The magic of Lamar returns in Miami homecoming win over stinky Fish

The triumphant return of Lamar Jackson on Thursday Night Football gives the Baltimore Ravens hope to overcome the lost 1-5 start and become a playoff “favorite” again. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss a choppy first half but a strong finish in a 28-6 win over the hapless Miami Dolphins in a homecoming for the two-time MVP quarterback.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ 24-10 victory over the Miami Dolphins, highlighting Lamar Jackson’s return after a month-long absence. Despite a choppy first half, the Ravens seized control in the third quarter, scoring two touchdowns and forcing a three-and-out. Jackson threw four touchdown passes, and the team’s running game, led by Derrick Henry, was effective. The defense, particularly the secondary, showed improvement, with key plays like a forced fumble by Elijah Hamilton. The Ravens are now 3-5, with a favorable schedule ahead, aiming to capitalize on their momentum.

Ravens’ Victory Over Miami Dolphins

• Nestor Aparicio welcomes listeners to the show and mentions upcoming events where he will be present.
• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the Ravens’ victory over the Miami Dolphins, highlighting the importance of Lamar Jackson’s return.
• Luke notes the Ravens’ record of 3-5 and the upcoming 10-day break, expressing optimism about the next four games against teams with losing records.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the first half of the game, noting the Dolphins’ ability to move the ball and the Ravens’ struggles, including four three-and-outs.

First Half Challenges and Second Half Turnaround

• Luke describes the first half as choppy, with the Ravens struggling and the Dolphins moving the ball effectively.
• The Ravens’ performance in the third quarter is contrasted with the Dolphins’, with the Ravens seizing control and scoring two touchdowns.
• Luke mentions a national pundit’s comment about the Atlanta Falcons’ performance, highlighting the Dolphins’ ability to take advantage of it.
• The Ravens’ running game, led by Derrick Henry, allowed them to protect their lead, with Lamar Jackson throwing four touchdown passes.

Lamar Jackson’s Return and Team Performance

• Luke praises Lamar Jackson’s performance despite being rusty, noting his four touchdown passes.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the involvement of tight ends and the ease of the touchdown passes, with wide-open receivers.
• The Ravens’ next 10 days are seen as a positive, with a chance to regroup and improve.
• Nestor emphasizes the need for the Ravens to win their next few games to have a season, comparing it to the Orioles’ situation.

Dolphins’ Performance and Coaching Uncertainty

• Nestor and Luke discuss the Dolphins’ performance, noting their ability to move the ball but struggle to score.
• Luke mentions the possibility of Mike McDaniel being fired as the Dolphins’ coach.
• The Ravens’ record and schedule are compared, with a path to improvement seen if key players return.
• Luke reflects on the Ravens’ performance with Tyler Huntley as quarterback and the impact of Lamar Jackson’s return.

Offensive Line and Running Game Concerns

• Nestor and Luke discuss the Ravens’ offensive line and its struggles, particularly in pass protection.
• Luke suggests the need for more spread formations to spread out the defense and reduce the traffic at the line of scrimmage.
• The Ravens’ running game is highlighted, with a need for more consistency and effectiveness.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of Lamar Jackson’s running ability and its impact on the team’s performance.

Defensive Performance and Future Outlook

• Luke praises the Ravens’ defense for their performance in the first half, particularly in the red zone.
• The shift to a three-safety alignment and the use of big nickel are credited for raising the defense’s floor.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of the next four upcoming games against teams with losing records.
• The need for consistency and staying healthy is emphasized, with a goal of winning at least three of the next four games.

Ravens’ Schedule and Playoff Aspirations

• Luke outlines the Ravens’ upcoming schedule, with three straight road games and the importance of winning at least three of them.
• The potential for a playoff run is discussed, with a need to win two road games and potentially face strong opponents like Kansas City or Buffalo.
• Nestor and Luke reflect on the Ravens’ performance and the need for continued improvement to achieve their goals.
• The importance of Lamar Jackson’s health and effectiveness is reiterated, with a focus on the team’s overall performance.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Lamar Jackson, Ravens victory, Miami Dolphins, offensive line, running game, Derrick Henry, Lamar’s rust, tight ends, defensive performance, AFC North, playoff hopes, injury concerns, coaching stability, team record, upcoming games.

SPEAKERS

Speaker 1, Luke Jones, Speaker 2, Nestor Aparicio

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Nestor Aparicio  00:02

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore or Baltimore. Positive. I do not have any Maryland lottery tickets in front of me today, but I will have them on Wednesday at Cocos. Will also be on Friday at Pizza John’s and Luke’s wearing the pizza John’s hat. We were up late on Thursday evening watching the Ravens do what we were expecting them to do all along, which is just win football games and sort of freight train bad teams and score four touchdowns and throw touchdown passes and have Derrick Henry take the air out of the clock at the end, just do everything that that you wanted them to do. Now, that being said, they’re three and five and they’ll have 10 days off, but lots of positives at a Thursday night. I mean, beginning with the fact that Lamar is upright, period, yeah.

Luke Jones  00:48

I mean, obviously you feel great when Lamar Jackson is back on the field, when you haven’t seen him in over a month, and you go one and two, and you were one in three, even with Lamar Jackson. I mean, wasn’t feeling great a couple weeks ago. I mean, that’s stating the obvious, right? I mean, everyone’s ready to fire everyone, and people talking about selling at the trade deadline. And well, you win two games in five days, and now you have extra rest. Your next four games come against teams that currently have losing records, and we see what the rest of the AFC North looks like. So it’s sitting right there for them. They still have a long way to go. There are still elements of this football team that concerned me. And there were even elements of this football team on display in the first half, specifically, you know, the inability to run the

Nestor Aparicio  01:34

fall. A better team would have stolen that game on Thursday night, right?

Luke Jones  01:37

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Literally, I mean, well, I think you just for me, the first half was just so odd, right? I mean, the ravens, you know, they’re basically gifted a touchdown. They needed four downs to get that touchdown. Miami moved the ball almost at will between the 20s in that first half, and the Ravens went three and out four times in that first half. I mean, it was very choppy. Dare I say the Ravens were fortunate to be winning 14 six at halftime, but for me, you saw the contrast in two, win two, two win teams going in completely different directions to start that third quarter. The Ravens come out score a touchdown, force the three and out score a touchdown Miami. I mean, they could have just stayed in the locker room. It’s in at halftime. That was every bit of why they’re two and six, right? I saw someone. I can’t remember who it is, so I don’t want to take credit for this, but I saw, probably late in the third quarter, a national pundit made the comment of my biggest takeaway from this game was what the heck happened to the Atlanta Falcons last Sunday, and I just had to kind of laugh, because Miami completely took it to him, but we saw ravens team with Lamar Jackson do what they needed to do. They had had the lead for in the first half, despite not being an overly impressive first half, but they just completely seized control to start that third quarter. And it was all over after that. I mean, you know, the Ravens I saw, a few people mentioned, took their foot off the gas, whatever. I mean, they got the running game going, and that was good to see. You know, I want to see the running game look way better than it’s looked when it’s still these game neutral situations, but Derek Henry in the running game allowed them to protect the lead that they built on on the back of Lamar Jackson throwing four touchdowns. So Great win when you’re two and five, as we said when they were one in five last Sunday, get the win however you can. Who cares about optics right now? But to your point, even with some of the imperfections that continue to linger for this football team, there was a lot to like, and it begins with Lamar Jackson being back on the field. And he even said it in the post game on on Amazon, on prime that he acknowledged being a little bit rusty. Well, four touchdown passes, pretty darn good. If you’re talking about someone being rusty, it was great to see him back on the field, that’s for sure.

Nestor Aparicio  04:07

Well, then the tight ends getting involved too, right? Not just how it happened, and also the fact that it took him four downs, the fact that it wasn’t easy, the fact that in the end, it looked easy because the touchdown passes were just undefended. I mean, literally, there were just wide, wide ranging pastoral space, especially with Bateman at the end, just everybody contributed, and they’re going to feel good about the next 10 days after feeling really bad about the first month and a half of the season. Still doesn’t fix everything at three and five, they have to go out and take care of their business the next couple of weeks. But my takeaway from all of this over the last five days is there’s a season now. There wasn’t a season on Sunday. Sunday, we’re gonna have to earn and play their way back into having a season in the way that you talked about at length with the Orioles fell 16 games under 500 it was like, All right, they need a seven game. Winning streak, a four game winning streak, and they couldn’t muster any of that with the Ravens. They have to go to Miami on short rest and win a football game against a team that was impressive on Sunday against all believe me, with my fourth quarter status, I came this close to saying, What the hell were the Atlanta Falcons doing? Because I don’t know what. I mean, very much an outlier for a dolphins team that has been horrific and look every bit the part first half, moving the ball fine, all that kicking field goals, missing field goals, just but, but in a general sense, good enough to get themselves beat right, like and it may be good enough to get my buddy Anthony Weaver hired as the head coach by the time people are even hearing this

Luke Jones  05:41

tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, we were talking about this four or five weeks ago when we were trying to project out, okay, when is Lamar Jackson coming back? What is the Ravens record going to be of when he comes back? What’s the schedule looking like? We were saying it then was Mike McDaniel even going to be the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. And as folks are listening to our conversation right now. Who knows? I mean, he might not be as they’re listening, but just, I mean, you see why that team was two and six and yes, the Ravens were two and five going into Thursday night. But you could see a path, right? And to your point, yeah, you couldn’t really it wasn’t in focus yet. It was so far out where you say, Okay, if you get Lamar Jackson back, if you get roquan Smith back, if you get chanobia Woozi a and go down the list of all the different Patrick Ricard, all the different guys they were missing, you could still see the path, but you have to go do it right. I mean, we talked about this in the aftermath of the Bears game where, okay, you won a game with with Tyler Huntley as your quarterback. Great. The idea that if Lamar Jackson is going to miss three games, if you had told me that in August, that Lamar is going to have a three game injury, you know, depending on who they’re playing, I’ll probably begrudgingly take one and two, right? And knowing that they played two teams that were playoff teams a year ago in two of those three games. So, you know, all things being equal with everything that they’ve gone through. You know, I’m not saying anyone should be doing cartwheels or that everything is perfect and they’re going to be fine the rest of the way. They’ve got to go out and do it. They’ve got to stay healthy. One of the great things about Thursday nights game, in addition to the win was it seems like they got out of it. Okay? Ronnie Stanley, they kept they took him off the field for the final drive. They said that was just precautionary, just, you know, just to get him off his feet, you know, after he first time he’s played a whole game,

Nestor Aparicio  07:33

Derek Henry was out there. Lamar was getting sacked late in the game. So, I mean, it’s not like they’re cheating. These guys like China dolls at this point, certainly not in this season. But you know, you are taken aback when Lamar is out there with a three touchdown lead and getting sacked. I mean, that that’s always a little weird to me. But you know, and he’s, he’s everything for them, right? I mean, with them, they win. Without him, they can’t win, obviously. And the brightest of bright spot of all of it is, I’ll go back to the beginning, a healthy, upright Lamar. Lamar taking off. Lamar having having some cutting ability. Lamar having 10 days off now. And you know, he mentioned his own rust, and I think that’s to be expected. He hasn’t run a practice out there in a month, right?

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Luke Jones  08:18

No question, no question. And I mean, you look at his final rushing totals, five, five carries for 14 yards. But, I mean, it might have been the biggest play of the game. What was his scramble on? What was the third and six? He scrambles for 13 yards on that first series coming out of halftime at that point. I mean, that game could have gone either way, right? I mean, at least on page. You know, when you looked at it on paper, when you looked at the fact that, okay, the ravens are up 14 six at halftime, but a couple plays here or there. I mean, that bogus call that went to ravens way that wiped out the long completion for Miami. I mean, that could have been a way different first half. And if the Ravens go three and out there right off the bat. I mean, that’s their fifth three and out in a little over a half of football and who knows how the dolphins are feeling at that point in time. I mean, you know, this is a team. It’s wild, and we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but it’s crazy to think that these two teams, less than two calendar years ago, were meeting in week 17 in Baltimore with the number one seed on the line, and to see and obviously, Miami’s fall has been dramatic, because, I mean, it started last year for them, but to see them be where they are right now, and the Ravens record wise being two and five going into that game. I mean, it’s certainly jarring.

Nestor Aparicio  09:36

But dolphins are a little bit like the Orioles right on the top and hitting the bottom very, very quickly, right? I mean, McDaniel getting canned is on top of Brandon high getting canned because he was the young whippersnapper two, three years ago. He was what you wanted. He was what Ravens fans want us to get rid of hardball and bring us a younger guy, right? He was that guy. And certainly this last month. Screaming at players, sort of this befuddled look like they keep showing the owner up in the in the owner’s box, the whole deal. You know the witch. I know it’s Halloween. The Witches are out for him. You know they’re ready to hang him.

Luke Jones  10:14

No question. I mean, and again, it’s it just feels like a matter of when it’s inevitable, whether he’s going to make it through this week or the next couple days or the next few or if they just decide we’re not firing our coach, we’re just going

Nestor Aparicio  10:27

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to play well, what’d you think of two? Because that’s really the story. Because it’s the same thing. If Lamar stinks, John stinks, right? Lamar is hurt, John’s hurt. That’s kind of how, you know, Kyle bowlers don’t Brian Billick loses his job. You know, it’s kind of, you’re tied to that. So part of that is, how do you feel about tua?

Luke Jones  10:47

I mean, I just, I don’t think he’s good enough. I mean, for now, here’s the difference. It’s one thing to talk about what tool was a few years ago, and obviously there’s concussion concerns with him, but he’s making

Speaker 1  10:59

a lot of money. He also had a lot of weapons too, though he did,

Luke Jones  11:02

you know, Tyree kills out for the year their running game, while they popped some runs against the Ravens early in this game. But overall, the running game was not much of a factor. I think he needs that, right? I mean, you’re seeing the difference of what Lamar Jackson is, or Josh Allen or Patrick mahomes or Joe burrow when he’s healthy, right? I mean, you Jayden Daniels, you know, when he’s healthy, but, but even Jaden Daniels is an example of someone who, you know, supporting cast hasn’t been as good for him. And you see how, how it works. There are very few. The

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Nestor Aparicio  11:35

NFC Championship game was a long, long time ago for them, right? I mean, but

Luke Jones  11:39

that’s, that’s most quarterbacks in this league, though, there are so few that can really, truly overcome and make up for deficiencies. I mean, we’re still seeing it with the Ravens. I still don’t feel great about this offensive line in a big picture sense, whatsoever. I mean, and for me, it, you know, the pass protection is one thing. They can’t run the ball until, you know, they ran the ball when it was 28 to six. Well, they ran the ball because the dolphins kind of quit. Let’s be and look, I mean, they’re even still executed, but you need to be able to do that when it’s a game neutral situation. And we’re continuing to see that this offensive line just not physical enough. I think what you need to see them do more of and I feel like they’re slowly but surely transitioning into that a little more. If you’ve noticed these last couple of weeks, they’re not leaning into Justice Hill coming on the field on second down and third down quite as much. There were plenty of second and second and eight, second and 10, where they kept Derrick Henry on the field and and it wasn’t even that Derek Henry was running the ball in those situations. But you’re trying to break tendencies right. I think where the Ravens ran into trouble was, I think they got very predictable in their personnel groupings and everything. And I think you’re seeing them try to change that up a little bit, and to your point, getting the tight ends more involved. I mean, this was far and away, the best game Isaiah likely he’s had all year. I mean, he more than he more than doubled his receiving yardage total for the season on that first big catch that he had. Mark

Nestor Aparicio  13:07

Andrews did so good that he actually spoke to the media after the game. So you know, he had a hell of a day, two catches, two touchdowns. Big, big day, big road trip for him, right?

Luke Jones  13:16

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Charlie Kohler with a touchdown for a second straight week. But I think they’re clearly still searching for it with their offensive line, but that’s the difference with Lamar Jackson out there, compared to Cooper rush. And give Tyler Huntley credit, he played very, very well, but if Tyler Huntley is playing week after week after week, that offensive line is going to be far more detrimental for

Speaker 2  13:36

him, then far more exposed, sure, for

Luke Jones  13:40

Lamar Jackson, look, Lamar will have time. And we saw it early in the season, times where the offensive line playing poorly was was troubling Lamar, right? I mean, we’re seeing him not trusting the coverage, or not trusting the protection, or whatever he was seeing out there. We saw that big time late in that Detroit game. Oh,

Nestor Aparicio  13:59

well, just getting sacked, Anytime he’s getting sacked, that’s the issue, right? That as well as wide receivers and and tight ends being covered, right? I mean, when he’s getting sacked out of effort, that’s got to be on the offensive line. I mean, it’s just not good enough.

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Luke Jones  14:14

Yeah, it is and, but there’s also times and where Lamar has got to get rid of the ball more quickly. I mean, one thing that I I talked about, you know, coming out of the Chicago game was some of the quick game elements that they used, as far as Tyler Huntley getting the ball out quickly and throwing and, you know, two two steps, and boom, it’s out, or shotgun in two seconds, it’s out. Is I wanted to see them do that a little more with Lamar Jackson, because I think this is not an offensive line that, if they’re going to be in true pass sets, you know, third and long, second and long. This is not the kind of offensive line that’s going to hold up well. I mean, even good offensive lines don’t do great when it’s third and long, but when you’re talking about a shaky offensive line, you’ve got to stay out of those situations. So the offensive line remains a work in progress. Big. Time, but

Nestor Aparicio  15:02

you don’t get them beaten against bad teams, against good teams. Gonna say, Yeah, against good teams.

Luke Jones  15:08

The difference is right now with the schedule that they have, and believe me, this sounds like I’m damning them with praise, it’s not. But take advantage of the fact that you have the schedule that is in front of you right now to stack some wins to get back to 500 and hopefully along the way, you discover some more answers, right? You find some more consistency.

Nestor Aparicio  15:32

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A great example that right for

Luke Jones  15:36

Well, I was talking about the offense, but yeah, but Sure, but just

Nestor Aparicio  15:39

something that is, is a market improvement in personnel. And Lamar was case one on right of course, your upgrade. But I don’t know where these upgrades are coming from. I guess is what I’m saying.

Luke Jones  15:51

And I think a lot of it just has to do with, you know, what personnel group brings? Are you running? What formations are you running? I think I would very much like to see them try to run out of more spread formations. You know whether you’re talking three wide receivers, four wide receivers, and that sounds counterintuitive, but I just think they’re so accustomed to running heavy right when you have Ricard out there, when you’re running 12 personnel, and you have two tight ends out there, and it’s just not working for them right now because their offensive line is not physical enough, so it ends up just being so much traffic at the line of scrimmage, so many bodies, that it’s really, it’s really making it for a struggle for Derek Henry to get going now doesn’t mean that you won’t get back to that, but I’d like to see them spread things out a little more and you can still run the ball. And when you spread out a defense, they can’t have eight in the box if you have four wide but you can still run in those situations. I don’t think

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Nestor Aparicio  16:47

they use the RPO nearly as well as they’ve used it previous years. I don’t think they’ve really maneuvered that with Derek Henry, where you have linebackers and safeties coming up and defensive linemen who aren’t overwhelmed, maybe the way they used to be when Marshall yonda was around here, but the decision making of who’s got the ball and which direction are my hips going to go in. And there was something about Lamar, especially lamar’s Running ability, that you say five carries, 14 yards. One was for 13 yards. He’s getting sacked. He’s getting older. And I think we talk about that all the time too, from an injury standpoint. But that thing where Lamar is going to run eight to 10 times a game and might put up a 60, a 7080, yards a week, might put up a 32 yard scamper when they need it, at a point that feels gone to me, for now, for now. I mean, I haven’t seen it enough this year to feel confident in but, but that confusion of, is Derrick Henry going that way, or is Lamar going that way, or is Lamar going to eat the ball and throw it over our heads? Right? I mean, because you could always fake the handoff too, that’s called play action. They rarely do that, you know. So there’s a lot of things that I think that they could do creatively, but all of it involves Lamar being upright, and all of it involves Derek Henry being upright, and I’m already giving you the fact that I don’t think the offensive line is going to be very good. So what are some other things you can do trick them, you know? And they have the ability to do that because they have this quarterback that you if you just ran him out once a quarter in an RPO, they’d have to stay honest on that. Now they they’re practicing it all the time. But in principle, other than the run you saw with Jackson early in the second

Luke Jones  18:34

half, and that was a scramble, yeah, I mean, right, yeah. And look, they weren’t a lot of design runs in his first game back. Nor should they have, right? I mean, they didn’t need to. They won the game by three touchdowns without Lamar 100% but, but that’s that’s obviously, look, it’s been part of what they’ve done every year of his career. Now, is it going to be where he’s running, doing that 18 times a game? I doubt it. But if it comes down to a game you absolutely have to win, and he’s healthy and he has the ability ability to do it, then he needs to do it right. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  19:07

their best chance to win in Kansas City or Buffalo in January, if they get there as a nine and eight or 10 and 17, and I know they’re 51% or whatever the numbers are at this point. Go bet on it if you want. But when they get there, that’s when that stuff has to happen. That’s what they’ve lost to these teams, all of them. But quite frankly, if the lions, if they get to the Super Bowl, the Rams, like they in order to stack games and stack wins, Lamar has got to be effective as a runner for me. And that sounds very crazy from where I was eight years ago, where I didn’t want him running, but I don’t think they can beat good teams. They’re like the Tennessee Titans with Derrick Henry, if they’re not using him in that way. And he throws the ball better than any of the Titans quarterbacks did. But I’m just saying the the optimal use of him, and when this thing was really going good at points last year, was he’s not just a threat. Head, and something you practice to run the ball, he embarrasses you once or twice, and then it’s in your head the whole game. Yeah,

Luke Jones  20:06

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of course. And again, I I fully expect that to be there as now he’s going to have 10 days to, you know, see how the hamstrings feeling. You know that? I’m sure he’ll be a little bit sore, just in a general sense, because it’s his first time playing in a real game in over a month. First time he’s been hit in over a month. But, yeah, I mean that that’s going to be a part of it. But like I said, I I think they, they do need to change things up a little bit in terms of they’ve been so accustomed to the heavy personnel, and it’s worked so well. I mean, going back to lamar’s rookie year, and obviously it didn’t look the same year after year after year, but it was still those same principles. But I really think for this team to get their running game going when it’s a what like in the first half, right? When it’s a still a game, not when they’re just protecting a lead like they were, I think they need to lean into more wide receivers on the field. Force the defense to spread out. Defense can’t stack the box. If you’re in a four wide receiver set. And I think that that could be something that could be part of the equation, but I mean three or four touchdowns, right? And, like I said, their offense came alive in that third quarter, the way that it needed to. And some quick passes, obviously likely, you know, with some big catches. They get the big chunk plate as a flowers, you know. So, I mean, that was great to see. I mean, there were plenty of positives. I just think, you know, you know what? When we’re looking at this team at three and five, you feel so much better. But yeah, they still have some things that they’re going to have to get better with as they get deeper into the season. And knowing that, you know the goal is still not just to qualify for the playoffs. And then say, Good job guys, right? I mean, this team still, in a big picture sense, still has far bigger visions and goals for themselves, even after a one in five start, but winning

Nestor Aparicio  21:57

the division sitting there, dude, they have to go earn it. They’re gonna have to go beat Joe Flacco twice. They’re gonna have to beat Aaron Rodgers. They’re gonna do

Luke Jones  22:04

all that you need to go win two road games here still, right? I mean, you have three straight road games I’ve said to you, and I know, you know, I know you’ve talked about it a lot, as far as your confidence that they need to be seven, and you know that they’ll be seven and seven, I will challenge and continue to say they need to be better than seven and seven. If they’re seven and seven, I’m not loving their situation, because that means they’ve dropped a couple games that felt far more winnable along the that way. So, but it starts with these next four games, right? I mean, at Minnesota, at Cleveland, home against the Jets, home against the Bengals, right? No disrespect to the Bengals, I get it. It’s an AFC North team, but they’re playing at home, and the Bengals are going to be on a short week, right? And week, right, and the Bengals can’t stop anybody, anything. Look, I’m not saying that. This isn’t a prediction, but I would say anything less than you know. I would say three and one is the bare minimum there that you want to see, but think you’d really like to see them have a chance to win all four of those games. And if you’re doing that, then, boy, man, Thanksgiving is feeling great. You know what your record could be then. But they’ve got to be consistent, right? And they need to stay healthy, and they need to, you know, one thing that was really good about Thursday night’s game, and you saw the contrast, the number of times that the dolphins shot themselves in the foot in that first half. I mean, as we said, I mean, from a yardage standpoint, from a they’re off, their offense moved the ball more consistently than the Ravens did in that first half, except when they got into the red zone in the Ravens defense. And you know, this is where we can give the Ravens defense some love here, where, you know, they did a lot of bending, especially in the first half, but they came up with plays. I mean, elohiy Gilman gets the force fumble, and they got some stops inside the red zone, obviously, Miami with some back breaking penalties and things of that nature. But we have very clearly seen now we have a three week sample of this defense, even going back to the Rams game right which the defense was better in that game, even in defeat, this, this shift to the three safety alignments, using so much big nickel, Hamilton, playing the nickel, lining up at the edge, playing in the box, we have seen that raise the floor of this defense

Nestor Aparicio  24:13

immensely, as predicted. By the way. That’s why they made the deal, right? I mean, I, we were, I was, that was their prescription for fixing this, right? And

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Luke Jones  24:22

I was talking about needing a third safety from the moment our Darius Washington went down. So, you

Nestor Aparicio  24:27

know, take a break. We’ll come back. We’ll talk defense. Luke is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke, of course, Luke at W nst.net, if you want to reach him, we’re out on social media. He is Baltimore, Luke. We have a long week. Gonna be doing two Maryland crab cake tours next week, brought to you by the Maryland lottery, in conjunction with our conjunction with our friends at GBMC and curio wellness, we’re going to be at Coco’s on Wednesday afternoon, all afternoon long, looking forward to seeing Marcel, looking forward to getting some coconut shrimp, even though I snuck some two weeks ago, as well as some that delicious cream of crab soup. Friday, we’re going to be at Pizza John’s in Essex. Got some good guests lined up for that as well. And that means crinkle cut fries and proper gravy for me, and a cheese steak with double provolone, because I’m all about it. So victory cheese steaks for everybody this week. Ravens off for a couple days, and then back on it next week, and then after it from Minnesota, two more road games ahead, and now three and five. And the favorite to win the AFC North. He is Luke, I’m Nestor. We’re W NSD. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, plenty more ravens to come in a long week, but a short week, but two wins, we’ll take it you.