It’s not easy being the backup quarterback in Baltimore. Tyler “Snoop” Huntley once again took the ball and led the Ravens to an impressive 30-14 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday afternoon. Luke Jones and Nestor recap a gritty effort and a short turnaround for the flock in the hopes that Lamar Jackson will return in Miami on Thursday night.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones recapped the Ravens’ 19-14 win over the Bears, emphasizing the importance of the victory for the team’s morale and playoff chances. They discussed Tyler Huntley’s impressive performance, noting his 17/22 passing and 116.9 passer rating. The defense held the Bears to field goals, and the team’s ability to move the ball effectively was highlighted. They also touched on the team’s upcoming schedule, including critical games against Miami, Minnesota, and Cleveland, and the need for Lamar Jackson’s return to solidify their playoff hopes.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Follow up on Lamar Jackson’s status and availability for the Thursday night game against the Dolphins.
- [ ] Analyze the team’s performance and identify areas for improvement as Lamar Jackson prepares to return.
- [ ] Discuss the team’s roster decisions and personnel moves during the bye week and leading up to the trade deadline.
Ravens Win Over Bears: Initial Reactions
- Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Maryland crab cake tour and various sponsors.
- Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the importance of the Ravens’ win over the Bears, noting the team’s recent struggles.
- Luke highlights the urgency of the win, mentioning the Orioles’ recent victory and the team’s need for a win to boost morale and confidence.
- Nestor and Luke reflect on the team’s performance, emphasizing the need for a backup quarterback and the importance of the defense.
Tyler Huntley’s Performance and Team Improvements
- Luke praises Tyler Huntley’s performance, noting his solid game and athleticism.
- Nestor recalls a past press conference where a PR director asked for positive questions after a win.
- Luke discusses the team’s effective use of quick game to protect Huntley and the offensive line.
- Nestor and Luke acknowledge the team’s success in moving the ball and the importance of the defense holding the Bears to field goals.
Defensive Efforts and Team Potential
- Nestor and Luke discuss the defense’s performance, noting the team’s ability to stop the run and contain the Bears’ offense.
- Luke mentions the Bears’ reliance on turnovers and the Ravens’ ability to take care of the football.
- Nestor reflects on the team’s potential, mentioning key players like Marlon Humphrey and JK Dobbins.
- Luke highlights the importance of the upcoming games and the need for the team to improve in various areas.
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
- Nestor and Luke discuss the team’s upcoming schedule, including games against Miami, Minnesota, and Cleveland.
- Luke emphasizes the importance of winning these games to stay in contention for the playoffs.
- Nestor reflects on the team’s potential to win 10 games and the importance of Lamar Jackson’s return.
- Luke and Nestor discuss the team’s depth and the need for key players to return to form.
Team Dynamics and Future Prospects
- Nestor and Luke discuss the team’s dynamics, including the decision to sign Cooper Rush and the impact of injuries.
- Luke reflects on the team’s offensive line and the need for improvement in pass protection.
- Nestor mentions the importance of the team’s leadership and the need for a cohesive effort.
- Luke and Nestor discuss the team’s potential to win the division and the importance of staying focused on the upcoming games.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens win, Tyler Huntley, Lamar Jackson, AFC North, defensive performance, offensive line, backup quarterback, Miami game, Minnesota game, Cleveland game, Jets game, Bengals game, injury report, team morale, playoff chances.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Come home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and we are taking the Maryland crab cake tour out on the road. I have Raven scratch offs, victorious. Raven scratch offs this week, Tuesday will be at State Fair in the morning for breakfast, and Alan McCallum is going to join us. We have some old friends, some new friends, as well as always a fresh menu at State Fair. And I get to look at Kurt Cobain on the wall, so I kind of dig it as well. Sometimes it’s Joan Jett. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Also our friends at GBMC getting us out on the road here this week. My colon Oscar, please, coming up here in November. And we talked some orthopedics this week about knee and hip replacement with Dr Duvall. So been having some great conversations with them and our friends at curio wellness, who have taken us out on the tastiness tour. I’m continuing to find really good things and the tastiness things cool too. For our 27th anniversary, that people are giving me more recommendations of things that I might have missed around town. So I’m all for that too. So if you eat something really good lately, throw I need to know about it. Nestor Baltimore, positive.com, Luke is here. He swallowed victory under the victory arches. By the way, that’s where the Kevin Byrne press box. It’s under the victory arch, as was told to me 31 years ago when we’re trying to sell PSLs around here. And for all who who braved and bought those $28 tickets and went down on a kind of a decent, really nice day for football, got a little Snoop Doggy Dog, didn’t they?
Luke Jones 01:34
Luke, there was a win. It was a win, a win. They desperately needed a win that i i saw this, and I hadn’t really realized it, but the Orioles had won a game more recently than the ravens, prior to Sunday, and the Orioles have been done playing baseball for a month now. So it speaks to just how grim things had been. And as as I and also, I mean, not just me. So many people noted coming out of the bye week whether Lamar was going to play or not, turmoil or not, dysfunction or not, injury report debacle or not, if you had any designs of feeling better about this team, looking at a path for them to get back into it. And certainly it helps, given the state of the state of the rest of the AFC north, and we’ll certainly get into that. They needed a win Sunday. They needed a win in terms of the math. They needed a win in terms of their psyche, your heart, your confidence, your spirit, however you want to categorize. It was
Nestor Aparicio 02:33
existential. It’s whether you’re going to have a season
Luke Jones 02:36
or not, right? I mean, it right. I mean, I think one in six was just the idea of that. I mean, one in five was dark enough, right? I mean, and they had to stew with that for two weeks, but one in six, you’re just, you’re at a point where you’re just saying, like bro and three without Lamar, what’s going on with the rest of this roster? We don’t, not only do we not have a backup quarterback, but what’s going on with the defense, what’s going on with the rest of the offense? All the talk about having the best roster in the NFL, and look whether that was, whether that was anywhere remotely true or not, the idea that if you can’t win a single football game without your franchise quarterback, quarterback, albeit a great one, no one’s disputing how important Lamar Jackson is to this team, then how much of a contender can you really be? And I don’t even mean like, super bowl, just like, in terms of getting back into it, you know, in the here and now, getting back into this thing at two and five, with a chance to go three and five, you know, in just a couple days, and then have another little mini buy on the on the other end of that, if you can’t do that, then what hope do you have? Right? No matter how mediocre the Steelers might be, or how pathetic the Bengals defense is, or how Browns the Browns are, right? I mean, at some point in time, you have to look at yourself and say, Man, we’ve got a man up. You know, it can’t just be that our only hope ever is Lamar, right? So,
Nestor Aparicio 04:02
and then eight, nine wins the division somehow. I mean, I
Luke Jones 04:05
don’t know if it’s eight nine, but it might be nine and eight, right? We’ll see. So, but Tyler Huntley makes a start. And Tyler Huntley just played really good football. I mean, that was we’ve seen Tyler Huntley play some solid games in the past. I don’t want to make it sound like this was something so extraordinarily better than anything we saw from Tyler Huntley, because he had some good performances in the past, including his first NFL start in Chicago four years ago, where he led a last second drive to win a football game. But he was
Nestor Aparicio 04:36
still a media member then I remember that one first time in my life, I was at a press conference where the PR Director stepped in in front of the coach and said, Can we have more positive questions? We won, right? Don’t forget that when you’ve been doing this for 40 years, sure,
Luke Jones 04:51
but I just think Tyler Huntley, I mean, he played really sound, smart, solid football, and he certainly showed his athleticism. That Cooper rush had none of the last two weeks. And I mean, he completed 17 of 22 he had a one, 16.9 passer rating. They effectively used quick game for him to get the ball out and not expose that offensive line, which I hope to see them do a little more of that with Lamar Jackson back whenever, you know, whether it’s in Miami Thursday night or whenever it happens, right? So they ran the ball, not extraordinarily well with Derrick Henry, but they ran the ball well enough we saw Keaton Mitchell right there. There were plenty of things to like, without getting ahead of ourselves and saying that everything’s fixed about this football team. We know it’s not.
Nestor Aparicio 05:36
They got some first downs and moved the ball. I mean, it was, it
Luke Jones 05:39
was night really. It was a really nice win, and it was a much needed win. And I think, you know, and we’ll get to the defense as well, certainly the defense, I think, the fact that as much as Chicago moved the ball on those first two drives, the fact that they held them to field goals, things set the tone for for it to be a much better defensive performance overall, to kind of build on what they did against the Rams on that side of the ball, they just they manned up and they needed to. And as I said to you, and I know you mentioned it, I noted it at Baltimore positive.com I wasn’t convinced that this Bears team, just because they had won four in a row, was a juggernaut. They were missing multiple members in their secondary. So I thought even with Tyler Huntley, there should be some plays to be made, there should be some opportunities to score some points. And the Ravens did that, and that’s where picked them to win, right? I picked them to win. I mean, I didn’t feel quite as strongly about it around noon on Saturday, when we definitively knew that Lamar Jackson was a whole thing.
Nestor Aparicio 06:38
He he he pushed it to Chad steel. He said, PR, like, I’m like, Oh boy, here we go. So I mean, and they got to play football on Thursday night. But, I mean, I want to stay as upbeat as I can be in this. This is my season. Well, this is, this is my kind words about them. They’re supposed to be a 12 or 13 win football team as comprised, as comprised on Labor Day without any massive injuries, catastrophic injuries, which they had to Mata BK, right? That’s a catastrophic injury. The rest of it was, they’ll get roquan back. They’ll get Lamar back. Marlon Humphrey will show up. You know, Stanley always a question mark, I think for all of us, by the way, I saw JK Dobbins running around again, you know? I mean, guys that have had a lot of injuries still get jobs and play and try hard, and it’s their shot in life to get out there and do it. And Joe Flacco is doing it, for crying out loud, right? If you just, just, if you could just play defense. But so for me, I look at them and say, backup quarterback, not named Cooper rush. And by the way, that’s its own indictment of who went in the room in February and March. It came out with, we need him, that that’s the that’s what we’re going to be able to win with when Lamar tweaks his hamstring in week four. So, so I would say across the board, I don’t need perfection. I don’t think they’re gonna have a great pass rush. I don’t think they’re gonna open Earl Campbell holes for Derek Henry, you know, especially not with the backup quarterback playing. I was really impressed with all of it, from from a not making mistakes, getting to the sticks when they needed to third down defense, when you don’t have a pass rush, you sort of negate what strength you would have on third and seven and third and eight and Third and nine. Chicago completed a lot of that, and they were in a lot of it, which means there was a lot of success on first and second down, you know, for the Ravens. So I I mean, it was a great punt, made some field goals, I don’t with the backup quarterback at home against the four and two team. I mean, they won by two touchdowns. In the end, it was very impressive. It might not have been had the pick not happened and step it up for Wiggins that mean, they picked the ball off, they took the ball away. I mean, I can point at the film of this one and say they get a dozen things that make them look like they can still win 10 games as predicted, even in my John Harbaugh takedown last week, which my wife finally read,
Luke Jones 09:21
yeah, and, I mean, and I still felt there was meat on the bone, right in the sense that there were still things that they need to get better with. I mean, to your point, you know the pass rush. I mean, it still feels like unless they’re going to blitz, it’s going to be very, very difficult for them to get to the quarterback. But when you do Blitz, and a team screens to that side of the field. We saw DeAndre swift catch one and run a long way, right? I mean, so you’re going to be vulnerable in those ways. But this is a Bears team that had averaged what five and a half yards per carry the last two weeks, and they contain that running game quite well. Gave up a couple runs, but overall, they stopped the run well and. They were in, yeah, like you said, they were in quite a few third downs, but I think there were some third and long sprinkled in there, which, if you’re going to try to get home with whatever semblance of a pass rush you have, it better be third and long, right? Third and four probably not going to go well for this team, right? So there was plenty to like. There’s still much more work to be done. As I said, I think this is a Bears team that, look, they’re, they’re certainly better than the bears have been, right? I And that’s kind of damning them with praise. I get it, but, but at the same time, they’re a team that on defense was completely dependent on turnovers while the Ravens take care of the football. But on the flip side of that, that defense ranked last in the NFL coming into Sunday’s game in yards per play allowed. So it tells you it was a very high variance defense, and with your backup quarterback, the Ravens moved the ball and they played a clean brand of football. Overall. Wasn’t perfect. I mean, there were a couple clock management things here and there. I mean, they ran a play right before the two minute warning, late in the first half. I thought that was kind of a curious choice. Even late in the game, they they ran out of bounds a couple times instead of staying in bounds. I mean, now they were little things in that moment, but still, in a big picture sense, things you’d like to see them clean up. So they still have a lot of work to do, right? I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 11:22
and they got some breaks and gave some breaks. I mean, Hopkins grabbed that guy’s face mask on the way out. Jerked his head. That’s just a
Luke Jones 11:29
savvy that’s a savvy veteran wide receiver move right there. Grab a face mask. But I get it. I’m being facetious.
Nestor Aparicio 11:37
Sure I would Marvin Lewis and I argue about this all the time, and just because he was, he sat on the side of hating anything that stopped the game or involved New York, or any of that just did. I mean, even, like with pass interference, I’m like, they should make that challenge able to 60 yard play like you should be able to look at that. Nah, I don’t want to look at anything. And I’m thinking, man, dude grabs a face mask, and I’ve got a red flag in my pocket, and it cost me 30 yards, like, and a first down and possession of the ball because it’s lured and long, like, the whole deal, I would be like that. That should be a challengeable thing, and I don’t think that often, but when I do, I think of Marvin and I fighting over Margarita about it.
Luke Jones 12:18
Yeah, I mean, it’s and you and you and I’ve talked about this over the years, and I don’t want to belabor the point, because, I mean, you’ve been there where Marvin and I Yeah, sure, sure, no, but, but I do think there’s, there is a you do come to a point where it’s like, how much is too much? When it comes to that kind of stuff,
Nestor Aparicio 12:34
baseball is going to have a computer doing balls and strikes, right? So that’s why, I
Luke Jones 12:39
mean, you’re going to have a challenge system. I mean, will it go full automation at some point? Probably
Nestor Aparicio 12:44
ball, yeah, and they’re gonna do all of that. They’re gonna have to well, but
Luke Jones 12:48
if they can, great. But until we’re at that point, you do get to a point where you say, Okay, we, we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good in the sense that, yeah, you can. You can review everything if you want, if you want to be there for five hours, millions and
Nestor Aparicio 13:05
billions of dollars of bets are going back assure and as we haven’t talked to NBA, we haven’t talked about hard, we’ll do all of that at an appropriate time. You’re a little later on, because I want to talk about the game and stay on the game right now. That’s its own rabbit hole. They were positive, right? Honest mistake. There are no honest mistakes with John arboll, you make $20 million a year. Man up. Dude, be a leader, so in every respect. PR, Rob Bob, not mob Yeah, yeah, sure. Luke is here. By the way, he’s Baltimore. Luke short week, Thursday night is Lamar coming back, like all those bigger questions that will be answered. I mean, the Orioles even have a manager through all this before. We have a world series champion, and we don’t know whether that’s going to be in America or Canada. For crying out loud, I would just say for the team, and I have Jason Cole coming on, by the way, dancing on the edge of chaos. 13.
Luke Jones 13:59
That was someone earlier this week, just in passing. They couldn’t remember it, but I said no, Jason cited that, you know, use that expression. I thought it was apropos at the time.
Nestor Aparicio 14:08
I was standing there in the gym when he did it, you know, dancing on the edge of chaos. John, you just fired your offensive coordinator. It’s Christmas week, you know. So look this. John’s been through all of this Ray Rice and CNN camped out on his doorstep and still lying, you know, at that point. So look the the injury thing, and playing Coy and that dumb, Midwestern How could I know I’m only in charge. It’s it’s this, something despicable, graceful, something less than graceful. But they’re two and five. Nothing to write home about, but the quarterback gets right. Minnesota over the hill, that tough jets team that we saw battle back, you know, look in any given. Week. We thought Miami sucked, until the game started on Sunday, right? And then they lay four Whoppers up in that shocking result, right? Then you got to go play them Thursday, that we’ll get to that. So week to week, we stink. We’re one in five. I don’t know. I mean that to me. They’ve always been a team with potential, which is why, when they lose to Kansas City, they lose to Detroit, you look up and say, well, they’re losing the other quality teams. And then they lose half the team for a couple of weeks. And you start to think, well, the season’s over. And now I look over the hill as I wrote in my dear John Harbaugh letter that I implore everyone to read, because it has to do with honesty. I’ll start singing a Billy Joel song, I swear to God, I will. But it also has to do with how good the team is and how good the players are, and how good the pedigree is, and how much money they’ve spent on all of this, and how bad they want it or don’t want it, and where Lamar is, and it’s just being out on Twitter and social media at a time when they’re one and five, and people are, you know that the nastiness toward me, on a personal level, is amazing, but what I see in racism, what I see in he ain’t really hurt, you know, like, I mean, it’s just, I had two knuckleheads come up to me at Costas last week and tell me, Justin Tucker, those girls shouldn’t have been in one of them massage parlors. And I’m like, Oh my God. And then I see who’s running the country. So I, you know, I go through all of this and damning John and praising the organization and being a Lamar sycophant, like through all of this, there’s still a really good football team. They win a lot of games around here, which is why I thought they were going to win, which is why I think they’re going to win four or five more in the next five or six weeks. And make it interesting, because I think what Sunday reiterates after bye week, after getting players back, after getting a guy that came off the boat from Southern California in a trade in the middle of the week, where he wasn’t expecting to get traded, and he comes in here and has to play, settling this down, and especially the offensive and defensive lines, to not just say, All right, we’re not good enough, but at least who, who is going to play, and do they know their alignment, assignment and technique? Because when you’re bringing second and third string guys in to play with Cooper rush, you want to play a different system. Linemen are already a mess. It just really looked disjointed, and they looked in over their heads against the Rams in Detroit and good teams that could overwhelm them. They’re not going to have that the next couple of weeks, and I still have a very much of the mindset that if I had $1 to wager on them. I would wager on them getting to 500 this year at some point, even though they were four games under. I’m I’m thinking they’re going to be seven and seven, and there’s nothing I saw on Sunday that doesn’t make me believe that if Lamar Jackson’s really coming back?
Luke Jones 18:00
Yeah, well, and, I mean, there’s no reason to think he’s not coming back at all, right? I mean, it’s just, it’s a matter of when, and people have already guessed wrong, that the head coach has already speculated incorrectly, right? And it’s not the first time that
Nestor Aparicio 18:15
makes the media speculating correctly, right? Sure. Back in shester tweets from three weeks ago and rapper or all of that, it was, he’ll be back after the buy. Because that’s what they told everybody, and that’s why you and I sort of coughed heavy last Monday when he didn’t walk
Luke Jones 18:31
out practicing. It raised the raised the alarm, right? I mean, sounded the alarm. But you know, to go back to something you just said, I mean, this next month is absolutely critical, and that’s not to say because of of what lies ahead. No, it’s exactly to say what lies ahead in the final month of this season, right? Everything you just said, I agree with, from the standpoint of, and we were saying this at the time when they were one in five, just like two and five. I mean, two and five in a VAC like, that’s a bad record, right? I mean, you look at it at face value, you say you’re two and five, you guys stink. But I think we all acknowledged injuries, some of the some of, clearly the personnel issues, you know, the specific injury to Matt a BK, and what that’s meant for their offense or for their defensive line, certainly when you’re missing your quarterback. But I think even the most pessimistic Ravens fan looked at one in five and said, from a true talent level standpoint, these guys are better than this. Now that doesn’t mean they’re five and one or six and Oh, true greatness, right? But the truth is, somewhere in the middle, were they overrated? At the beginning of the year. Was their roster overrated? Did they have flaws that that some of us, you know, myself included, overlooked a little bit too much. Sure, right?
Nestor Aparicio 19:49
I was always questioning their age. I always question,
Luke Jones 19:53
I mean, I don’t know
Nestor Aparicio 19:55
about in key positions with big salaries to say where. Would they be, let alone where they be if Lamar broke down, right?
Luke Jones 20:04
I think it’s tough to do that with injuries, though. I mean Ronnie Stanley, yes, but I mean Marlon Humphrey doesn’t have this extensive laundry list career worth of injuries in the way that we talked about Jimmy Smith for a decade, right? So, but, but I think you know, when you looked at the depth of the of the defensive line, and then you lose Matta BK on top of that, that was, that was a question mark, right? When you looked at edge rusher, certainly acknowledging van Noyes age, I’ll see that one. No question. Well, they didn’t envision themselves playing week eight without OA, either, well, but they traded him, right? Well, and because they said he was making too much money. And we needed a third. You know, they’ve said we needed a third safety, which, by the way, from the moment our Darius Washington got hurt a couple weeks after the draft, when we spent two weeks talking about, oh, they’re going to get back to these three safety looks defensively. I was talking about
Nestor Aparicio 20:58
them needing a number dude. They had no pass rush to begin with. And they gave the kid away, the only guy they had. He wasn’t doing much anyway, right? Really speaks to how they felt about it, sure. Oh, no,
Luke Jones 21:08
of course. I mean, if they loved adopt AOA, they wouldn’t have traded them. They would have been more likely to extend them than trading them. So, you know, we’re and we’re gonna see. I mean, the trade deadline is another element to this. You know, they’ve got a week roughly, as you and I are speaking in real time. So, but for me and you met, you’ve mentioned, you’ve cited, you know, feeling good about them being seven and seven, and I know you’re kind of just using that as a benchmark. I would challenge and say they need to be better than seven and seven going into the final three weeks of the season. And how do you do that? You’ve got to make your hay this next month, right? Miami, Thursday night at Minnesota the Vikings. I mean, who’s playing quarterback?
Nestor Aparicio 21:47
Say two is going to be the best quarterback they see for the next
Luke Jones 21:50
month. And that’s a low bar, because until, until this past week, he’s been awful of late. So but, but noted, but at Miami, at Minnesota, at Cleveland. Now you hear that that’s three straight road games. I don’t care who the opponent. Don’t care who the opponents are, that’s a challenge. There’s no question about that. And it’s Cleveland, an AFC North opponent, and the Ravens have lost a game, lost games of the browns in recent years, even when the Browns haven’t been good at times. So but you have those three games, and then you have the Jets, right? And then Thursday, Thanksgiving night, Cincinnati comes in. That’s when the schedule picks up in terms of division game, next
Nestor Aparicio 22:24
home game. We go back to back in four days home, Sunday, jets, home, Bengals, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving week. This scenario literally gone for a month. I mean, leaves will be off the trees when they get
Luke Jones 22:35
home, yeah. But, but if this is a team, if you’re looking at it in terms of wanting to be good in good position from a math standpoint, which we can’t ignore, one in five is one in five. No matter how great you look moving forward, you can’t escape one in five at the beginning of your schedule. The math is going to be working against them in that way, right? Even if this team looks like the 72 dolphins, the rest of the way, the best they can go is 12 and five, right? You can’t get any better than that so that. So with that in mind, you look at these next four games, at Miami, at Minnesota, at Cleveland home against the Jets, if this team is meant to approach what we thought it was going to be, and if this team is going to be that kind of a legit contender at some point later in the season. They’ve got to make their hay here over the next month, because if you drop a game or two over this stretch, then you start to look at that final four or five week stretch and say, Man, we’ve got to run the table here, right? If, what little wiggle room they have, if I’m talking about this, I want to have that at the very end of the season. So in order to have that, man, you’ve got to get on a roll here. I mean, if you can win these next four and look, everyone
Nestor Aparicio 23:51
on the road, are they good enough to do that? Yeah, but I should be enough to do with their backup court.
Luke Jones 23:57
That’s, well, of course, right? I mean, I’m, I’m projecting out that Lamar is not going to be out another month, which, you know, until we see him, like, Look, I’m
Nestor Aparicio 24:05
not gonna be a favorite in all three games on the road. But that’s my point. Lamar, right?
Luke Jones 24:08
Sure. They should be. Oh yeah, no question. I mean, they were a favorite against the bears still on Sunday, barely, but they still were. It speaks to what Vegas thought about the bears and what they still think the Ravens can be, right, especially if you get number eight
Nestor Aparicio 24:22
back. Yeah, I’m not getting anybody to get on parlay bets, but if you were to parlay that, they could win all three in a row. I wonder how much money you can win. I just got to be favored in all the games anyway.
Luke Jones 24:32
I just think, if you’re trying to project this out again, we’ve
Nestor Aparicio 24:35
talked to make money betting on the Ravens right now, like literally even on the road, because we’re kind of expecting them to be five and five, right? I mean, if you’re talking about right now, I mean,
Luke Jones 24:46
if they’re not, then I don’t like their chances to do this, right, you know, in terms of winning the division or making the playoffs, right? I mean, and look, we’ll get into it. I mean, I saw Pittsburgh in the second. Half, just like everyone else, Sunday night, they were awful. I mean, they looked absolutely awful in that second half. Their defense stinks. Like we’re talking about the Ravens defensive issues. And yeah, the Ravens still have defensive issues, but that Pittsburgh defense has been pretty lousy.
Nestor Aparicio 25:13
Now crazy, like, like the Steelers counting on 41 year old Aaron Rodgers, who hasn’t been there problem the Bengals calling Flacco to save their ass, and he puts 37 Up, and it’s not enough,
Luke Jones 25:24
and they give up that many to the Jets, right? I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. The AFC North’s not a good division right now. So that’s where you look at this and just say, look, that doesn’t mean you sit here and say the ravens are totally fine. No, this is not what I’m saying. I’m laying out the path as as I did a month ago, when they were one in three, right, that nine and eight can win the division. I mean, I don’t know for sure if nine and eight can, but I feel very, very, very confident that 10 and seven will win the division, whether it’s the ravens, whether it’s the Steelers, or whether it’s the Bengals finding some semblance of a defense, and Joe Flacco holding down the fort, maybe Joe burrow walks out of the tunnels, Dude, what the what was that? I mean, it’s what was that. I will also say,
Nestor Aparicio 26:09
on the cusp of 500 people are buying Flacco jerseys. He’s throwing the ball all over the place. I mean, Geez,
Luke Jones 26:18
it’s what Joe it’s honestly what, what Joe burrow probably says privately, like you see what’s around you see what’s around myself, Jamar Chase and T Higgins, not a whole not a whole lot other things that you feel great about. So point is, it’s still very much open. And for anyone listening, look, if you’re John Harbaugh, if you’re Lamar Jackson, returning Snoop Huntley, until Lamar is back, anyone on that roster? It’s all about Miami, right? You have to, you have to be really good about being deliberate and compartmentalizing and not looking ahead like I can look ahead as much as I want. I’m not playing, right? I mean, it’s my job to kind of look out Monday morning becomes Thursday. Little question like this. It’s a challenge, and that’s why, no matter, I mean, especially now with the dolphins doing what they did Sunday, which was one of the biggest, I mean, the Jets, I think doing what they did was the biggest shock of the weekend, especially on the heels of their owner dressing down Justin fields publicly and all of that. I mean, that was the most shocking result to me, but the Falcons, and I get it, pennix didn’t play, but like Miami to do what they did. I mean, I thought, I thought was more likely McDaniel was gonna be fired at this point in time and again, it’s one game, just like it was one game for the Ravens. But hopefully, if, I think, if you’re John Harbaugh, you like that that happened. Because even if Lamar runs out there and is playing this week, you certainly don’t want to be looking past the dolphins, right? You don’t want to be in that position. And hey, four years ago, they went down to Miami against a bad dolphins team, and they got
Nestor Aparicio 27:58
worked well, Lamar is always worked up for this one. This is the, this is the only chance he gets to play at home, for his future franchise,
Luke Jones 28:07
for his future I’ll leave that part alone. You can own that part.
Nestor Aparicio 28:11
File, that file that, and I wouldn’t doubt it seventh team or whatever. So yeah, never know. I mean, Aaron Rodgers is on his third team, so yeah. I mean, went to Tampa, and want to say they let you know, come on, man.
Luke Jones 28:26
Well, I hear you, but I think for you know, if it’s a 36 year old Lamar Jackson, Sure,
Nestor Aparicio 28:32
okay. But the point is, with a $74 million cap number, might be playing for the saints next year for all I know, right?
Luke Jones 28:38
Well, if that’s the case, then to me, then the ravens are starting over at the top, you know, a front office coaching everything, but Well, He
Nestor Aparicio 28:46
better get his ass back on the field Thursday night. That’s all I’m saying. We better. Lamar started better. Start being Lamar. They’re two and five. I mean, that just goes without saying. I haven’t put any pressure on him in a month, dude. But he also
Luke Jones 28:59
he needs to be healthy. He needs to be healthy, right? I mean, you also don’t want him playing until he’s, you know, I
Nestor Aparicio 29:05
tell you, what, if Tyler Huntley would have run around out there against Detroit, and, you know, LA and whatever I, I don’t know, I Cooper rush, Lamar
Luke Jones 29:15
was out there for Detroit. Yeah, Houston is the one you met.
Nestor Aparicio 29:19
Yeah, by the way, those uniforms, I know we’re not doing fashion right now. Lose those the Texans. That’s awful.
Luke Jones 29:27
Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, I don’t think Tyler Huntley was beating the Texans because the Ravens were just so across the board, horrendous in that game. I do think it would have been interesting to see if Tyler Huntley started against the Rams, given how the Rams played, which, that was a choppy effort from them. Offensively, they didn’t get out of bed the first hour. Yeah, yeah. So that, you know, I mean, that game was three, three at halftime, if you remember. So, I mean, look in a 30,000 look 30,000 foot perspective, if you’re missing. Your franchise quarterback for three games in most instances, and if you’re playing good teams, which the Ravens certainly did, especially in those first two games. But you know, I mean the bears four and two, you know, four and three. Still, I’m guessing. I’m gonna guess and predict one and two most of the time, right? I mean, two out of three, yeah. I mean, but, but that’s why Sunday was so important, and that’s why Tyler Huntley deserves his flowers for how he played on Sunday. I mean, he played very clean. I thought the Todd monkens game plan, regardless of the red zone and settling for field goals, I think they had a good game plan to not put Huntley in too many obvious stand in the pocket situations where he’s holding the ball, and he’s
Nestor Aparicio 30:42
got to take care of the ball. That’s always the issue with his he has to take care of hands, yeah. I mean, and the ball
Luke Jones 30:47
has to come out, right? He’s very five seconds, clearly, right? So, I mean, he played, he played clean football. And I think it’s interesting. I can recall asking John Harbaugh back in late August, when Cleveland had cut Huntley, and he arrived and he was back on the practice squad. And I asked him, How much do you like because, remember, they had Devin Leary, who they had drafted in the sixth round last year, didn’t develop. I mean, you saw nothing from him these last two summers, and they just parted ways with them. But I asked John Harbaugh at the time about Tyler Huntley. How much do you like having a practice squad quarterback who has some experience starting games, and he started a playoff game regardless of how it went at the end. And I remember har ball distinctly saying that they thought that Huntley had made some improvement, you know, had that had some starts in Miami last year, and thought that he had shown some growth now at the time, would have been a, would it have been nice at that point in time to maybe go with him rather than Cooper rush? Well, you guaranteed Cooper rush $4 million right? I mean, at some point in time, every team whiffs on free agent contracts, and that was a bad signing. Obviously, it was a, it was a weird fit all along,
Nestor Aparicio 31:56
but yeah, I just wonder that process and, and this is one of those things for all of the years that I wrote books about the team, and I was allowed in the building and welcome to something other than not state enemy or a jerk or less than a human, or breathe different air, all those things that I felt over the course of time, they would be honest about that and say, You know, we felt like we could structure the offense differently with Cooper, that we’d have some other weapons because of the receivers we have, because of the offensive line. We felt like he had more versatility to play more pro set normal offense. Yeah, if Cooper rush were a part of this,
Luke Jones 32:36
and their offensive line doesn’t allow them to do that right now. I mean, it might. It really might be that. And let me be clear,
Nestor Aparicio 32:41
because the think tank isn’t that just Eric liked them, or monkey liked them, or someone liked him. T mark, somebody said, like, let’s go in and look at film on him. Yeah. And they all get together, and somebody signs off on it, other than just Eric saying, Here’s your quarterback, like they don’t run like that. Now, I know, I you know, I think of them as incredibly dysfunctional, because I think asashi Brown, who I might be having lunch with this week, and Chad steel, I feel like they’re very dysfunctional. And we’re going to do a whole segment on how dysfunctional they were in regard to betting lines and moving the line five points, and doing stuff that would get the FBI eyes over the weekend, and then shrugging their shoulders, because John’s just a dumb Midwestern boy. How can I know anything about that? I’m just a head coach, so we can go through all of those machinations, but I see them on a personnel level that the Cooper rush thing is not done in a vacuum without the owner, without I think they’re all, they all sort of, it’s an important little piece that you know that Steve bashati doesn’t walk in and say, you signed who for what? Now explain this to me, because that’s who bashati is. I mean, Basti can be quickly, and you know, now why we sign him? What are we doing here? John, you know, I could hear in his voice, like, what Eric, what were you thinking? What were we thinking? What were we thinking here? What are we thinking here? And when it happened, we were like, it’s a little out of character, a little different. And then, you know, they had to stew on it and play a couple of games. To your point, with him. Now it’s obvious how much better this was than that was, and there should be some questioning about that, like, what was the process that went into that?
Luke Jones 34:31
Yeah, and, and it really could be, could have been as simple as one, they saw that he had a winning record against for the Cowboys in place of Dak Prescott. And two, they thought their offensive line was going to play much better than it’s playing. I mean, if
Nestor Aparicio 34:45
they have a running back into Eric Henry that they could play that style if they needed to. But again, that goes back tight ends. They got a they got a full back, they could, they could endure that, or absorb that, to use billix word, they could absorb that for a couple weeks, and then when it came to roost, it was. Isn’t that,
Luke Jones 35:00
right? Yeah, but, but it just came back to, I mean, their offensive line, as you saw, Snoop Huntley, had success throwing the ball. See how quickly it was coming out. They had to play, they played quick game. They did a lot of stuff where he was not in traditional, true pass set type ways, right? I mean, and it worked out well if Snoop has to drop back and throw 40 times in a conventional way, because, right, right? And it’s not going to go well for Lamar because of the state of this past, past protection. So, you know, I think it worked well. I’d like to see some of those elements carry over when Lamar comes back, because I think that will help him in terms of time, you know, and holding up against, uh, you know, more formidable pass rushes. So we’ll see. It was a step, couple steps in the right direction. It was good to see it was one game. We all get that. But hey, two and five feels like a path with the schedule. They have one in six. I don’t care how easy that schedule was. That felt so dark, that would have been so deflating that whenever Lamar was coming back, it was going to feel too little too late. So an absolute must win, and they got the job done. And kudos to them for that. Still
Nestor Aparicio 36:11
dancing on the edge of chaos at two and five, they will play in Miami on Thursday night. Luke will be out in a short week. We have a new manager for the Orioles. We’re in the middle of the World Series. Terps are playing Indiana this weekend. All sorts of things happening around here. We’re going to be doing the Maryland crab cake tour, Morning Edition. We’re going to be at State Fair in Catonsville. Life is great in the 21228, I’ll be getting shrimp and grits or the chicken and and waffles. We’ll be giving out the Raven scratch offs. They’re luckier this week, because we’re winning right now. And if there’s any breaking news in regard to Lamar, you’ll get that first on the wnst tech service that is all brought to you by coal, roofing and Gordian energy. Big, short week around here, some compression of some things, and we’re going to be out on the internet. I had Brian frosh on we had a great crab cake tour stop last week. Next week, we’re at Coco’s on Wednesday, and then on Friday, after Halloween, we’re going to be over pizza. John’s having some pizza and some cheesesteaks and probably some proper crinkle cut french fries and gravy, because that’s the way I like to do it. I am Nestor. We are WNS, the AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. More football ahead in a short week. Condensed version, we’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
