFL market, you’re going to find some Raiders fans, but overwhelmingly, it’s going to be a partisan crowd, and I think the defense really, as an opportunity to get after Gardner Minshew in this game. And, you know, Raiders running game, not much to write home about. You know that that did not look very good overall. So certainly, expect the ravens to stop the run. And you know, if you can, if you can force Gardner Minshew, either to hold the ball, flush him out of the pocket, all the, all the different things that that you want to do as a defense, as a pass rush, generally speaking, he’s not going to burn you in the way that, like Patrick mahomes broke out and had his big play on that third down at one point. So, you know, it’s a way different level of competition here. So yeah, I expect this defense to bounce back. And, you know, not, not, not predicting a shutout, let’s be clear, or anything like that. But I certainly expect them to play better, and I again, want to see them clean up that communication, break those breakdowns that they had on on a few occasions over the course of that game against the chief switch. It’s going to happen. Kansas City is really good, and you’re talking about a Ravens defense that underwent plenty of transition in the off season. So again, I wasn’t shocked by how I saw the defense perform in week one. Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 23:27
defecating upon the running game of the Las Vegas Raiders. And you know who will pile on that? Chad whistling, who was the agent for Josh Jacobs. So we’re going to have him on Friday Dan at Cooper’s as part of our Fells Point oyster festival. All of our reports from from Owings Mills, brought to you by our friends at Royal farms. I see Luke sipping from his royal farms coffee right now. Yeah, we gotta have some coffee here with these Orioles games at bullpens. I got Pearl Jam. We got Springsteen sticks. All this stuff going on this weekend. Lamar. Lamar. Lamar Monday, John Harbaugh and his harbali and Ness, you know, see my injury report, whatever you know. Meanwhile, the shifters in the world have to report something. He’s banged up. He’s a little nicked up. Ran the ball 15 times, which is a dozen too many for me, Lamar. And where are you with Lamar at this point in in this kind of a game where,
Luke Jones 24:30
oh, he’s fine, he’s not even listed on the injury report. Look, I I’m in agreement with you. I don’t agree that it’s 12 times too many. Lamar Jackson needs to run the ball more than three times on average per game. Now, are there certain games where he doesn’t have to short? You’re asking Superman not to fly when you say you don’t want Lamar to run at all? Right? I mean, that doesn’t make any sense. That said, No, I don’t think him carrying the ball 16 times and taking as many hits as he. Did in week one is sustainable. I’m in agreement with you on that. So I think we’re going to see more Derek Henry. I think we’ll see more Justice Hill running the ball. One thing that I noted, and I know some other people, noted, that when you kind of see the split of snaps with Derrick Henry and Justice Hill, it was very almost split. And a lot of that was game situation, right? You’re behind throwing the ball more. Derek Henry’s not, has not been a guy that’s on the field in obvious passing situations over the course of his career, and you know, not saying he can’t pass block, but that generally hasn’t been something that he’s been asked to do a whole lot, same with catching passes out of the backfield. So, but my point with that is, if Justice Hill is going to be on the field as much as he was in week one, probably a good idea to get him more than one carry to try not to be too predictable in terms of what your personnel packages are and what that means. So again, I’m at this point considering his 16 carries were the most that he’s had in three years. So yes, he hasn’t run the ball nearly as much as he had in the past, over the last few years, I think
Nestor Aparicio 26:07
three, the next two weeks, to get it down to eight where you want it to be. How about that? Yeah.
Luke Jones 26:13
I mean, I’ll say this. I don’t think they’re I don’t think they think about it in those terms. I think,
Nestor Aparicio 26:18
yeah, oh, I know they don’t, but I I’m just saying, like, in a game where they’re a 10 point favor, nine point favorite, whatever you’re gonna go, we’re, we’re all just like, they’re gonna roll the ball out. And I wear my black and white here with my Costas. You know, Raiders are gonna come in and just morning game, like all of that. And it’s just gonna be 3313 it might be, but the only way it’s going to be is the way you’re talking about which is Henry right Hill, left, Andrews for first down, Henry for six yards, Henry for four yards. First down. Oh, there’s a seam. There’s a flowers for 28 like that. That’s cleaner football than Lamar off tackle or Lamar option, or, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know where this option scene thing, the sleight of hand thing with Lamar, that was his thing in the beginning. I don’t know how much they’re going to do that with their i i don’t feel like I saw much on Thursday that was successful enough to make me think, oh, that’s the way they want to do it. I don’t even know how they really want to do it, because he ran the ball 16 times. That better not be the way they want to do it, and they don’t want to play from behind. But when they do, how are they going to play? And how are they going to keep the sticks moving every four plays in 10 yards? If Derrick Henry’s not the guy doing it,
Luke Jones 27:38
they’ve got to be more successful as an operation. I mean, Derrick Henry, sure. I’d love to see Derrick Henry have more than 13 carries, but he averaged 3.5 yards a carry. You know, your offensive line is the block. I mean, you know, it’s that simple. So I’m in agreement with you, and I mentioned this that, you know, I want to see some of, maybe some more read option. And that’s, that’s something that’s a moving target, right? Just like I was talking a few minutes ago about the defense and some of the new pieces. Again, Derek Henry did not play in a shotgun heavy offense in Tennessee over the over the duration of his tenure there, it was much more under center. Now, did we see the Ravens under center more in week one than we’ve seen in the past, sure, but still very shotgun, pistol heavy in terms of how they run. And that’s not to say Derek Henry can’t do that. Other
Nestor Aparicio 28:24
centers a bad idea for Lamar.
Luke Jones 28:28
I, I mean, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I just you,
Nestor Aparicio 28:31
and I’ve never discussed whether this is rounded square pegs, like, literally. I mean, this is the first time, like, you’ve just thrown it out there. That what, Derek, I’ve talked about that, but from a functional standpoint, we have a game this week and the one last week didn’t work, you know, against a great team that, and this is a good front seven. This is, you know, this is, that was the biggest problem, and maybe, and that’s the part of this that if that doesn’t work, you can have Superman fly and you into kryptonite. And you can have Derek Henry run into the hall of fame, but you can’t get him past the line of scrimmage. You can have Mark Andrews and Isaiah likely line up and get out there, but you can’t protect Lamar enough that he’s not running around and playing the scramble game like I I just went through some nightmares, but we saw it all last Thursday in their own one. And the nightmare is 16 runs for Lamar Derek Henry’s running game didn’t work. The passing game was, whatever a detractor of Lamar would say, and he didn’t have any time like you know, last week’s problematic. If somehow they struggle this week, we’ll start to look at this thing differently, especially with Dallas Buffalo and Cincinnati over the hill, to say, when are we going to see this work? This doesn’t work this week, when is it going to work? From a control the game, control the ball, do what you want to do, do what you think you brought him in to do. And I don’t know whether that means pistol or under. I don’t know because it is a little rounded square. It is a little if you have one, how do you have the other? And how do you make the chocolate the peanut butter work to go. Other
Luke Jones 30:00
well and that, and that’s where it’s just, it’s just like anything else. I mean, over the course of a season, you want to get more comfortable with it. And that’s not to say they can’t do it, you know, it’s not to say it won’t be successful at all, but you’ve got to do it. And there’s an adjustment in the same way that I mentioned the defense. You know, with a new coordinator and new position coaches and new players on the field and new guys in sub packages, there’s always some questions about how cohesive it’s going to be, how calibrated it’s going to be. I mean, that, that’s human nature, right? I mean, I think you look at, in most cases where you’re talking about complicated operations, that it’s going to take some time. You know, I didn’t, I said it before the game. I I’ve talked about this, I’ve written about this, that I wouldn’t have been surprised if the running game looked choppy in week one. I wouldn’t be surprised if it looks choppy in week two. I want to see less choppy, right? I want to see the the degree of choppy to look better because, well, the penalties
Nestor Aparicio 30:59
are down in distance or Trump, you know, like just no penalties. Let’s start with that, because that’s the beginning
Luke Jones 31:05
of it well. And I think the whole illegal, first of all, I’m so tired of hearing about the illegal formation thing. I think this is this year’s point of emphasis in the NFL. And two weeks from now, we’re not even going to be talking about it. You know, illegal contact was that a few years ago, there have been some years where past interference was more of a point of emphasis. I mean, the League for I don’t know, it feels like, in the way that some people decide that, you know, management, or people that are in positions of power feel like they need to do something, just to for the sake of doing it, to make it look like they’re, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 31:39
media credential or thing like that, just little things like that. But the point,
Luke Jones 31:42
you know, with that, you know, I don’t think Ronnie Stanley is going to continue to be called for three illegal formation penalties per game, you know. I think that’s all going to be cleaned up. I think that was a very bizarre aberration, you know, very bizarre aberration and outlier, because it was the first game and because it was a point of emphasis in the off season for teams. So, you know, beyond that, you know, they didn’t have, it’s not like they had a ton of back breaking penalties, but that was, like the big one that, you know, they had, what, three on that first drive where they ended up getting a touchdown. It was kind of miraculous that they overcame that. But, you know, they did make an example out of him. They did Sure. Oh, there’s no doubt, especially when you look at, you know, some of the alignment of Kansas City’s tackles, you know, kind of looking at it like that. It was, it was bizarre. It was, but again, I don’t think that’s that’s going to be a major topic of discussion moving forward. I think you’re going to see that fade into the background again and look, Ronnie Stanley in the past, would be called for that every now and then tackles do like the set further back. I mean, they do it. It makes pass protection easier. So, you know, he got to a little bit, there’s no doubt about it. So, but I think with this offensive line, you know, you want to see some growth. You want to see improvement from week one to week two, as I said to you upon review. And it was interesting even to see some of the different sites that try to grade, you know, ESPN has passed or pass blocking win rate. Pro football focus has long had their grades and none of none of them are gospel, because none of them have a full degree of certainty in terms of what a player’s assignment is. But I think collectively, if you kind of look at the consensus, it’s that the Ravens in pass protection, while far from perfect, was better than the run blocking, and got better as the night went on, whereas the run blocking just didn’t look very good over the course of the night. So that’s where you’re looking for the growth, right? I mean, certainly you want to pass protection to continue to take a step forward, and you want, you want to jump from your run blocking. There’s no doubt about that. So, you know, but this is a talented front. I mean, they’ve got multiple players on this front that can pose match up problems. I mean, Christian Wilkins going up against Daniel fowlele, that’s, that’s a concern. You know, Voorhees, who played better than foul ale in the opener, going up against Wilkins, that that’s a potential concern. So Max Crosby going up against either tackle, and that’s even fully acknowledging that Ronnie Stanley was penalties aside, was actually quite good against the chiefs from a blocking standpoint, that’s still a challenge. So yeah, it’s a new challenge this week, and that’s why, while I fully expect the ravens to go out there and win because they’re the better team, but they’ve got to go out and do it. And you do want to see growth from week one to week two. And yes, I’m in full agreement, while I’m not of the thought whatsoever that I’m going to tell Lamar Jackson not to run, I certainly don’t want him running 16 times and taking as many hits as he did in week one. But again, I’ll chalk that up to opponent, AFC title game, hangover, national spotlight, and the fact that not a whole lot else was working. You know, everything else was very choppy, and Lamar scrambling works great to your point when, when it’s really, you know, when it’s, you know, cutthroat time. You. That’s their their best play, because he’s the best quarterback in the history of the league to do that. And yes, I fully think better than Michael Vick, better than Randall Cunningham, go down the list in that way. But yeah, you don’t want that to be all you’re doing or all you can do. No question about that. So yeah, you want to get the schemed up running game going the design running game you want to get going and, yeah, you can mix in a couple of more runs here and there on that. There’s no question, no problem with that. Again, that would be dumb to eliminate that. But yeah, you don’t want to have to rely on it, right? You want to be in a position where, you know Derek Henry is involved, Justice Hill is involved. You want to get Mark Andrews going, Look Isaiah. Likely, what he did was great. That was fantastic, but Mark Andrews did next to nothing. So you want to see him look like Mark Andrews, right, and look like he’s healthy and all that. You know. You don’t overreact to week one, but you want to see better there zay flowers. He had the catches, but what zay flowers ended up, you know, receiving more yard wise, did not do a whole lot in that game. It was a lot of underneath stuff. I’d like to see them be able to push the ball downfield to zay flowers a little bit more than what we saw in the opener. So again, it’s all about progress. Their offense wasn’t bad against Kansas City, but it was a very choppy, inconsistent lack of rhythm, kind of operation for much of the night, you know. I mean, really, you know, other than the two minute situations where they ended up getting a lot of their yardage, you know, at times it was very frustrating. So, yeah, you want to see growth against a team that is not the Kansas City Chiefs, right? I mean, I that that’s obvious. So go out there again. Start fast, get yourself a lead, be balanced on offense, and then if you have that lead in the second half, that’s when you can really start to lean into Derek Henry and do what everyone talked about them doing back in March when they signed him. So, you know, ultimately, I think they’re going to do that. I don’t think it’ll necessarily be a perfect performance, but again, I think the ravens are just better in just about every phase that, you know, if you want to try to break it down, you know, they’re certainly more talented. They’re way better at the quarterback position. They have more talent on defense, although the Raiders do have a good front, you know, and that’s going to be a challenge for this O line, no doubt about it, but the Ravens should win. And yes, I’ll go back to our by throwaway line in the midst of our conversation about the Orioles in another segment, they better win, because if you’re talking about somehow losing this football game and being oh and two, then going to Dallas and then coming home and playing a prime time game against Buffalo, and I get it, the bills are diminished on paper, but hey, they still have Josh Allen, and he still looks really good at the end of that game, and that comeback win against Arizona. And then you have Cincinnati after that, who I still think is going a better team than what we saw in week one. So you know, you never want to start oh and two. It’s not season over, but oh and two, you’re, I don’t know if you’re pressing the panic button, but you’re asking where it is at the very least, well, that’s
Nestor Aparicio 38:05
it. We better be doing happy radio here Monday. I mean, Orioles aside, however, that goes in Detroit this weekend, and then we got the Yankees next, you know, coming up in Dallas, and the Yankees the week after, like, this a big month here, dude. I mean, just don’t get and on the grandest of stages, you can’t wake up on two on Monday. I mean that that would as I sit here, that’s got to feel unthinkable.
Luke Jones 38:29
Sure, sure. At the same time they were saying the same thing in Cincinnati on Sunday morning, going up against the Patriots. And again, I still think the Bengals are a good team. I think they will be, I think, you know, I’m wrong plenty of times too. Who knows, but they laid an egg at home against the team with a brand new head coach. And you know, they can run the ball and play defense. You know, the Raiders can’t really run the ball, I don’t think, but they are, certainly they’re. They’re a professional football outfit that, if you kick the ball around and don’t play well, and you have protection breakdowns that cause your quarterback to cough up the football, or you throw the ball to the other team, or you give up a special teams, you know, big return, or, you know, things like that, busted coverages, you know, you do things like that, then, yeah, this will be a, it’ll be a three point game In the fourth quarter, and Gardner Minshew and the Colts last last September reminded that, uh, yeah, the Ravens can certainly be beaten at home if they don’t play their best football. But I expect this team to come out and play good football. I don’t think it’s gonna be perfect again. There’s still elements of this football team that are work in progress, but I still think at the end of the day, they’re just they’re better than the Raiders, and they better show it. You know, I and I think they will.
Nestor Aparicio 39:48
He is Baltimore, Luke, out on the interwebs. He is Luke Jones. He is doing baseball and football double duty all weekend long, or you’ll stay out on the road and the Ravens are home. And I’m gonna get JT the brick on. We’ve got great programming here this week. Lawrence Gowan from sticks checked in. NES Lofgren from the E Street Band, put a bunch of stuff on. Mark Viviano was here earlier in a week with rasig and just good, good stuff. We’re doing the Maryland oyster tour each and every day, having an oyster a day, 26 ways for 26 days. Our 26th anniversary logo will be launched on Monday as well. Hopefully the ravens are one and one and launching that. Uh, boy, what else? I don’t even know. What else we have going on here? Oh, Springsteen’s in town too, and pro jam in town. And sticks is in town. So big rock and roll weekend, big weekend at home. Uh, oyster festival, nfl’s point come down music all weekend. Great oysters because the month has an R in it. I can show you some creative ways to eat them as well. And the crab cake tours back out on the road next Friday, we are at fates afterward Coopers on this Friday, he’s Luke. I’m Nestor, coverage during the game, after the game, and again on Monday morning, I’m Nestor. He’s loop. We’re wnsta and 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we never stop talking Baltimore positive. I.
