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Luke Jones and Nestor welcome Chuck Pagano back to the Baltimore Ravens and talk defense and Ronnie Stanley

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Baltimore Positive
Luke Jones and Nestor welcome Chuck Pagano back to the Baltimore Ravens and talk defense and Ronnie Stanley
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It’s quite personal for Nestor Aparicio and his wife, Jennifer, who made Chuck Pagano their first phone call for advice when she was diagnosed with leukemia in 2014. Luke Jones and Nestor welcome the un-retired defensive coaching wizard Pagano back to the Baltimore Ravens and talk defense, secondary and the upcoming Ronnie Stanley free agency decision.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the Baltimore Ravens’ coaching changes, highlighting the return of Chuck Pagano as senior secondary coach and the departure of Chris Hewitt. They reflect on the team’s defensive struggles, particularly in pass defense and at safety, and the impact of coaching changes. The conversation also touches on the potential departure of Ronnie Stanley, the team’s left tackle, and the challenges of maintaining a competitive roster with high-profile players like Lamar Jackson and Marlon Humphrey. They emphasize the importance of experienced coaches like Pagano in shaping the defense and the strategic decisions ahead for the Ravens.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Chuck Pagano, Ravens defense, Ronnie Stanley, coaching staff, Todd Monken, pass defense, secondary issues, Marcus Williams, Kyle Hamilton, roquan Smith, offensive line, free agency, Hall of Fame, Marshall Yanda, salary cap

SPEAKERS

Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 towns of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and we’re positive to get back out on the trail next week, we’re doing a cup of soup or bowl, and it is on like Donkey Kong. I mean, I’m getting emails in boxes if you are a member of the community with a charity and organization you’ve always wanted to come on and be on the show. I will not accept political debates, but I will accept community and charity stories and tales. Feel free to reach to meet Nestor Baltimore, positive all. They’re brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. They’ve given me the whole monopoly series. These are the fake tickets. They’re not the real ones. We’re going to have magic eight ball tickets. They’re kind of cool because they’re purple. We’ll be giving those away, Monday at Costas, Tuesday at fadelies, Wednesday at Cocos, Thursday at State Fair and Friday at Coopers north. And a whole litany of cool people stopping by. Luke Johnson stopping by right now, he’s cool, not as cool as some of our other guests, because you’re not a Super Bowl MVP like Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco. You’re not hosting the Verizon Fan Fest like Jamal Lewis. Next week, I’ve had Mike Nolan on this weekend. Coaches have had nine Hall of Fame voters. Luca, dare I say I’m learning stuff that I can bring to this conversation. There

Luke Jones  01:16

you go. I look forward to hearing your insight based off of that. And yes, those individuals are cooler and can bring a little bit more to the table than me, but I love you. Come on, everyone knows, but you mentioned coaches, and when your season comes to an end, one of the very first things you talk about is what’s your coaching staff going to look like in the following season, and who’s staying, who’s going? Who are you pondering who might get poached? You know, and we learned earlier this week that Todd monkin Very likely, barring something very strange here, with the coaching hiring cycle coming to an end, winding down, and the

Nestor Aparicio  01:55

Jacksonville thing was strange. It

Luke Jones  01:58

definitely was

Nestor Aparicio  02:00

on this week to plug that Sam is from Woodlawn, a Baltimore guy, but he’s 40 years he’s the Vince Bagley of Jacksonville television, and he’s their hall of fame voter. He’s the only Hall of Fame voter ever in Jacksonville. And, you know, he’s like, you know, we don’t know what’s going on. I mean, you talk about the difference between our circus and the other circuses, like, get around the league. You know our circuses, hey, we’re going to keep our offensive coordinator because there’s a mess in other places. And Todd monk wanted to sign up for that. He would love to be the Jaguars coach, right? Sure,

Luke Jones  02:30

sure. And the Jaguars were going to keep their general manager until, well, they decided that was a hindrance to them hiring a head coach. And obviously the he goes out the door and and Cohen winds up there, but it’s a this is a very crazy time for coaches. So, I mean, obviously we talk about the the hiring cycle and head coaches, but there’s so much more that goes into it. I mean, every head coach, there are at least a dozen individuals, if not 20 plus, you know, depending on the volume of your staff that you know, individuals and their families attach to these hirings. So as it pertains to the ravens, obviously, the headliner this week has been not just Todd, Todd monkin staying and reportedly nearing a contract extension, but Chuck Pagano, old friend back in Baltimore, and senior secondary coach. That also coincides with some of the news that we saw on Wednesday with Chris Hewitt their long time. He’s not technically their secondary coach, you know, he’s had different, you know, past coordinator, past defense, defensive backs, different titles over the years, but has been a mainstay in coaching their secondary. He parting ways with the Ravens. So look, we talked about this over the course of the 2024 season. If there were glaring problems with this football team on either side of the ball, it was a pass defense, and more specifically, some of the play at safety and some of the play at inside linebacker. Well, fast forward a couple months. Mark De Leon, they’re inside linebackers coach, not going to be back. And Chris Hewitt, who has been on the staff for a long time, going all the way back to, you know, he cut his teeth on, you know, kind of the first Super Bowl team, you know. Or John Harbaugh, first Super Bowl team. And moving on there. Not shocked by that, especially when you see pagano coming in. That’s a pretty high profile hire. Usually, there’s another shoe that’s going to drop when you have a higher like that, and it is Chris Hewitt moving on. So it’s a reaction to what happened during the course of the season. It’s a credit to John Harbaugh and his staff and Dean peas coming in and Zach or making the adjustments they needed to make in season. But when it’s all said and done, you still have to assess. You still have to look at look at it, and say, what happened? Why did this go so awry? Why did someone like Marcus Williams, who was one of the highest paid players on our team, suddenly couldn’t play anymore, and obviously he’s part of that. Yeah, but you have to look at the coaching as well, and that’s why we’re seeing these changes that we are so we’ve talked about it last off season, the amount of brain drain that they had, specifically with their defensive coaching staff. When you’re talking about Mike McDonald out the door, Anthony Weaver, going to Miami, Zach Gore, moving from coaching the linebackers to being the defensive coordinator, and Dennard Wilson, who was very highly regarded on that 23 staff in terms of what he did with the secondary. And again, it kind of speaks to Chris Hewitt, over the years that secondary performed at its best with him and another high profile coach, working in concert in some way, usually when it was just kind of him and someone that was, I want to say, lesser, but someone that wasn’t as high profile, that’s when they tend then they had some, some times where they’ve run into trouble over the last 10 years. So, you know, you look at that play out two or three or four different times over a decade, and you know, maybe that’s where the both sides are. You know, they say mutually parting ways. We know that that’s generally a euphemism for someone being fired or someone being asked not to return. But I think it had kind of run its course in that way. And I think because John Harbaugh and I had asked him about Dean Pease last week, said that Dean Pease, who’s think 75 years old at this point. I mean, he’s not someone who was interested in returning full time for another season. I think Chuck pagano kind of fills some of that experience void as well, which will help Zach Gore as he enters year two as defensive coordinator here in Baltimore.

Nestor Aparicio  06:38

He is Lou Jones. You remind me of a great Charlie Ekman story. When Ekman was coaching the they were called the Zollner pistons, before they were the Fort Wayne Pistons and then the Detroit Pistons and the bad boys. By the way, there’s a plug there, because I had the Detroit Lions writer Dave Burkett on this week as well. He’s also a Hall of Fame voter. So we were talking about all sorts of things, but Ekman said that Mr. Zollner came in and said, Charlie, I’m going to make a change in your department. And Charlie said, I looked around realized I’m the only one in my department. So Luke Jones is here. I’m working on some comedy here because I got some bad news in the morning. We have just a crazy amount of great guests on this week. I mean, Mike Nolan talking defense and all of that. Jamal Lewis, you talk about great defensive coaches, Jamal Lewis did the show this week, and they’re having this big Verizon thing down at the it’s free. If you’re a Verizon customer, just go look it up. It’s Verizon Fan Fest. It’s game day. My wife and I are going to get out for a while. My wife’s a long time horizon point. Jamal’s coaching football in suburban Atlanta, and his kid plays with a former teammate who happens to be a Hall of Famer who’s coaching their secondary. It’s Ed Reed. So Ed Reed’s coaching ball with Jamal Lewis. So Dion’s coaching and I had Mike Flynn on. He’s everybody’s coaching ball. You know, all these guys, um, and coaches can’t quit. I mean, I’ve been texting with Marvin all week, obviously. I mean, he and I are close still to this day. And I ask him, What are you doing with the Raiders? You know, Phil savage just got fired again from the Jets last week, just as an example, right? Like Joe Douglas is looking for all these people I know in football are out on the street and various levels of Mike Smith on a hill somewhere. No interest, no cares. Billick golfing somewhere in Minnesota, although I think that’s impossible. This week, he’s probably skiing in Park City with his grandkids. But these guys can’t quit this dude. And here’s Pagano and peas. And I don’t know. I mean, even Adam Jones, who’s got $100 million and needs, feels the need to be on Jerry Coleman show, and has to be involved in baseball and like and then there’s Mike Messina that just runs off to the hills and coaches kids and his kids, and nobody’s ever heard from him again. You know, like, everybody is a different thing. But if football’s different, I mean all of these Anthony Mitchell has a kid in the league and coaching, and it just goes down the line, and once it’s in their blood. I had Flacco on this week, and the first thing I you’ll love this, because it’s been 40 minutes. He talked about Mark Andrews. I haven’t talked to you about this hat. We haven’t talked about this even off the air, right? No, no. Oh no, dude, Flacco was but, I mean, somebody said to me the other day, oh, you had Fletcher on the show. Where do you say, yeah, no, you They said he was on Eli and Peyton and didn’t say anything. And I’m like, probably couldn’t get a word in Edge wise, and the game was going on. He’s probably watching the game with him. You know, when he’s on with me, he’s like, a different cat man, like, I mean, he just is. And the first thing I said is, all right, you’re gonna retire, right? It’s the first, you know, this is gonna make the big announcement. He’s like, Oh no, no. I said, Why don’t you retire? He’s like, I’m not really good at anything else. And you know what I mean, and when it comes to chuck Pagano and everything, I really want to golf, I don’t really want to fish, I don’t really just want to be a grandparent at home or whatever I am. And Chuck’s almost died leukemia. And you know, you. Chuck’s one of the most special humans in my world. I mean, like of all of the people you reach to when things are bad and times are dark and your wife’s gonna die, you reach the chuck Pagano. He pulls over the side of the road and calls you. You don’t forget that. So Chuck pagan is, like, a really special dude for me, I can go on and on and on. Some point, I might write him a letter. He’ll probably never speak to me again because he works for them, and they’re not allowed to, and that’s just a fact. So I don’t know, but I love Chuck, and I’d love to talk to Chuck, because it’d be like hell. Are you doing here? But you’ll get that opportunity because you’re real media guy, and I’m not. So there’ll be an opportunity for you to ask those questions about. I’m sure you’ll be on the lounge this week with his co workers. But I’m fascinated by how guys can’t quit it, whether their name’s Ed Reed and they got a billion dollars and they can go make commercials they want to be on a ball field with their kid, if their kid plays until they can’t anymore, those four years of their life. I mean, Jamal made this years of my life, my life, my kids playing ball like I’m just that’s what I’m going to do. You know what I mean, like, and football’s like that. And the pagano thing coming back, he has nothing to prove, no money to make, no hills to climb, none of that. And this is what he wants to do. And that speed that same thing with Marvin in going to Vegas and working with his buddy there for five minutes until it didn’t go so well, because they’d have because they’d have a quarterback. But I’m sure pagano sees this as comfortable. John, she real chance to win, right? You know, like, you know, there’s all of that you don’t necessarily want to go to the Cleveland Browns right now. No offense, Jimmy, but, but, but you want to be a place you can win at this point. And for Chuck, there’ll be a time, and he won’t sit with me because he’s employed by them and whatever. So you don’t expect him here. I don’t expect him here. I know better, but I love Chuck, and I don’t know what he’s doing. If I ran, if I run into somewhere else, what the hell are you doing, dude? What are you doing here? But I sort of know, because I talk to these guys and I live it and I breathe it, and it’s honest to God, if you came to me today, I took my radio show away, I’d probably be okay for a while, but at some point I might want it back Well,

Luke Jones  12:08

and that’s I mean when we’re not just talking about football here, but it can be lots of walks of life. It becomes your identity. And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t have other enriching elements to your life, and certainly as someone, a man of faith and someone who loves his family and likes spending time with his family. I mean, there are always those, those elements, but what you do for a living, right, is such a big part of your life. Because, you know, maybe not, football players and coaches have been doing it a long time who are in a different tax bracket, but you know, it’s what you do, because you need to have a house, you need to have things, you need to eat, right? I mean, so there’s that element. But when you think about these individuals, whether we’re talking about coaches who are in their 60s and 70s, or talking about former players, they all started out in the game, probably at a pretty young age, right? Maybe as young as eight or nine years old, certainly not much later than high school, right? I mean, you’re not, you’re not going to have too many individuals who didn’t play ball growing up, didn’t play ball in high school, and then suddenly they get to be age 25 and they said, Oh, I’ll go into football. Maybe I’ll coach in the NFL. You don’t have that, right? Coaches start out as players. College players started were high school players, they were Junior High players, and they were, many of them, Pee Wee football players. Not all, but most follow that timeline. So when you you get to someone who’s in their 60s, like a John Harbaugh, or like a chuck pagano or Dean Pease, who’s in his mid 70s, at this point, is retired four different Bella checked, you know, like, just stop, you know, Pete Carroll, I mean, oh, right, thank you. Thank you. Going back to a team that, unlike pagano coming to the ravens, where you say, Hey, this is you can maybe get another Super Bowl ring as an assistant coach, Pete Carroll’s not winning a ring in Vegas. I mean, the ravens are

Nestor Aparicio  13:58

so hard out of it, like, even with Flacco being the old, 40 year old quarterback, I’m still good at it. You know what? I mean, I could still do it. And I looked at Flacco how much money he’s made, and, you know, literally, I looked that up an hour ago, just to look at and say he’s made about $15 million since he got he’s made $180 million and 150 of it kind of came at once, right? But like, the last 767, years, he’s averaged two and a half million dollars a year. And some of the years hasn’t even had a job. Come Cleveland, he didn’t work at all till the end, right? But it the Eagles even paid him 3 million bucks at one point. Like, you know what I mean, like, just a lot of money and doing that. And I don’t think it’s money with Pagano and these guys like this. I do think there’s a certainly with Pete Carroll, and I look at Bill Belichick, Pete, maybe more, because Pete always, everybody enjoyed him. He had a different countenance about him. And I, I know Pete a little bit, and had him on my show for a million years ago, and all that. He was part of my sporting news, everything, every week when he was before he went to USC. And we left the jets, and he was a beaten jets patriots. He was done right. And now look all he’s Jamie Moyer dude, you know I mean, but when I see him, I see a guy that had such joy in doing it, you know what? I mean, like just in the general energy of ever even seen with Marshawn Lynch after the press conference the other day. But I see him as a guy that says I do this better than anybody. It’s the place I should be, because I’m really good at it, and therefore I want to employ I think that about my radio skills. When I hear other people, I think I’m really good at this. I’m better at this than I think I am, and I’m better at this than anybody else is, and I’m always working to be better at other things. But I feel like from a professional standpoint, and I speak as a 33 year guy doing this, that if I’ve been doing football 50 years, like Pete Carroll, there’s a point where, like, like Joe Flacco, I’m not good at anything else. I haven’t tried anything else, and I’m one of the best in the world at this. And behind all of this, you and me competing for ratings, and I don’t want people to listen to Ed Norris or 98 right? Whatever that thing is, there’s a football thing about you only get that there. There’s nowhere else they get that juice to go and compete. I mean, I had Mike Nolan on this week. Hey, Coach, Coach. 36 years in National Football League. Mike Nolan, father was a coach, right? Like all of that. He’s bragging about coaching to Michigan Panthers in the USFL. He’s like, Oh, it’s great gig, man. It’s just like, 1012, weeks a year. We come in work with young guys. They all want to play. They all love foot. Like, I’m like, What are you doing, Mike? You get on a plane from Denver, go to I love ball, so I didn’t bring him up. And he’s doing it for, like, not at the NFL level. He kind of likes it at the doesn’t matter if we win or lose. I’m just trying to make young men better. I’m just a teacher, like, that’s where Mike is on it. But I guess Chuck didn’t want to coach high school kids, or do Chuck wants to win a Super Bowl again and wants to walk into that building full with the best quarterback on Earth, a coach that’s done it before, a kicker that’s the goat, you know, like and Marlon Humphrey and like that. You can only get that there. You can’t get that, you know, playing golf, you can’t get that fish in, although you can catch a big fish. But these guys that are competitive, dude, I they it’s a different kind of competitive than even me, and I’m pretty competitive, as you know, you know, but like, there’s a different level of competitiveness that exists with these humans that we measure and we admire. And it’s, I think it’s why we watch the games all of them, yeah, yeah.

Luke Jones  17:29

I think it’s an identity. Going back to what I said a few minutes ago, where it started at a very young age. You know, even if John Harbaugh, at age 15, wasn’t thinking he was going to be a coach. He was thinking football, right? I mean, he grew up in it, right? I mean, all these guys did, to some degree or another, so there’s that, and you just said it. I mean, call it ego, if you want or not. It’s just a competitive drive that is really, I want to say, unmatched, because there are other walks of life that have to be that competitive, but there aren’t many. You know, it’s a short list. It is a different breed. I still and I told this story last year when Zach or was hired. I can recall running into Zagora at the Ravens Facility A few months after his retirement. Right? It was within that calendar year, he had to announce his retirement in what January or February, and then he was coaching for the ravens and starting to cut his teeth and transition in his life, going from player to coach slash Scout that fall. So it was probably during training camp, maybe early September, something like that bumped him into him in the hallway, and he was on his way to a meeting, so I talked to him for 30 seconds, and I said, What stands out so far? And you know, it wasn’t. It was just small talk. Wasn’t like me trying to get a scoop or anything. He was just like Luke. I had no idea just how hard the coaches actually worked while I was a player. And so I just think it’s such a fascinating transition for anyone you know. But when you get to be a coach, when you do what someone like Chuck pagano has done, like much like John Harbaugh, coached in college for a long time and ends up in the NFL, work your way up as an assistant position coach, and then suddenly you get a shot to run your own team, I think the ego, the competitive drive element to that is such that even when you retire, there’s still a sense of wanting to prove yourself. And to your point, you know, whether you think you’re the best, or whether you think you’re, you know, top five, or whether, whether it’s just a case of, I could still do this, you know. And you mentioned Mike Nolan as an example. He’s not coaching in the NFL, but he’s still answering the belt for himself to say, I can still do this, and I still enjoy this, and I’m still good at this. You know, in the case of Pagano, he had retired a few years ago, but was still around it, was still doing plenty of media, still very much plugged into the game, and he gets an opportunity to come somewhere. There. It’s a coach that he worked with. Keep in mind, he was on John Harbaugh’s initial staff. Coach the secondary at the time was coming into a, you know, joining a Ravens team that had Ed Reed, who he had coached at the University of Miami years and years earlier. And, you know, even though it wasn’t there for long, Chris McAllister, Samari roll, like you think about that group of players that he had to work with in that secondary and now, as he comes back all these years later, you mentioned Marlon Humphrey, but Kyle Hamilton. You know how I feel about Kyle Hamilton, how I’ve said, I think just from a pure talent and makeup standpoint, understanding he’s three years in and has to do it for a really, really long time for this to come to fruition. I think he’s got a chance to be maybe the third best defensive player in the history of the franchise. I think he has that kind of talent. And I don’t say that to take anything away from Suggs or nada or Peter bowler or anyone like that. But the point is, if you’re Chuck Pagano and you still have a vibrancy to want to do this, and you’ve been away from it for a few years, and you’ve stayed plugged in. And you know, he’s done interviews even over the last couple months, where he talked in very specific terms about the Ravens defense, where you can come in, work with someone that you have a level of familiarity with, and John Harbaugh, albeit a long time ago, and come in and not be the head coach to the point where you’re taking on all the stress that comes with that, as he’s very familiar with having done it in Indianapolis, but come in and be in a little more of a mentor role for someone like Zach or and coach ball and be around it. And to your point, have a really good chance to win and have a chance to maybe get a Super Bowl ring that remember, he had just left Baltimore before the Ravens won in 2012 so, you know, I think it’s, you know, it makes all the sense in the world. They are a different breed coaches at any level. You know, you’ll hear, you’ll hear people talk even about like high school coaches. You know, who coach at one school for 30 years, right? And you hear their family talk. I mean, it really is a way of life. It’s a way of life for the coach and their family, and it’s a very difficult life too. So

Nestor Aparicio  22:12

Well, that’s the thing I always saw from the very beginning, that if Zach Gord didn’t recognize it, I certainly did as a young man, when I sat out there with Marvin Lewis and Jim Schwartz, and when Mike Patton and Rex Ryan invited my whole staff out at eight o’clock at night, it was clear that they’re there every night, at eight o’clock at night. And not just clear, because they talk about it or whatever, it’s just Joe Gibbs slept on the cot Right. Like famously and other coaches have said, if you’re sleeping on the cot, you’re probably doing it wrong at some point. But I’ve known all of these men all my life. I you know, there’s no secret. One of the reasons I have such admiration for the coaches is having spent so much time around them. And the the the respect that you can only have when you’ve been in there in that classroom setting, as you have been in the building, I think it’s one thing to visit it, or even see it on Hard Knocks or something like that, but understanding the grind of the film, that it sort of never ends in the season. And you feel it with the players, but you don’t see it with the coaches, unless you’re out there watching them walk off the field before and after practice to see that the players are going to go in, get a shower, get a meal and go home. The coaches are just going to get started to work. I mean, that that really is how it works.

Luke Jones  23:24

Yeah. I mean, it is a very difficult profession, and look there, when you’re talking about the best ones, they’re handsomely compensated. No one’s suggesting otherwise, but there are others who do it for a really long time and maybe eventually get to that stage, talking about the NFL, talking about high profile college football, even talking about the UFL, right? Uh, arena football, but, but there is a lot for many of those individuals, there’s a long path where they’re working that hard and they’re also not making that much money, even, I mean, it really is a labor of love for a really long time for most coaches, and obviously there’s some exceptions. And you know, you can talk about former players or the son of a coach. You know different individual. And you know, nepotism creeps in there. You know more than more than it should probably. But you know that’s also, unfortunately, the way of the world in many ways. But at the same time, there are so many individuals who work hard, and even if you get your foot in the door somewhere, even if we’re talking about a former player who gets an opportunity because they’re a former player, because they know the right person, because there happens to be good timing, guess what? If they don’t work really hard, and if they don’t have a high aptitude for doing it, and if they don’t grind and do what’s necessary. They’re not in it very long. And you can think of plenty of players who

Nestor Aparicio  24:46

coach wanted to do, and there’s a lot of guys that thought they wanted to realize

Luke Jones  24:51

then that it’s, oh my gosh, this is way more involved than I thought it was. And, you know, and look, that’s perfectly fine, too. I mean, to. Your point for all these individuals that are lifers, you’ll also find some that say, Hey, that was enough. I mean, Brian Billick was a great example that we talked about for a decade, about Brian billick’s next job, right? It never came. Now, Arizona State and some some smaller gigs here and there, but it never came Bill cower. We talked about him his next head coaching gig for 15 years. It never came. Dick Vermeil got two gigs. Yeah, right. And you have individuals who retire and come back, retire and come back, retire and come

Nestor Aparicio  25:34

back. Honestly, a guy left the game for 25 years and felt like I have to come back, and not just that. I have to come back. I’m going to come back, go to come back, go to the Hall of Fame, because we’re going to win champion, you know, like, with backup quarterbacks. I mean, like, look the Pete Carroll thing and the Bill Belichick thing, they’ll write their own thing. But for me, when the paganos and these guys that made a lot of money in the modern era, when they come back, you just know, that’s what they do. And John Harbaugh would have said that, I mean, and that’s the thing about even bringing it full circle this week to talk about Andy Reid and the Philadelphia thing, and Steve spagnolo and Dave tob is another guy with him that easily could have been a head coach several times. I mean, had John, John Harbaugh and Dave tobe were the same guy in 2008 Dave tob never got that opportunity. But all those guys are lifers in it together. Spagnolo may never get another chance. He’s not even mentioned like that, in the same way that Jim Schwartz and a couple other guys that won rings as defensive coordinators. They’re not getting that opportunity, not getting that phone call right now, that Todd Monken is getting. But there, there is definitely a point for me with the spagnolos and the reads to say, how long are they going to do it? We thought that about Belichick. They took it away from him, and he still wants to do it even at a lower level where it doesn’t matter.

Luke Jones  26:49

Yeah. I mean, and again, this goes back to one identity and two ego. And I don’t mean ego in a negative way, per se, as as it typically has connotations. I mean, it’s you think you’re the best and you want to continue to prove it. And you’re, you’re chasing that next championship, right? You’re, you’re chasing that next trophy. I mean, that’s really what it comes down to. So you know, again, to bring it more specifically, back to chuck Pagano, he’s coming back to an organization that has a history of winning, has a really talented roster has some really talented pieces in the secondary. I mean, when you look at what he’s coming into, you have Marlon Humphrey, you have Nate Wiggins, coming off of a relatively successful year one. You know, I think Nate Wiggins is on track to to be in a quality NFL corner. And you have Kyle Hamilton, right? And obviously they’ll fill in the other pieces, and we’ll see what they do in terms of adding another safety. And you know what happens with our Darius Washington, you know, does he get a multi year extension, or do they just tender him? But he has, don’t they, you love Yeah. I mean, he played, he played great football for them. I mean, he is one of the individuals who saved their season. That’s a, I don’t want to say, save their season. That’s a little dramatic, because they were still on their way to being a playoff team, even with the way that their secondary played through the first 10 weeks. But he was a big part of their turnaround, right? I mean, they said Marcus Williams, sorry, revenge and you. Eddie Jackson, they kicked out the door and our Darius Washington came in and didn’t just hold down the fort in the way that say Gino Stone did the last couple years when Marcus Williams was hurt, but played above average football. I mean, he was an asset. He was a plus for them. Not just, hey, come in and be a neutral. Be fine. Be average. He was better than that. So he’s

Nestor Aparicio  28:39

sure we’re here. I would think that part of him coming in, not just scouting, but saying, it’s the player I need. Don’t spend money on Marcus Williams, you know, let me check this art there. Maybe we could do better than this kid here, where our money’s going to be, because Chuck’s done this at the highest I mean, Coach Edward in college, right? So I think identifying the right player, and I gotta apologize to you and Kyle Hamilton, because I don’t even think of him as being in the room. I think of him as a linebacker somehow, like my mind thinks of him on the line, not as part of their secondary, because played is completely part of their secondary until the last six games of the season because they were trying to on secondary him for a period of time. Um, but yeah, I, I skip, I skipped the lead as the journalist here, I should have said Chuck pagano is coming back, because he has a generational talent, Kyle Hamilton, and a pretty good Pro Bowl Hall of something, Marlon Humphrey. I led with Marlon Humphrey because, I guess I led with

Luke Jones  29:33

the salary. And look, Marlon Humphrey is going to be in the Ring of Honor. You know, when you look at the Pro Bowls that he has, have him how he stacks up, he’s going to be a Ring of Honor player, even if he’s not going to be a Hall of Fame. Going to be a Hall of Fame player. And yeah, Kyle Hamilton has all the potential in the world, and someone like Chuck Pagano. It’ll be interesting to see how they decide to deploy Hamilton. I think they want to find a middle, middle ground. I know de Costa was asked about it last week in terms of where do you prior? Ties bringing in another safety so you can free up Kyle Hamilton to be a little more of the Swiss Army knife that he was the last couple years. And I think there’s a middle ground there. I mean, I look Kyle Hamilton played deep safety his first couple years at times as well. It’s not like he never did that. It’s just that it became more pronounced when they said, Look, Marcus Williams and Eddie Jackson aren’t getting the job done. They’re killing us out there. So that’s when they made the move to say, okay, Kyle, you’re going to play a little more, little more conventional, deep safety for us, right? We’re going to move you around still. And they still did, but you’re going to see that. And with our Darius Washington, you know, they really transition. We talked about this during during the season, but the Ravens in recent years had very much been a three safety, nickel and dime kind of team. On the fly. They went from playing multiple safeties, you know, playing three safeties, to becoming a three corner, and even in the dime, a four corner kind of team where, when they went to dime package, instead of putting an extra safety on the field, they moved Brandon Stevens there and brought in Davis white, right? So, so the question becomes, how do they fill that? Because Marcus Williams is obviously gone. Brandon Stevens is very likely to be gone. I mean, Eric Acosta said as much that he they’re going to have him test, you know, he’s going to test the market. He didn’t have a great year. Someone will value him, because he’s still, he’s a legit NFL corner. You know, he’s not, wasn’t great this year. Wasn’t very good this year, but he’s still going to get, you know, he’ll get a decent contract from someone, I’m guessing, not the Ravens. So how are you going to backfill some of those spots, right? I mean, okay, Humphrey and Wiggins as your two starting corners, but you need a third, you know, especially if Marlins going to move into the nickel, or do you bring in another safety, then Kyle Hamilton moves back to playing more nickel, keep Humphrey on the outside, so they have their options. But the point is, they’re going to have to add a piece or two to that secondary to kind of fill out what they want to do with nickel and dime.

Nestor Aparicio  32:02

And when you bring in Chuck pagano this time of year and evaluate that vision, you know, you say, what do we want it to be? And let’s identify five players in the draft, five players in free agency. Try to figure out who the right one is. It fits our you know, whatever, who can we not get? Who we going to get, like, you know, who we going to certainly, who are we going to target in the draft? Is everything, right? Because if they can pick a coin, if they could get a corner or safety player, late one, late two, that could be Roger Rosengarten, of you know, being able to come in and actually play that, Terrence Brooks couldn’t that? Matt Elam. I mean, we’ll go through the whole list right of the guys who couldn’t, but funding a can having Chuck pagano in that room, and I don’t say he’s a scout, but I think he’s forgotten more about secondary than whoever their scouts are, just about the kind of player he wants to play in this defense, and probably to your point, a big brother to Zach Gore to some degree. I mean, that missing part that we haven’t talked much about that. We talk more personnel, but more like bringing a grown up into the room to continue to help a young defensive coordinator who’s used the help and needed the help last year, right? Yeah,

Luke Jones  33:11

no question, and it’s not even that Zach or that like they don’t trust him, but you want some experienced voices, as we mentioned and we talked about this all off season. So in hindsight, am I shocked that their secondary struggled the way that it did over the first 10 games? I’ll say I was surprised that Marcus Williams individually struggled to the degree that he did. I mean, he had the third highest cap number on the team, and he went from that being his status to him being healthy scratch. I mean, he didn’t even, he didn’t even have him up on game day with the idea of what happens if something happens. You know, what do you do if something happens to our Darius Washington or Kyle Hamilton? That’s how much Marcus Williams fell off to the point where they just said, we don’t even want to run the risk of him getting hurt and then having to deal with that next off season when we want to cut him and all that. So, so, so they went from that so that element of it was surprising, but we talked about this. We talked about the coaches that they lost when you undergo that much brain drain, and then you couple that with the personnel that they lost, talking about Clowney and Geno stone and Ronald Darby, you know, go down the list again. None of these players were Ray Lewis in their prime, or Ed Reed in their prime, but they were still meaningful contributors for them in 2023 so sometimes that will lead to shaky transition and and the Ravens certainly dealt with that. So I think in in hindsight, and that’s something we talked about at the time, when you looked at the hires that they made, the replacements to fill the guys that they lost on their defensive coaching staff, should they have maybe gone the route of a little more experience with one or two of those jobs? I think them bringing back Dean peas the way they did, and now having brought back Chuck pagano in the manner in which they have, I think that suggests to you. So John Harbaugh, acknowledging, yeah, they needed a little more experience with their defensive coaching staff. So and now part of this is also Zach or is a year older now he’s a second year defensive coordinator, right? You look at some of the individuals that were brought in last year, you know, Mark de Leon aside, who they’ve moved on from you, you hope that they now have a year having been in the organization, understanding what the defensive program looks like here in Baltimore, what Zach or his vision is, what John Harbaugh’s vision is for their defense. Then all of that together hopefully leads to a much more consistent, complete, 2025 season, rather than having to adjust upstream the way that they did in week 10, week 11, week 12, in the manner that they did. And look, it was a credit to the coaching staff for figuring it out the way that they did eventually. But you still have to look at the post mortem for that and say, Alright, what didn’t work here? Why did it happen the way that it did? And that’s where you see the Ravens make some changes. You know, I haven’t we’ve spent a lot of time talking about Pagano, but let’s face it, Mark De Leon, who they brought in to coach the inside linebackers to replace Zach Gore Trenton Simpson, got benched over the course of the season. And let’s face it, even though he was recognized with a pro bowl and all Pro I think most people, to a man would acknowledge roquan Smith did not play like a $20 million linebacker this year. Now that’s not to say the players are absolved. They’re not. You know, they have to take whatever responsibility ultimately the team feels is theirs. But if you have a coach who didn’t necessarily get the best out of what those players talents are, then again, that’s where you have a case where sometimes you say, hey, maybe we need to move on and bring in someone with a little more a little more juice, little more experience, a little more of what we’re looking for with this position group. So yeah, we’ll see what they do there. But she said something

Nestor Aparicio  36:53

about roquan Smith, $20 million roquan Smith, you know, I feel more like that about Humphrey and I, we had the original debate when they gave roquan spent the money about the position and the value Matt abika, something that they had to do last year, and what his value is, and how to best use him and the other players around him, up on the front but the roquan Smith thing becomes something we’re going to talk about, right? I mean, a little bit, just to say, played all season, and it didn’t look elite in any way for $20 million linebacker. And saying A is he that player? How do we get that out of him? We all know the leadership and like all of that, but I saw more of him at the podium than I did, literally, in the flow of the defense, in being a game changing and again, I watch Ray Lewis play every week, right? So, I mean, I have that going on, but I don’t know that I’m expecting that, but I’m just expecting more impact and more you know, we went through the fact that they didn’t kick the ball free a whole lot. They didn’t they didn’t force fumbles, they didn’t follow. There’s a lot of things that didn’t happen. Part of it is, my God, there’s a whole season of row Quan Smith. And I would have said, Show me the tape of the highlights. You know what I mean, like, show you like, show me, and I don’t know, for a $20 million player, I mean, you’re all up on Marlon Humphrey, and I could be too, and say, you know, definitely come back played to the value wherever it was that wasn’t the problem in the team. And I’m not saying roquan Smith was the problem. And I would even go so far to say maybe they Mitch Patrick queen, well,

Luke Jones  38:27

and that’s part of it. But also then you’re coaching, you know, what are we doing here? How? How are we acclimating Trenton Simpson, knowing that he was drafted to replace Patrick queen. And let me rework this, because look salaries year to year, with restructures and flipping salaries into bonuses and different things like that, even if we put aside the $20 million linebacker talk, and sometimes I think Ronnie Stanley is being like the high paid guy, he’s not anymore, right? So well, he wasn’t this past year, and right there becomes that balance of that, right? And we’re going to be talking a lot about Ronnie Stanley, even if we don’t get into it too much, because it too much, because I think that’s one of the more compelling decisions that they have. They’ve had to make, maybe in the last few years. But to go back to roquan for just a moment, put aside the $20 million talk, you know, you know, because I don’t want to frame it in a way that I thought he was bad this year. But did we see a version of roquan Smith in 2024 that was as good as good as 23 or when he arrived in 22 and I would say, No, I would say, is it wide Hall of

Nestor Aparicio  39:27

Fame? Kind of year where we thought that’s the player? Now we’re more to the let’s just be top five in the league, kind of, you know, productivity. Instead of thinking, look, when he was drafted, when they brought him in, I thought he was more Ray Lewis, like you’re going to build the whole thing around him when you can, they’re not, and they haven’t. And it’s more to your point, they’re looking to build it more around Kyle Hamilton, and that money’s going to have to, you know, so that’s where with roquan. I don’t think he’s a casualty or anything like that, but you’re maximizing him. Next year might still look like a pretty good. 30 year old player instead of a Hall of Fame 26 year old player. That’s all,

Luke Jones  40:04

yeah, yeah. And look, part of that is the coaching too. I mean, we talked about with our past defense, it wasn’t just the safeties, it was the linebackers and those over routes that continue to kill them the first 1011, weeks of the season. Schematically, what were they doing? And look, so people that are way smarter than me, in talking about this, I know of a few different individuals who you know there was an acknowledgement that there was a lot on row quans plate to try to account for not just what his responsibility was, but to account for a less experienced linebacker next to him, and they had the issues at safety. So what was happening there? Were they asking for deeper drops? Were they asking for him to do more on coverage, all of that? You know, it all works together. And

Nestor Aparicio  40:48

they weren’t getting the pass rush early in the year, which was how they got beat by Cleveland and Las Vegas and others. The

Luke Jones  40:54

point is, is, it’s all related, right, as and I say this as a baseball guy, as much as every sport is a team sport. To some degree, baseball is much more about the individual matchups, right, pitcher against hitter, and yes, you have to play defense and different things like that. But football, I mean, it’s a symphony. It is so everything is so related and connected that if one or two pieces are out of whack. It can make all 11 look really bad.

Nestor Aparicio  41:23

Oboe sounds bad. It’s very dissonant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So,

Luke Jones  41:27

so, so that’s part of it. And again, that’s why, you know, that’s why I pumped the brakes a little bit, even on, you know, because I was the one who said it, you know, he didn’t play like a $20 million linebacker. He did play better down the stretch, which, again, how much of that was a product of getting Trenton Simpson off the field and saying, Hey, believe Harrison and Chris board probably don’t have the same ceiling as Trenton Simpson might one day, but they’re better players right now. They’re giving us a safer, higher floor for what he’s going to do that might help out roquan And we’ve made changes in the secondary. I mean, this was, you know, Kyle Hamilton. Did he make as many splash plays over the last six weeks of the season? No, I mean, Eric Acosta said as much, but they had such a distinct need where they said, how did they make splash plays? How many balls went over their head? Right? Exactly. No. Splash plays are great, but if you’re giving up splash plays constantly, your defense isn’t going to be very good. So, you know, I think the greatest example, you know, or the easiest example you could give for what they did with Kyle Hamilton, think about the times over the years with Marshall yonda, where Rick Wagner or Michael Orr or I’m trying to think who the other one might have been. Anyway. Point is, they had some very dire needs on their offensive line a few different times. And what did they do with Marshall yanda? They kicked him out from right guard to right tackle. Now, was he as great at right tackle as he was at right guard? No, and I think Marshall would be the first to tell you that, but he could do the job, and it it addressed a colossal need for them on a couple different occasions over the course of his career, and that’s why he was a Hall of Fame player. I mean, we’re seeing this right now with Kansas City Joe toonie, who’s an All Pro, Pro Bowl perennial left guard. Where is he playing right now? Left tackle, because the Chiefs had issues at left tackle all year where, you know, the young guy that they had didn’t work out. You know, they had some injuries. They brought in a veteran. You know, guys couldn’t stay on the field, and they’ve, they eventually just said, forget it, Joe. You think you can play left tackle for us? And he’s played left tackle at a pretty high level for them, and it’s calmed that down for them. And in turn, their offenses played the best at football of the year, you know, over the last few few weeks, you know, talking about the chiefs. So, you know, great players can adapt and fill a need for you that you might have that has nothing to do with them, but you just have to adjust and say, Marshall, can we need you to play right tackle? You know, Rick Wagner’s hurt is out for the rest of the year. You know, which was the case in late in 2014 for example. Or, you know, so and so, you know, Michael, or is moving to the left side. Or, you know, and again, I mean, these are different examples over the years. But

Nestor Aparicio  44:13

by the way, every Hall of Fame voter I’ve talked to because you said Marshall, yonder name make you want to text him and just say, hey, good luck man, because he might get in. And the weird and listen, I’ve done hours on Hall of Fame voting with nine different people. Bob Ryan was on this week. I mean, I’ve just had great, great guests this week, and Ira Kaufman and I were talking about this. But all of them believe yonder has the strongest of the three candidacies and the pathway as a guard that would be better than a rush edge, or for Steve Smith being a wide receiver. But my case for yonda was always the team was never the same after night when he left in 19 they things changed dramatically. And I felt that way about Matt Burke, too, and I’ve said that out loud, and I didn’t even bring that up with Joe Flacco this week, but I probably. Should have, just in a general sense of the difference between having a rookie from Delaware snappy the ball and, you know, and a guy I don’t know that, Matt Brooks going to the Hall of Fame, I can make an arguments pretty good. Yeah. I mean, yeah, all very good. Yonders apparently different level amongst the voters and amongst his teammates that have have talked about his leadership and all of that. So his name’s hot next week, and don’t just think that he might not get in, because the way the balloting is, it used to be a food fight in a room. Now it’s fill out your ballot, send it in, and if enough of them put Marshall’s name on this year, he becomes first ballot or whatever. But that remains to be seen out of these 15 names and 49 different ideologies. But the thing with Marshall young that you bring up just a great, great point of transition and structure and the differences of and the Ronnie Stanley thing, we’ll be talking at length about that. But just and you wrote about it, kind of scared me, and your your 12 thoughts this week just like, hey, offensive line might be undergoing some changes, and we’re going to talk a lot about the defense and this and that and all these players, but the offensive line is still something that could very much be a question mark on opening day if they don’t put somebody at left tackle that looks like something that is going to work. And Yeah, question about it all last summer, but by week eight, they sort of figured it out, I guess before late, late, but it’s going to get it’s going to be a new conversation all over again, because it’s not, it’s a band aid in the end, yeah.

Luke Jones  46:29

Well, and look, part of this is just the transition of the NFL, right? I mean, you rarely are going to keep even the best offensive lines. I mean, it’s not like the Cowboys in the early 90s, right? Where you’re keeping together a Hall of Fame group, you know, where you’re talking about multiple Hall of Famers, or at least a couple and a couple other guys that were Pro Bowl types. I mean, you don’t see that very often, but, you know, just to one thought on yonda, and then I’ll give you just my thumbnail on Stanley. And we’ll, we’ll, we could save the more extensive Stanley talk for another time, but Marshall yanda, if he gets in this year, I think some a maligned outlet will deserve a lot of credit for it. And I’m going to tell you, it’s pro football focus. When you look at the history of guards and offensive basically offensive linemen that weren’t left tackles, right? I mean, left tackles like Jo, for example, have gotten their flowers over the years, right? But you look at the history of even some of the best guards in NFL history who got in, they often had a weight and and there. And one of the big challenges was there was nothing statistical to go off of right offensive line. Play is so subjective. You know what? What might be a win for one coach is, hey, you passed right here, or another coach might say, hey, that wasn’t very good. So there’s so much subjectivity, and there aren’t built in stats in the way that carries, receptions, touchdowns apply for other positions, even on defense, sacks, tackles, interceptions, but with pro football focus and the more analytically minded push that we’ve seen to really understand the game and to try to quantify stuff that hasn’t easily been quantified. Marshall yanda was one of the earliest players that really benefited from a site like pro football focus starting to grade players and and pointing out, hey, this guard for the ravens, who kind of bounced around was, you know, was hurt early in his career, and they couldn’t figure out if he’s going to play tackle or guard. They finally had him settle in at right guard in 2011 this guy’s been awesome for like, close to a decade now, you know, he’s been a perennial all pro Pro Bowl kind of right guard, whereas in previous eras not to say he wouldn’t make Pro Bowls and wouldn’t have gotten his his his just due and his credit over time, but it may not have come as quickly. I mean, think

Nestor Aparicio  48:53

about accolades are louder in this era, yeah, individual players, right? I mean, just think about the early part of

Luke Jones  48:59

his career. Oh, 7/3, round, you know, was a day or day two early day three pick. I can’t remember how the draft was structured back then, because that was at a time where it wasn’t Thursday night, right? But you think about his first year, you know, played some, but was kind of fill in finding his way. Year two, early on that season, tears up his knee. Year three comes back. Knee wasn’t completely right, you know, kind of platoon, but I believe, with Chris Chester at the time, I think that was a timeshare, and eventually he took over the job. Year four, they had unrest at the offensive tackle spot, where on the eve of the season, they kicked him out to right tackle, and he played right tackle all year. So you think about his first four years and how much unrest there was not that he didn’t play well, but how could you establish yourself in terms of anyone outside of Baltimore trying to figure out what you are as a player when you’re playing the different positions and you’re hurt and things like that. It wasn’t until year five that he settled in at right guard for good, and you think about what he became and. Many Pro Bowls and all that it really is. It’s a testament to him, but also to this era, for having the means to recognize him a little more to the point where he might be a first ballot Hall of Famer when guards have hardly ever been. So that’s my thought on yonder. Ronnie Stanley, the question is very simple for me, but it’s It sounds simple, but it’s very complicated. He’s coming off the healthiest season of his career. He played every almost every snap, and he started every game, first time he’s ever done that, you know, even going back to pre ankle injury. So do you run the risk of losing your left tackle to a higher bidder? And if you look at the free agent rankings for ESPN pro football focus. Go down the list of any take your pick, whatever ice cream flavor you like, he’s high up on the list Wherever you look, whether he’s fourth or eighth or 11th or something like that. He’s that high on the list in terms of free agents. So do you run the risk of him hitting the market and another team blow blows, blows it out of the water, and you lose them, and then you’re right back. He’s gonna get, what, 1215, 18, from somebody silly. Oh, I he’s gonna get way more than that. 818, 19. Now, let me be clear. I don’t think he’s getting another 100 million dollar contract, but if you sit here, but he’s gonna get three for 75 or, like, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s like 375 but I think it’s going to be 334, 60. I think that’s very, very much within the realm of possibilities. But you have that, or you look at it from the Ravens perspective and say, Ronnie was hurt for the better part of the last five years. We redid the deal. We recouped some of the lost value that we had really, you know what had been a sunk cost at times it looked like now let’s go get our next tackle. Do we want to hedge your bets and say, You know what? We love you, Ronnie, we’re happy for you. You gave us good football this year. We like Roger Rosengarten that we can kick him over to left tackle for a year, or maybe that ends up being his spot. Who knows? They really like Rosengarten like I’ll tell you that. You know whether they think he’s going to be right tackle for eight years, or maybe he will be there, unlike Orlando Brown, who thought he was a left tackle when they jump, oh, it’s better when the coaches think you’re a left tackle than when you are, but, but there’s the perfect example of even if they didn’t view Orlando Brown as a long term left tackle, he still played there for a year, and it worked out for them, okay, Right? So, so you look at it through that lens and say, do we want to run the risk of losing him, or is the risk pumping a whole bunch of new money into him and he reverts to what he’s been for most of his career, which is off injured, and he’s turning 31 in March. So I’m not saying which is the right call? I think that is a very difficult question to answer right now. And to your point, when you had all this unrest on the offensive line, and that was the big narrative, and it worked out to their credit. You know, George Warhawk came in, replaced the late Joe D and I mean, that was such a an understated part of that.

Nestor Aparicio  52:57

I know you already had four chapters of Purple Rain. Three written, I know you did, but the things that went on with his team this year, had, they had, they were still playing football, we’d be talking a whole lot about Joe D right now. We really would, right but, but

Luke Jones  53:13

the point is, with that, you know, would I be willing to give Ronnie Stanley, I don’t know, 15 million a year

Nestor Aparicio  53:21

for marrying him all over again, right? This that’s really the question. Are they willing? Are they going to do that at the highest level in the game? Is that important to him? I, you know, I don’t know whether another 5 million to go play for the Browns is going to is that appealing to him? You know, at this point, I would

Luke Jones  53:36

also say, from his perspective, he’s a union guy, union rep. So there’s that. So there’s that. So you wouldn’t necessarily think there’s going to be a big time. He’s going to take the highest bidder. Yeah, and in fairness to him, Hey, he accepted a haircut last year. He took a pay cut, a pretty sizable one. And he would say, You know what, guys i i took the cut. I understand I wasn’t healthy. I played all 17 games. The only snaps I missed all year were basically when we were beating teams pretty handily, and you took me out of the game. So he would say, I kind of proved myself. So, you know, this is what I think my market is. And you know, if you’re not going to pay it, I’m going to hit the market and see, see, you know what, what happened? So I think that’s such a compelling question that the Ravens have to answer with, oh yeah, a quarterback who is getting more expensive, and you have to pay Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linder bomb at some point, whether it’s this off season or next, that same flowers too, Dave. So, so, you know, I mean this roster, you want

Nestor Aparicio  54:36

him to catch 100 balls next catch 100 ball. And

Luke Jones  54:39

this is where we come back to the disappointment of falling short in Buffalo and not getting to a Super Bowl. Kyle van Noy, guys like Kyle van Noy and Derek Henry are a year older, and your younger players are getting more expensive. The window stays open. Let’s not be dramatic about it. But you always wonder the last two years, especially if these were your. Absolute best chances on paper to do it doesn’t mean it has to be. Doesn’t mean you won’t go out and do it as a wild card next year. Who knows, but it you know, the health, all of that age, of players, contract status, all of that goes into it. That’s why every time you feel like you have a great shot to do it and you don’t, it makes for a long off season. And we know that’s where the ravens are right now.

Nestor Aparicio  55:21

Jesus, we don’t have the we’re not even Super Bowl yet. We’re already breaking down the off season. We’re going to do this 100 times

Luke Jones  55:27

what we do. We’ll talk about the draft soon, right? I was going to say to you,

Nestor Aparicio  55:31

you know Roger Rosengarten, he’s home right now thinking I can be the 12th best left tackle in the game and make more money than being the greatest right tackle in the history of the game and like that is where Orlando brown stood on this so Roger Rosengarten has a chance to be a left tackle. He probably wants to be one, right so financially, just in a general sense. So yeah, it’s an interesting off season all the way around. Luke Jones is here. It’s not really the off season. It’s it’s baseball season. He’s Baltimore, Luke. You can find him out on the socials, anywhere the blue sky goes and the Twitter goes and the threads. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I just know that the x thing and the the South African sympathizer will be moving away from that platform at some point, because the world be moving away from that. But we’re everywhere you want to be probably best on LinkedIn, because act like a grown up there Super Bowl week. I’m Nestor. He’s Luke. We’re gonna be doing lots and lots stuff next week, giving away lots of Marilyn lottery scratch offs from the magic eight ball. My magic eight ball says Patrick mahomes is probably gonna win again, and that disappoints me.

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