The tackling is down and the instruction and bodies stay up in Owings Mills as the long-lost era of “two-a-days” and the summer grind are a little more player friendly these days in the NFL world of protecting the assets. Luke Jones joins Nestor to discuss some early observations as the long, hot Baltimore Ravens training camp has commenced with Super expectations for the men of Trump bootlicker, John Harbaugh.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the start of Ravens training camp, highlighting the high expectations for the team, which is considered one of the best in the NFL. They noted the importance of Lamar Jackson’s contract and the potential departures of key players like Mark Andrews and Kyle Hamilton. Jones mentioned the increased safety measures in training camp, such as reduced contact and practice time, and the impact on player development. They also touched on the significance of homegrown talent, with many key players being drafted and developed within the organization. The conversation concluded with updates on Baltimore Positive’s 27th anniversary and upcoming events.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens training camp, Lamar Jackson, Super Bowl favorites, roster spots, rookie free agents, Kyle Hamilton, Jair Alexander, offensive line, defensive line, practice squad, player development, fan interaction, Maryland crab cake tour, Baltimore Positive, Maryland lottery.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 tax Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. I’m wearing my my Costa shirt. I thought only Pete got to wear the peach shirt. So that’s a good looking peach shirt. Looks a little weird against my backdrop here, Baltimore positive, but my thanks to Costas him, we’re going to be getting out there next month, as well as getting all over the area. Actually, it’s our 27th anniversary. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Conjunction with our friends at curio wellness, I’ll be giving away the pressure luck scratch offs. I also have the Lucky Seven doublers. Will begin on the seventh at the Beaumont in Catonsville. I’ll be at Mako and Ocean City, and then we’re doing the full term. We’re going to be at slot shit Fells Point. We’re going to be at Coco’s. We’re going to be at Fay Lee’s, doing a little baseball with Luke as well, and all month long. So make sure you’re checking that out. All the information up at Baltimore positive, including a baseball. We’ve got trading deadline happening here. We had the death of Hulk Hogan, I’ve been revisiting all sorts of stuff here at summertime, but we got training camp happening. Luke’s been out in Owings Mills for the first couple of days of training camp. Out there going to get a little hotter into the weekend, a little more muggy as well, but not the two a days. And I always, I’ve been referencing Flacco, saying it’s a kinder, gentler version of all this, but you’ve been around for all of this, and now the fans being a part of this, and it was kind of awkward. You know, hardball is getting asked about Donald Trump and all I could hear screaming kids, and it’s a it’s a different thing when they’re performing for fans, right, like than it is when it’s you and Jameson and three back on the backfields, and on November 18, when it’s 42 degrees and raining, yeah,
Luke Jones 01:46
and in those settings, we’re typically taking attendance and they’re ushering us inside, which I’m not minding. At that point in time. I’m not sure I want to sit out there in that kind of temperature and watch two hour practice, but it’s exciting. Look. I mean, expectations are high for this team. We know that we’ve talked about it, you and I talked recently. You know, if it’s not the best roster in the NFL, it’s on the very short list, right? I mean, it’s on the short list of one of the two or three best rosters in the NFL, I think, pretty easily. But we also know that, you know when you’re hearing that, you’re hearing them being one of the Super Bowl favorites. When you look at the sports books, you know they’re on the short list there. It’s very Groundhog Day Like, right from from the standpoint of in this era, when Lamar Jackson has been healthy, they have had a great chance to not just make the playoffs, but to make a run, and it hasn’t happened to this point in time. So when that happens, you know, you’re going to get a lot of the perception that it’s super bowl or bust, right? And you know, not necessarily saying that that’s what it is in 2025 but it’s very much if not now, when, if not now, when, if not now, when. I mean, so you know that there are some big contracts that are going to be needing to be addressed here, including la Mars, when he has a think his cap number balloons to 74 million next year, they need to redo the deal. And you know, we’re going to see what happens with Mark Andrews and Isaiah likely and Kyle Hamilton. Even though I have no expectation that Kyle Hamilton’s going anywhere, but you have to pay him a lot of money to keep them. So you look at this, and you look at the Kyle van noise, where you know Is this his last year in Baltimore. You know what’s going to happen with old way. So you always look at it. And this happens every year. You know this go all the way back to 2019 Lamar, first MVP season, when the Ravens looked unbeatable from about mid October on that year, Marshall yonder, that was his last last year. You know, we and we found that out pretty quickly after the Ravens lost to the Titans that January. So all of that lies ahead, but as the headline recently read at Baltimore positive.com the Ravens can’t win the Super Bowl in July. You know, they can’t win the Super Bowl in August. And in the meantime, you’ve got to go to work, and you can’t get complacent, and you got to put in the necessary work, and you’re keeping your fingers crossed and saying a prayer every day that your guys stay healthy and you don’t have any more catastrophic injuries. You know, you don’t want to lose any more ardarius Washington, even type players, even so, you know, in those first few days when they’re ramping up, you know, the pads haven’t even come on yet. It’s great to see everyone running around. Guys are excited. It was great to hear from Jair Alexander. You’ve seen him play to the crowd when he’s made made a couple plays in coverage, and that’s that’s all well and good, but you know, right now, you’re just, you’re laying the groundwork, right? I mean, you’re trying to put in the work you need to put in and get a little bit better every day. And you’re trying to do that with the first thought being buffalo week one, right? And understanding you’re going to have 16 more of those, and hopefully a few more after that. But I. A long way to go, but yes, officially underway, and given the backdrop of the baseball season that we’ve all suffered through, it’s a welcome change being able to talk about some football, albeit still a long ways away from the real
Nestor Aparicio 05:13
thing. Yeah, I’m in my fourth year of being deposed, after being involved for 26 years, going to the games or going to practices, going back to Westminster and bloggers and eating some, you know, peach pancakes to start my day, and up at McDaniel College and even Western Maryland College. It goes back that far. It’s all changed. And the amount of Camp bodies that were around the amount of opportunity for a guy, a will Demps of Justin Tucker was an unsigned guy. You know, the opportunities that lie for guys we haven’t heard of, or Eric didn’t brag about on draft night, or they always have some local kid they signed who played at Maryland, who’s got a chance for this or that, or whatever, they’ve cut down on the games now, so only three of them, nobody plays kind of sort of at all the beat them up practices that they have the day before that always create these fights and all That inner interest, squad gathering, scrimmages to the whistle, all of that, you know, bodies moving around out there. And camp bodies, it almost feels like there’s less football for them to play. And it almost feels sort of perfunctory that you’re not, you’re an R, you know, Is there really an opportunity for camp bodies in this environment.
Luke Jones 06:43
I mean, there is, but I think some of it is, you know, some of it lends itself to what you just mentioned. And I think, you know, covid, those the first, those, those first couple covid seasons where, you know, things were very different then. And I think, what 2020 I think that was actually the year when their streak, remember, they had years and years and years of a rookie free agent making the initial 53 man roster. That was the year it was snapped just because it was different. So, of course, it’s changed. And, you know, I can think back to even, you know, my first couple training camps. I mean, this is training camp 17 for me, covering it going back to 2009 you know, I covered the last two training camps in Westminster, and what it was then compared to now. I mean, you know, in some ways it’s unrecognizable, but they’ll hit, you know that there’ll be plenty of opportunities for rookie free agents to make their mark. But I think, as it pertains to 2025 I mean, it’s pretty good roster. As we’ve mentioned, 11 draft picks, you know, returning 10 of 11 starters on offense. Patrick McCary is the only starter gone from last year’s offense. You’ve only a couple starters gone from last year’s defense, right? So there’s always going to be, you know, the question of just how many roster spots are really open? And that’s where it is tough. But hey, I asked John Harbaugh on I think it was Thursday. I’ll give you, right off the bat, a rookie free agent, just to keep an eye on. And you know what? I may never talk about him the rest of the summer. So I’ll give him his flowers now, because he had a nice spring. Ruben Lowry, you know, a corner slash safety. Who I get it? I’m the first to tell you spring football, you’re in shorts, helmets, you know, no pads. He was around the football a lot, and I’ll give him credit. I mean, as rookie free agents go, I’ve mentioned his name a couple times in writing, and I’m mentioning to you on the radio, I may not utter his name again all summer. So there you go, right? So I even gave you a name. But you know that that part of it’s still fun, it still does happen. You know, there still are rookie free agents. I mean, you know, for as much as we’ve talked about Tyler loop now, you know, the sixth round pick that the the, what we assume is going to be the heir apparent to Justin Tucker, they have John, John Hoyland in camp, you know, an undrafted kicker from Wyoming who had a really nice day, you know, the second practice of camp, you know, made every kick. So, you know, so, so you have that, you know, sometimes it’s a guy that spends a year on the practice squad and then he, you know, Matt scurril was a great example of that a guy that was in anonymity until he wasn’t anymore, and then suddenly became a starting caliber center for a few years. So, so you always, well, that was Bart Scott, that was Mike Flynn. That was, you know, there’s a lot of those guys. So through the course priest Holmes, yeah, right. And so, you know, and I mentioned Ruben Lowry, just more as an example, you know, I’m not going to sit here with any strong conviction saying that, yeah, I think he’s going to make the team. I But if
Nestor Aparicio 09:43
there’s anything to discuss a couple of days into this, all these asses and elbows, everybody’s running around out there and different jerseys, it sort of feels like if I said you give me the 53 right now you could get you could count me to 49 or 50 right? Yeah. I mean, I, you know me.
Luke Jones 09:59
I. Constantly doing, uh, roster projections. I did one at the start of camp on Wednesday. I launched it right before.
Nestor Aparicio 10:05
It’s your little like people do mock drafts. It’s your thing. It’s your thing. Yeah.
Luke Jones 10:10
I mean, thinking Steve Kornacki, right? I mean, we see him now doing, you know, he does the election stuff. We see him now doing the playoff stuff for for Sunday Night Football. That. That’s me. I’m doing 53 man roster projections. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it perfect. I think the best maybe I’ve done 52 out of 53 a couple years, pretty good. You know, you know, I I should do Okay, right? I mean, I’d hope to think I see, know a little bit of what I’m watching. I mean, I’m not, certainly not a expert coach or scout or anything. But, you know, I think, I think I said, and look, the number I said was 46 players to me, or very comfortably on the roster, I would say, you know, maybe not a lock, but they’d have to really play themselves off the roster. And truth is, Nestor, and this is from talking to, you know, whether it’s coaches or executive, you know, scouts, whatever, a lot of times they’ll go in the camp, and it might be 50 spots, realistically speaking, or set, and maybe there’s two or three spots. Now, obviously there’s a kicker spot that is to be determined, but they know that there’s going to be a kicker on this team, whether it’s one of these two rookies, or whether it’s go signing a veteran, you know, because neither of these guys pan out, so you have a little bit of that going on, but, but, yeah, I’m not going to sit here and say that. I think that there’s 25 guys on the bubble right now, and it’s wide open. It’s not because, because you got a really good roster and what, what’s wild about this, and this is a credit to the organization. I mean, just look at the percentage of homegrown guys on this roster. I mean, yes, we talked about Jair Alexander, and we’ve talked about DeAndre Hopkins, and, you know, there’s some other veteran types that have brought you know, Kyle van Noy is a great example. But for the most part, you kind of go down the roster, and it’s shocking how many guys are homegrown compared to the percentages that you see around the league,
Nestor Aparicio 12:09
even when they talk about it. I mean, you back when the shot he would talk, he would always say, you know, the draft is our lifeline, and that is how we get players. That’s how we make football players. We draft eight to 12 of them every year, in the hopes that six to eight of them stick around for the first three years. That’s 24 players. And then you have the 10 extra guys that have been around, 5678, years. That gets you to 36 and then the rest of them. You sign Kyle van Noy, and you make a trade, and you find in our Darius Washington come through, and, you know, develop and, you know, that’s how they’ve been a double digit win team here for a long time.
Luke Jones 12:48
Yeah. I mean, look at their for all the talk we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, you know, all the oxygen we’ve spent on the offensive line the last couple years. I mean, I mean, look at their projected starting offensive line for week one. Ronnie Stanley, homegrown, Voorhees homegrown, Linder bomb, homegrown, file, a homegrown. Rosengarten homegrown, the guy that Voorhees is replacing, Patrick McCary homegrown,
Nestor Aparicio 13:11
is a four, and actually three out of those five, or, you know, top 60 picks.
Luke Jones 13:15
Sure, yeah, so. So some of them are early picks. Some of them are guys that, you know, in Voorhees case, that was a unique circumstance. Remember, he tore his ACL at the combine. They thought he would have best. They thought he, they thought he would have been a mid round, you know, like a fourth round kind of guy, most likely so. But that’s just one position group. I mean, you know, you look at, okay, in the secondary, yeah, they brought in Jair Alexander, but Marlon Humphrey, homegrown, Kyle Hamilton, homegrown, Nate Wiggins, homegrown, Malachi Starks, they hope is going to be, maybe not the next Ed Reed, but hopefully the next
Nestor Aparicio 13:47
roquan Smith, stolen from the bears. Yeah, so, so, you know, they, I
Luke Jones 13:51
mean, they, it’s all about developing your own guys. So that’s why. How can you not look at the rookie free agents and say, you know, is there going to be a diamond in the rough? There? Is it going to be? Maybe it’s a defensive lineman, you know that that kind of fills out the back of their depth chart at the D line, where they’re replacing Michael Pierce and Brent Urban’s no longer on the roster. So, you know, it barely Brent urban was here with Billick. I mean, what 2014 was the year he was drafted. I mean, now he left and then came back. Michael Pierce left and came back. So, so, yeah, so, you know, you look at this team, I mean, it is so homegrown. They have 11 draft picks, all the six round picks, I’m guessing not all those guys are going to make the roster. I’m guessing a couple of them are going to get waived, and maybe they wind up on the practice squad. But, yeah, it’s, it’s tough. I mean, it is, you know, I’m mentioning Ruben Lowry just as an example of someone who’s caught my eye a little bit. But do I really think he’s going to make the team? No, but hey, he’s got a chance to maybe put himself in the conversation so. But, you know, early on in camp, you know, especially now, the biggest difference. Now, beyond what you mentioned when you’re talking about going way back and you know, we’re so far removed from two a days at this point in time is, you know, they have this more deliberate ramp up now, you know, these first few days of camp, if I’m being honest with you, they more closely resemble the end of OTAs and mandatory mini camp than training camp, you know, where you’re really talking about, you know, putting on the pads and hitting for the first time. I mean, that’ll come next week. You know, these first four days are really kind of the ramp up. They practice an hour and a half. On Wednesday, it was an hour and 45 minutes. Thursday, they’ll have a couple two hour practices. And then next week they’ll get into two hours 30 minutes, two hours, 40 minutes, right? You know, then that’s kind of the, you know, where it tops out at. But it is a lot different. I mean, it really is. And it’s funny, you mentioned Joe Flacco, I mean, who you know is slinging it around in Cleveland right now, and, you know, we’ll see if he is there a guy for the beginning of the year, or they decide to go with someone younger, or whatever. But it’s changed a lot. I mean, it really has. And I think the biggest thing that, you know, I think teams try to wrestle with it, and you made mention of this with the you know, how the Ravens don’t play any of their established starters in the preseason at this point in time. And you couple that with the lack of fully live tackling to the ground that is almost non existent in this day and age. I mean, you do a lot of what’s called thud. You’ll hit and rap, and then the whistle comes and you stop. That’s why I think you’ve seen tackling, especially early in the season around the league, leaves a lot to be desired, and it’s something that they have to teach it in a different way now. So, you know, it’s changed a lot. Um, you know, I’m not going to say it’s all for the worst, because so much of this is has the intention of trying to make the game safer for these guys. And that, I’m not saying the NFL always has great, the greatest intentions, but I do think they’re trying in certain ways, to make the game safer. And you know, there are some drawbacks that come with with with that, and it might be that you might not have quite as crisp play, you know, and tackling early in the season, but it’s where they are. And let’s, let’s face it, you know, they’re not putting the toothpaste back in the tube. They’re not going back to two a days. They’re not going back to tackling to the ground as much as Harbaugh would like that. Yeah, exactly. Harbaugh and probably 25 other coaches in the league, right? I mean, there might be a few guys that are,
Nestor Aparicio 17:30
you know, a little more of like Rabel, probably. What’s the Yeah,
Luke Jones 17:34
yeah. I mean, so many of these guys, let’s call a spade a spade. A lot of these players would want to hit. But what you know, a lot of this is protecting guys from themselves in a lot of cases. So, you know, I mean, early, early on in camp, it’s, that’s the feeling out, but it’s fun. You know, saw Lamar Jackson sign a ton of autographs for 10 year old kids the other day. And I mean, he’s the Beatles to them, right? I mean, he is Brooks Robinson or Johnny Unitas or Cal Ripken to that generation. And I mean to see, just to see their, their faces light up. I mean, you know, I hope I never get to the point where I’m so cynical that I can’t at least recognize that and say it’s pretty cool. No, it’s not the same as it was in McDaniel it’s not the same when my dad was taking me out to training camp in 1996 because we finally had a team after growing up with in an era where Baltimore didn’t have the Colts anymore. So I still try to take a step back and look at that, and it’s still, you still see those cool moments.
Nestor Aparicio 18:40
Well, you’ll be out there. We’ll be talking about it. We’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake tour throughout August. It’s our 27th anniversary. I’ll be celebrating by sharing my 27 favorite things to eat, my 27 favorite places to eat. Them. Beaumont will be our first crab cake tour stop that’ll be on the seventh of August. I’ll have the scratch offs, the Lucky Seven doublers. I’ll also have the pressure Lux, our friends, a curio wellness, putting us out on the road this month as well, as well as GBMC, we got a new sponsor. We talked a lot about the hospital and important pillars in the community and changes there as well. So we got things happening around here, trading deadline, ramping up, crab cakes, food summer, delicious, peaches and corn and tomatoes. I hope you guys are getting in and all that. He is Luke. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stopped talking. Baltimore. Positive. You.
