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Ross Tucker: Lamar hasn’t played his best football in January

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Former NFL offensive lineman-turned-broadcast Ross Tucker has called as many football games as anyone this season and joins Nestor to discuss the tough exit for the Ravens and Lamar Jackson, and the difficulty of being the player who drops the ball with the game on the line. He also brings a special Valentine’s Day message.

Ross Tucker, a former NFL player turned broadcaster, discussed his busy schedule, having called over 30 games in a year, and his passion for football. He highlighted his media career, which began after an injury forced him to pivot from playing. Tucker shared his admiration for the Eagles and Chiefs in the Super Bowl, noting the Eagles’ roster strength and the Chiefs’ late-game prowess. He also promoted “My Front Page Story,” a service offering personalized, professionally written stories as unique gifts. Tucker emphasized his love for football and his desire to share that passion through his broadcasting work.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Super Bowl MVPs, NFL head coaches, Hall of Fame voters, food pantries, Wise Markets, Central Pennsylvania, My Front Page Story, Valentine’s Day gift, NFL player, media career, Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews, Super Bowl predictions, Eagles vs Chiefs, coaching staff

SPEAKERS

Ross Tucker, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive we are not going to be at the Super Bowl in New Orleans next week. Instead, this week, we have all sorts of gas Super Bowl MVPs for NFL head coaches. We have all sorts of Professional Football Hall of Fame voters this week, as well as former players about to join us. We’re doing a cup of Super Bowl during Super Bowl week. We started cost us on Monday. Please bring some canned goods, dry goods for some food pantries, to some local folks here. It’s all brought to you by our friends at wise markets, as well as the Maryland lottery wise markets. I It’s Pennsylvania. I went up to Sunbury to the ice cream factory, and I think I passed this guy’s home. We were eating peachy Paterno at State College, there at at a fantastic Bruce Springsteen concert last year. And since then, everywhere I drive, Tucker’s in my car. He’s in my house. He’s calling gays, but he’s not too much of a big shot to come on here and promote a cool little promotion he’s got. And I usually see you like radio or whatever. But first off, man, you’re everywhere. You’re ubiquitous. Ross Tucker, you will become Mr. Football in my life.

Ross Tucker  01:06

Nestor, thank you. I’m certainly trying. I’m trying to avoid a real job like it’s the plague at this point. And I’d say, so far so good. Love the wise market sponsorship that is, that is Central PA, through and through that, or they’re based is actually very close to my wife’s propane business. My wife has a family propane business, which is why we live here in Central PA. And yes, I do love peachy paternal actually, I’m not like a huge peach guy, but that is delicious ice cream. Any of the ice cream from the creamery is fantastic. And speaking of Central Pennsylvania businesses, I know you know, one of the things I love about you is Baltimore, positive. Baltimore positivity, right? I’m a huge believer in life is short. Tell people how you feel about them. Tell people how special they are, how much you love them, not to get all mushy, but I don’t think people do it enough, which is why I got the best Valentine’s Day gift ever. It’s called my front page story.com literally Nestor. You can call and talk to a professional writer while you’re driving home from work. It takes 10 minutes, or fill out an email with like five questions. Tell them how great your wife or girl for whoever. Tell them how great they are. They write this unbelievable story looks like it’s on the cover of like the Baltimore Sun with framed pictures of you and her. The kids, if you have them, probably no pictures of kids. If you don’t have kids, that would be weird. But if you have kids, they got the pictures I’m just telling you to be able to say to her, honey, I wanna do something special this year, so I had a story written about you. It’s amazing. And then when they actually read the quotes, like, I don’t thank her enough for all little things she does. Make sure you say that. By the way, they cry every time at that line. That’s the line I don’t thank her enough for our little oh my gosh, she notices it’s amazing my front page story.com, and then she’ll have it hanging up in the house forever. So it’s like the gift that keeps on giving. She will cry. You will win my front page story, com, at a minimum. Go over there, throw your email address in so you get the immediate email for a 20% discount, then you can use, if not, Valentine’s Day, maybe Mother’s day anniversary birthday, something my front page story.com.

Nestor Aparicio  03:29

Yeah, I’ve had Jamal Lewis on this week’s the anniversary around here of our 24th Super Bowl. We’re Joseph Flacco is going to be here this week. We’re going to talk some football here. Ross Tucker is here, and you’ve been everywhere. Man, like you’ve been you are like Baldinger was before you as former players, you’ve really immersed into this. You’re in a different stadium every week. I’ve been out in the car after yoga class. Like on Thursday nights, you’re calling games. I’ve you’ve been my company in a car once or twice this year, driving to, like, concerts and stuff on nights. Um, you’re a really, really busy dude flying out of Central Pennsylvania, all sorts of places. Man,

Ross Tucker  04:03

I am trying. I love it. I did, I don’t know, well, over 30 games this year, a lot of double headers, which

Nestor Aparicio  04:11

I’m saying, there’s only 17 weeks. And you did 30 games. That’s really it’s hard to do

Ross Tucker  04:15

three preseason games, and then, you know, there’s 18 weeks of the season, and then you got the playoffs. And between TV and radio, there was a number of weeks where I doubled up. So next thing you know, you look at it and you’re and you’re over 30, which is great. Not that many other guys. Kevin Harlan gets two every week. I and Eagle gets to a lot of weeks. But not herb street, but not not that many other guys in that category,

Nestor Aparicio  04:41

dude eagles, running around doing next me, you know, like there’s some y’all Kenny Albert’s one of my dearest friends in the world, and he does four sports. It’s just, it’s in, it’s it’s a workload that’s all and when I hear you out, I know you just didn’t jet in and hang out and you love the game, and I want to kiss your ass just a little bit before we talk. About mahomes and Lamar and all of that stuff, just in a general sense, I remember you as a player in and out. And then Peter King, you had this and Peter, I’ve been friends forever. You became a part of this thing. Did you always know you were going to be a media guy? Such

Ross Tucker  05:14

a great question. Man. Um, it’s what my dream was. Growing up, we never talked about this dude. My dad’s five nine, a buck 70, so

Nestor Aparicio  05:25

that’s my size. I’m not a buck 70. I’m a buck 50.

Ross Tucker  05:28

Yeah, in in in the morning, I used to race him to get the reading Eagle newspaper because I wanted to read the high school sports. I wanted to read about Penn State and the Eagles. And I was also a late bloomer, so I never thought I’d be an NFL player at all. And so I thought I’d go to Syracuse and then hopefully write for Sports Illustrated, or maybe go to ESPN or something. Did you want to be me really? Yeah, I guess. And then next thing I know, I’m I’m getting bigger and better, and Princeton to Harvard and Delaware, and William and Mary want me for football. I’m like, All right, if I go to Princeton or Harvard because of football, I’m going to do that. And then I kind of forgot about media, to be honest with you, because nobody talks about at those schools. And next thing I know, I accept the job of Lehman Brothers Wall Street in New York City. But then the Redskin signed me, and I made it. I made the team. I literally deferred my my job at Lehman Brothers for a year. I thought this might only be one year, and then played long enough. NFL had a broadcasting boot camp. I went to it, and things went pretty well. I got hurt against the ravens, actually playing with my second stint with the Redskins. And so I started doing some media stuff, because I had to rehab my neck anyway. And next thing I know, I had a media career. It’s cool because I can do the media stuff, but then also have a couple small businesses to, you know, kind of scratch that itch as well. So it’s pretty, pretty, pretty good portfolio. I’d say,

Nestor Aparicio  07:01

Well, I mean, you’re at the point where you’re on games on TV and stuff like that. You have a really unique voice, like because, you know, Hanson moves around. You know, I’m not in the real media anymore. That’s a whole other story altogether. But I watch, I do nothing but watch games on TV after doing nothing but what you’re doing, which is flying the games every week and doing all of that. So I sit here and hear the games. And you know, Hanson goes around the four o’clock game, and you’re in Arizona or whatever. And I hear Kenny’s voice too, but when he moves around, I immediately hear the voices. And I don’t look ahead of time to even know where any of you are going to be. I don’t find it’s like Wheeler who’s doing what you know. And I hear you give me the adjustment period for you in even doing this that you aspire the first time I met Brian Baldinger when he was my partner at Sporting News. He said, nasty, I want to call a Super Bowl. That’s my goal. I want to be like mad, and I want to call a Super Bowl. And he hasn’t yet. Maybe he’s done one on radio or whatever. But where are you on that chain? Because you’re, I mean, you you’ve moved into a different space being able to do this and being busy and all that, but you’re really good at it, man, you really are. Well, thank you.

Ross Tucker  08:01

I’m I’m on the sixth crew for CBS for NFL, and then I’m second crew for college football. So if they had a college game on broadcast, CBS, other than 330 which is Brad Nestor, Gary Danielson, doing the Big 10, they had a game before. After that, I got that one. And then on the NFL side, I was with Tom McCarthy and Jay feely. Really enjoyed that, you know, I don’t, I don’t really. I mean, I guess I aspire to just do as big a games as possible. You know, biggest audience, it’s really not about, like, money or anything like that. To me, here’s the deal. Like, I love football. I love it, and I want as many people as possible to just feel my passion, energy and zest for the game like I’m not kidding. Nestor for the NFC Championship game, when I was driving down to Philly, my eyes were filling up a couple times. I wanted to play so bad. I was, like, doing the forearm gripper in my car, like, real hard. Like, I just miss it that much. And this how I’ve always been. First memory of my life. I was four or five, my parents took me to a Penn State game, and I was just like, oh, yeah, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to be. And I think my dad was like, Yeah, I don’t know about that. And then, thankfully, I got the the genetics from my mom’s side of the family, and was was big enough, if you ask, like my friends, they would tell you that God made me good enough at football so I could have the jobs I have now, so I could be a broadcaster. Ross

Nestor Aparicio  09:41

Tucker’s here, Alright, on to Lamar and the exit, and even where you stand as a media member, was a player for Mark Andrews to not come out and take questions, which I’ve been doing this my whole life. But from a player’s perspective, I’d like to hear that. But just on the field, we have the two best teams in the game. You know, I’m convinced of that. And at the ray. Having been beat by both of them. And I looked at it as the Ravens weren’t the best team, but they flashed. They had a lot of potential. They were good enough to win a Super Bowl, but in the end, not good enough. Yeah.

Ross Tucker  10:11

I mean, listen, I thought there were five teams that could win the Super Bowl, you know, I thought it was the Eagles, the lions, the ravens, the bills and the chiefs. And I think that’s kind of how it played out, you know? I mean, the commanders had the big upset over the lions, bills, ravens game could have gone either way. I mean, to think that the Ravens lost the turnover battle three Oh, and still, if Andrews catches a two point conversion, we’re going to overtime. Is pretty impressive from the Raven standpoint, you know, I think they need to do a better job of trying to get home field advantage, although they had that last year and it didn’t work out. You know, fortunately or unfortunately. You know, Lamar Jackson does not play his best football in the playoffs. I’m not killing him. 40s. Unbelievable. He’s a fantastic player. There are certain guys that seemingly play better in those moments, and there are certain guys that that, for whatever reason, don’t. And it seems like Lamar fits the latter category. I love Mark Andrews. I’ve done two ravens games on CBS the last two years. Arizona in 2023 Cleveland in 2024 interviewed him both times. Love everything about him as a person and as a player. I think, you know, I probably would have preferred if he talked to the media, and I think that it may have been therapeutic for him to do so. However, he’s a pretty passionate, emotional guy, and if he thought he was, he would get emotional and didn’t want to, didn’t want to, you know, exhibit that emotion publicly. I’m okay with that. I am, and I do think that’s part of the job. We should talk to the media or whatever, but I also I can understand someone not wanting to display their emotions publicly, and I think there’s probably a pretty good chance that he would have, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  12:13

I just think it’s tough when teammates have to go do it. The coach, you know that I’ve been doing this a long, long time, and rare. I was there with Cundiff. You know, like all of that, through the franchise, Ross Tucker is here. He is a promoting good thing. Imma. Give you a chance to shout out your Valentines gift as well the game itself. Mahomes, Jalen Hurts. You have the Philly sort of bias going on. Everything around use all Philadelphia, except maybe Taylor Swift, who’s from your part of the world. I may throw out. This is a good football game, and the Eagles can win this football game, even though the vibe would be, the chiefs have been there and done that.

Ross Tucker  12:46

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think the Eagles have a better overall roster. I think they need to try to win by two scores the chiefs. I know it’s easier said than done, but the chiefs are just so good in one score games, and late in a one score game, I guess, I feel like there’s a pretty good chance that mahomes Andy Reid would get it done, and they have just such a tremendous track record, so I think the Eagles need to kind of try to blow them out, which I don’t know that’s going to happen, but I think that’s their best bet, is that they just kind of overwhelm the Chiefs with their roster and talent and then try to find a way to hold on and not make it a one score game. You know what the chiefs are doing with these one score games is, like, statistically impossible. I mean, we’ll have to do it one more time. Yeah, yeah. I mean it just, you look at it, and every game they have, like, the win probability for the chiefs, and it’s like 28%

Nestor Aparicio  13:48

well, they’re getting, they’re getting all of that, right? Yeah, crazy. Well, spagnolo as well. You know that that would be the part for me. You mentioned Reed, you mentioned my homes, I think spagnolo and what he dials up situationally on the best quarterbacks on the planet, is impressive.

Ross Tucker  14:06

Yeah. I mean, I thought they out coached the bills for sure, both sides the ball. I think that they are the best coaching staff in the NFL right now, which is giving them a major, major edge in these games. Valentine’s Day,

Nestor Aparicio  14:19

my front page were holding up, holding up. Tell everybody about the grandma. Everybody about their grandma and how to get all this and do

Ross Tucker  14:25

all that. My front page story.com, look, listen, it’s the best Valentine’s Day gift I’m aware of. It’s way better than flowers or taking them out to dinner. You can do that every other year. Change it up. My front page story.com, at a minimum, go to the website, throw your email address in, so they send you that 20% discount code. You can use it for a birthday, anniversary, Mother’s Day, whatever my front page story.com, my front page story.com, if you listen on radio, you’re

Nestor Aparicio  14:56

not seeing this beautiful woman looks a little bit like my mom. There the the OMA Ross Tucker calls football. His voice is ubiquitous. He’s up in central Pennsylvania trying to do the right thing. I hope to see you again in State College at some point. And I love having you on the program and when you’re calling the game, I’m cool for listening to it. I love it. Thank you so much, Nestor, you got Ross Tucker joining us here. Big appreciation I have, and everybody making that happen. It is Super Bowl week here, it’ll be a cup of Super Bowl week. Next week. We still got a football game going on. I am Nestor. We are W N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive.

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