The benching of Marcus Williams. The offensive line not holding up as well as hoped. The porous defense. The obvious misses and concerns with the kicker. It’s all resulted in a less-than-predicted 8-5 mark at a very-late bye week for the mostly-healthy Baltimore Ravens. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the many concerns and the team’s ability to rebound with an ambitious schedule of games in New York, hosting Pittsburgh and traveling to Houston on Christmas to kick start a playoff march that will put them on the road amidst hostility.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Ravens’ performance and issues leading into the bye week. They highlighted the team’s struggles with special teams, offensive line consistency, and the benching of Marcus Williams. Jones noted that the defense has improved slightly, allowing only one touchdown pass in the last three games. They also discussed the potential impact of injuries to key players like Kyle Hamilton and Van Noy. Aparicio expressed concerns about the team’s ability to win three consecutive playoff games, emphasizing the need for improvements in offensive line play and special teams. They also touched on the media’s limited access to players post-game, which has been a point of contention.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Ravens bye week, Eagles loss, Justin Tucker issues, Marcus Williams benched, offensive line concerns, defensive improvements, Kyle Hamilton injury, Derek Henry signing, playoff challenges, special teams struggles, John Harbaugh press conference, fan reaction, Super Bowl hopes, crab cake tour
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. We are positively into the bye week here. Um, ravens got kicked around on Sunday by the Eagles. We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to celebrate the holidays and eggnog. I’m having my first official spiked eggnog on Wednesday afternoon at Coco’s pub, established in 1985 and still rocking. I mean, just great crab cakes. They shipped them there. We’re going to be hanging out on Wednesday at Cocos all the brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. We’ll have the Raven scratch offs to give away. Also friends of Jiffy Lube multi care, who power Luke up back and forth to Owings Mills and our 26th anniversary, also still very much in progress with oysters and all that, brought to you by friends at Curia wellness and foreign daughter, as well as Liberty pure solutions. One 800 clean water, and my water is very clean. I have well water. And they come here. They have all these chemicals and salt water is delicious. My skin’s nice, feels nice in the shower. Liberty, pure solutions. They do a great job for us. Lucas here, and we’ve talked at length, almost an hour we did on Justin Tucker and whatever, few options, if there are any, I guess there’s unlimited options. None of them better than where they are at this point, it’s going to be a long week out, knowing mills in, uh, self scouting, amongst other things. And then just the preparation of, yeah, the giants are just going to roll the ball at it Met Life. Sure they are. Um, wake me with that game’s got eight minutes left to go, and it’s a one score game, right? Because that’s the league. And then the short rest Pittsburgh, and then shorter rest Christmas in Houston, and just where the confidence level for the team is right now. Luke Jones joins us now. We are going to dive into a lot of this. We talked a little bit about the game, and then a lot about Justin Tucker, in a general sense, where they are in the cosmos, where other teams are emerging or failing or flailing, and I don’t know you can even look outside of yourself, Luke, because, as you and I have pointed out, and we were not going to sit here and take phone calls 40 hours this week and next week before they play again like we used to in the old days. And maybe the baseball team will make news and the Terps are playing this whatever. You know, there’s other things going on, including my crabcake tours this week, but out in Owings Mills this week, where things aren’t happening, the kicking things on fire. The offense isn’t as good as it should be, right? Bateman, injury, whatever. And the defense has just really underperformed. And I don’t know whether Marcus Williams, you could talk about a DAFI away not getting snaps. You could talk about van Noy being on the bench. You could talk about Clowney not being here anymore, and and and Patrick queen and all the departed souls from last year, and Mike McDonald and Anthony Weaver and all of that, their soul searching at eight and five right now, right like, this is a weird time. It’s a weird late buy. It’s going to start fast and they’re going to have more football than they know what to do with over 11 days once this thing gets going again next week and they can’t trust their kicker.
Luke Jones 03:11
Yeah. I mean, they they certainly have problems they need to figure out. And it speaks to where the standard is for the defense at this point. Look, I’m guilty of this as much as anyone that how they performed on Sunday. And let’s keep in mind, this was a 1412, game, until what about eight minutes to go? So you look at it through that lens, and I’ll continue to say, offense, special teams, defense, what was the least of their problems on Sunday? I put the defense third, right? You know, I put them behind the special teams and the offense in terms of how I’m divvying up the blame, right? But that doesn’t mean it was perfect, and that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their issues. I mean, we’ve talked about the past defense for quite a long time, right? All season. And you look at the past defense, I mean, albeit two of the games they’ve lost, but you look at the fact that, think about what we were talking about in terms of where they were from a touchdown passes allowed standpoint. I mean, they’ve allowed, I think, one touchdown pass in the last three games, you know. So they’ve made progress there. Part of that progress has been benching your $17 million safety us one of the highest cap numbers on the team, who was a healthy scratch on Sunday, and we barely batted an eyelash about that. Because one, he hasn’t been playing it too. He has no presence on special teams. So
Nestor Aparicio 04:37
three, they own the media, and other than us talking about how much money they wasted on him, and maybe over at the fan of somebody calls in about asked about a lot Nestor. I mean, I don’t know that they’ve been that they’ve been rugged on the Marcus Williams thing as bad they’ve just made him disappear.
Luke Jones 04:54
8They bet him. I mean, I’m not sure what else there is to say about it at this point, they bet. What do you want me to add? I’ll
Nestor Aparicio 04:59
ask John Hart. All about them. If you want, what do you want to ask now, oh, ask. But that’s my point. They’ve been asked about that. You know, I think in their totality of all of if they don’t win the Super Bowl, and I’m not gonna even assume that they’re not going to win the Super Bowl, because they can still win the Super Bowl. And, you know, I mean, I would sit here and say that, you know, right? Weeks, no, I’m not that guy. But if they don’t win the Super Bowl, and you evaluate the season, Marcus Williams, we haven’t talked enough about him, you know what I mean. And I would also say he’s really been a a guy unlike Chris Davis who came under, or even Glenn Davis before him, or I’m thinking of people that came under, even Earl Thomas, who brought his own microscope with his off the field antics, but in a jet and really was a decorated player. I mean, Earl Thomas came here as Super Bowl champion. He still talked about as a Hall of Fame possibility, right? Like he’s that kind of caliber of player. Brian McKinney is probably that caliber of player as well as Matt Burke, and you know, a bunch of guys, Anquan Boldin, guys that came in here, and all those guys got paid a lot of money and made impact. Marcus Williams made more money than any of them, you know, and in the big picture, he’s going to skate. I don’t even know what he looks like. I never spoke to him. I like, I don’t think fans knew anything about him, but that’s a huge boo boo on the salary cap, you know, against what this could be and what it could have been, and where they’re getting incredible value out of the Kyle Hamilton’s that we talk so much about. They’re good players. We don’t talk about the guys they’re paying that aren’t playing well, sure,
Luke Jones 06:34
well, and in fairness, there generally haven’t been that many of those guys over the years. But, you know, we, I, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. I mean, safety’s been a position where dipping their toes in the free agency, okay? Eric Weddle, thumbs up on that one. Tony Jefferson, value wise, no. Earl Thomas, I mean, got cut because he tried. He took a swing at Chuck Clark, you know, in the middle of a practice, and had all kinds of issues, even in his one full season with the Ravens. You know, again, I want to be very clear about this, Marcus Williams was not a value concern the first two years because of how he performed or played, the injuries were an issue. He hadn’t really been injured in New Orleans, so I don’t know how you know the first two years, I chalk up more to rotten lock and some unforeseen injuries that just hurt, because availability is first, and lack of availability hurts no matter who it is. This year, I’ll be totally honest with you, I didn’t see no one saw Marcus Williams being this bad this year, to the point where he is now a healthy scratch despite having one of the highest cap numbers on the team. So look, they’ve inserted our Darius Washington into the lineup. For him, he’s been better than Marcus Williams. It’s very low bar, albeit. And they have moved Kyle Hamilton to more of a deep safety spot, which, let me be very clear, Kyle Hamilton will make an impact, and is good wherever he plays however. There has been an element to you love having him closer to the line of scrimmage, and when you have a pass rush that isn’t as consistent, and you can line him up on the edge and rush, or have him, you know, blitz or or play the slot, help out and run support, all those different things, which he still does some of that. And I’m not saying he’s just playing two safety, and that’s all it is, but he’s back there more. There is a hidden cost to that, so it absolutely has zapped upside to their defense, defense, but their past defense had been so bad that they had to raise the floor, and they’ve been able to do that the last three weeks now. How that goes the rest of the year, we’re gonna see. But,
Nestor Aparicio 08:48
and with Kyle Hamilton having a bad shoulder, keeping him off the line of scrimmage, probably isn’t a bad idea. Yeah, she leads with his body. He’s a physical man.
8Luke Jones 08:58
Well and, and I assume that play, and they may have even said it on the telecast with the sideline reporter. Of course, I’m in the press box and not listening to the television broadcast during the game. I assume that was a stinger, but because he was a
Nestor Aparicio 09:12
concussion protocol that, yeah, yeah, well, he went down. It was clear. Left arm went numb or shot down, and then he apparently they, I saw this on on X or blue sky, spiked his helmet. Spiked his helmet. Yeah, he
Luke Jones 09:31
was ticked off. You could tell he was frustrated in pain. I mean, guy’s tough. He doesn’t like leave the game, you know, and
Nestor Aparicio 09:36
8he’s came back in five minutes later. I’m right. He didn’t happen to him. What shot give him.
Luke Jones 09:41
I don’t think he even gave, you know, I don’t think he even gave up. I don’t think he missed a snap, you know, looking at the game book, he didn’t miss a snap. So, but so, so I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be something that he deals with, you know, indefinitely. I mean, we’ll see certainly, we know the BI week’s a good time for him because he had the ankle. If. Weeks back. I mean, he’s, he’s dealt with some things. Even going back to training camp, Hamilton’s been banged up. But, you know, again, going back to the Marcus Williams, Hamilton, the safety position collectively, I mean, Eddie Jackson’s gone. They released him. So that has not worked out whatsoever. And you know, they took on so much water there. They seem to have stabilized that, albeit with some sacrificing of Hamilton playing in the box quite as often as you’d like him to ideally. But you know, then, okay, Kyle van Noy, John Harbaugh, said last Friday that he’s not dealing with a serious injury, but he missed the game and he was dealt with, you know, listed with a neck and a hamstring issue, you know, you got to get him right away. To me, is really interesting. I mean, that’s, you know, we’ll see what John Harbaugh has to say about it. But he absolutely played a, a very low number of snaps. I mean, they had 56 defensive snaps, and OA played 15. And And now, could there have been an early game injury that he was kind of playing through, but if you think back to the Barclay touchdown, I think it’s three plays before that was the third and seven conversion to Goddard, go look at OA going up against Jordan mulatta. The Eagles left tackle. Mulatta embarrassed him. I mean, that was an embarrassing rep for adopt a OA, who has had a pretty good season. I mean, he has a career high in sacks. You know, he’s had a solid season. Is, is he the superstar that people hoped he would become? No, but he’s been solid. But I don’t know if he was hurt or just because of how run heavy the script was for Philadelphia as the game went on and they thought, hey, we’re going to just put Malik Harrison and tavius Robinson, you know, guys that set up, you know, more consistent edge than away, but, but him playing so little, coupled with the fact that van Noy was inactive, begs some questions. At the very least, they probably
Nestor Aparicio 11:55
didn’t like him in there against Barkley. Then, right? I mean, in the gym. I
Luke Jones 11:59
mean, like, like I said, whether it was like, they were going to run, and they did, they did, they didn’t want that. Or, like I said, he may have tweaked a hamstring or an ankle or something like that in the first quarter, and he was just trying to play through it, right? I mean, there that happens as well. I mean, Van Noy was a perfect example of that last week. You know, it wasn’t like he got hurt and then was out for the game. He was on the field on, you know, the last two drives of the game. I’ll be at just a couple plays here and there. So, so I don’t know if it was that or was it a coaching decision. I don’t know. So, you know, you look at the defense, I feel better about the defense collectively than I did a month ago. That doesn’t mean I necessarily feel great about it across the board, the offense collectively. I still have a reasonably high level of confidence. However you know the guard play, I think you know. And I saw a few people make mention of this, as far as some, you know ravens Twitter, you know some pundits or people who are Film Junkies, you know, Patrick McCary and Daniel Fauci, and we’ve talked about them, and again, we even gave those guys flowers last week. But this was another example of going up against a really, really good defensive line, and guys kind of get they’re overwhelmed when they go up against the tough the Top competition. You know, you got to be able to hold your own, and more often than not, when they face the the best of the best defensive lines, those guys have struggled. So you know, how does that translate to January, where you’re going up against really good fronts and the best of the best? I mean, not that every playoff team has a great defensive line, but most of them do. You know, most of them do have good defensive lines, at the very least. So Pittsburgh, buffalo,
8Nestor Aparicio 13:41
Kansas City, yeah, because that’s exactly they’re going to see that those are the teams and buffalo. They matched up really well. Here.
Luke Jones 13:48
They did very well.
Nestor Aparicio 13:49
Sure it was a fair fight Pittsburgh. Going to see them again. So like to think that any one of them on the road, that the team could, that this team could go win and Tucker get hit a kick, and things can go perfect, and they can, and they can have Derek Henry can run them over all night long, and zay flowers in a realm, and Mark Andrews can go up in the air and and somebody could strip a ball, you know, the peanut strip, and, like all of that stuff, right? I have a hard time believing they’re going to do that four times in a row in January as comprised, because I don’t think they’re as good as they are on their best day. You know what? I mean, I don’t. And And again, this is five losses in this is start good, you know, win a couple, beat bad teams, lose the bad teams. They lost two bad teams. I mean, lost the Raiders lost. So like the body of work here, despite the fact that Tony Romo has John Harbaugh going to the the Hall of greatness, and Eric the cost is the greatest of this, and Lamar is the greatest of that the body of this work, for all of what this has been this year, as you and I sit here and try to fumigate through it now not maybe we’re. Flacco planking right now, and maybe there is a parade. Maybe there is, but this bye week, in this period of time for you and I to talk about problems all over the field, right? I mean, their offense can be great, but to your point, their offensive lines not great. Certain weeks, it can be functional. It can, you know, and which
Luke Jones 15:20
8is good even, right? I mean, it’s been very good at times, but it’s, it’s inconsistent, and when you go up against those tougher fronts to your to your point, you know what, what Pittsburgh throws it at you? You know what Kansas City can throw at you with Chris Jones, even though, even though,
Nestor Aparicio 15:35
low key the
Luke Jones 15:36
Chiefs defense has actually taken a step back here recently. You know, I
Nestor Aparicio 15:39
don’t want to go too much good about the Chiefs right now. They’re only the third best team. It’s all eagles and lions and lions.
815:47
They’ve only lost once, but they’re so sure, but they’re suspect. Yeah, they are, but they were, but they were suspect last year, and then we went to Super Bowl in December, sure, no and field advantage. That’s also the lesson for
Luke Jones 16:01
the Ravens here, and that’s where you know all is not lost. I still think this is a good football team, I do, but where I am concerned, and this is what I’m working on right now at Baltimore positive.com and we spent a whole segment talking about Justin Tucker, but Justin Tucker and I do look at the interior of the offensive line, not, not Linder bomb. Linder bombs really good. You know, he’s one of the best centers in the league. But McCary, with the penalties, even though that wasn’t the issue as much on Sunday, that has been an issue even when he’s played well, the penalties, those hurt, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s really hurt their offensive operation at times. Are these penalties, cost of possession period. And FAU le just, you know, he’s not consistent enough. Where I look at this and say, Are you going to be able to do it three times in a row on the potentially all three on the road, the way it’s shaping up right now, just to get to the Super Bowl, you know, let, let’s look at the Ravens through the lens of get to the Super Bowl, and then you worry about whatever the matchup is, whether it’s a rematch with the Eagles or, you know, whatever. But to do that, you know, are you going to have enough consistency out of your offensive line? So I kind of look at those as the two big ones right now, and that’s fully acknowledging this isn’t an elite defense. There are still things about the defense that I have concerns about, even if it’s looked better the last three weeks or so, but I look at those two problems, specifically Justin Tucker and their interior offensive line. And where, where my worry is, what’s the fix there? You know, in Justin Tucker’s case, you hope that something clicks in or there’s a, you know, some kind of revelatory moment for him where he just says, Hey, you know, I’m Justin Tucker. You know what’s going on here? And then he’s fine moving forward. But with the with the offensive line, you know, do you revisit Voorhees? Do you revisit Ben Cleveland? Do you keep going with these guys and just hope that they continue to get better, more consistent? I don’t know but, but those are pretty important factors, and this is why, and and this is where I’ll go back, and I’m not look this isn’t to say who was right, who was wrong, any of this, because Derek Henry’s had a great year, right? Great Year. But one of the things that we talked about at the time for the ravens to spend that money on a running back, whether it’s Derek Henry or whoever you would have brought in. We did talk about the fact that they let Kevin Zeitler go, and Kevin Zeitler was not, was not going to command a four year extension or anything like that. I mean, look at what he ended up signing with the lions. I’m guessing, all things being equal, the Ravens could have gotten him for something comparable to that 6 million. Maybe was that number. I mean, I think there are incentives built in there. I mean, I can look at it, but
Nestor Aparicio 18:43
it was in that range of not. It wasn’t a ten million deal, yes, but Derek Henry’s deal, yeah,
Luke Jones 18:49
8but, but the point with that was they decided to go so young with their offensive line, and look the Ronnie Stanley bounce back year. Did happen? Ronnie Stanley, he’s not an all pro left tackle, let’s be clear about that. He’s not that guy anymore, but he’s been markedly better than he was a year ago, and more available, and certainly someone that you can depend on and say is and is on that offensive line. But when you go with two brand new guards and a rookie right tackle, and look, I still think Rosengarten is going to end up being a good player, but he’s a rookie, and he has his ups and downs, but you know that that’s where I look at that and and, you know, the conversation that the talking point back in March was, you could see moving on from Zeitler or Morgan Moses, but they moved on from both. And then, you know, I mean, I was less moved about John Simpson. I John Simpson was a below average starter. You know, he was fine for the Ravens last year, but, but that’s what Fauci is right now, right? And that but, but, you know, with McCary, if he cut out the penalties, you’d feel better about it. And at times, he those guys. I want to, I want to be clear to start. Fact, though, but
Nestor Aparicio 20:00
carries a back plan, yeah, he’s
Luke Jones 20:01
been there six man, right? I mean that they started the year like that, right? I mean that, okay, they have McCarry playing right tackle to start the year, but they can say
Nestor Aparicio 20:09
at the beginning, if we had four, he’s we won’t need McCary, and that’ll be good. But if McCary plays, that’s not a great thing. That’s not playing. So they’re already not planning on Plan A Right? I mean, just the fact that he has been their starter is not something that you and I thought to be a good idea all of the off season. And we, ma’am, we didn’t talk about anything but the offensive line most of the offseason really sure.
8Luke Jones 20:34
I mean, we talked about McCarry as being the backup plan. And again, it’s not a he has been horrendous. Or, you know, any ballet hasn’t been horrendous, you know, when you look at it in its totality, but it’s been up and down. And in some of these games where you’re going up against teams that have defensive lines that can bully you a little bit more, that’s where it’s been lacking, and that’s where it’s hurt their operation. And, you know, you look at some of these plays, I mean, look, we talked about this. I don’t think Lamar Jackson played a very good game on Sunday. He wasn’t awful by any means, but he wasn’t very good. But go, look at some of these plays and and sometimes you wonder, why does he take the deep drop that he does? Go look at how the interior offensive line is getting pushed back. I mean, that’s not ideal, and just for what it’s worth. And again, pro football focus is not the end all be all. Kevin Zeitler right now third in their grading among qualified guards, and his deal with Detroit was, let me look at it, a one year, $6 million contract. So look, it’s not this isn’t second guessing, because people were questioning it at the time. It was just, it was always a lot of change at once for the offensive line, it’s held together pretty well for stretches. But when you go up against the best of the best, which, again, this is all about January, right? This isn’t about having the highest ranked offense or the best team in DVO way, or any or MVPs or Pro Bowls. It’s about January, and you’re going up against the best of the best in January and two of the last three weeks now. Granted, hey, they did the job against the chargers, and the Chargers are going to be in the playoffs, right? So let’s not, I don’t want to discredit when they win, but two of the last three weeks, we’ve kind of seen them go up against tough fronts, and the offensive line hasn’t been up to the task. And that’s where you look at the operation across the board and say, you know, you look at it, am I expecting changes there on the bye week, probably not because we haven’t seen them to this point. They’ve told you how they feel about Voorhees and Ben Cleveland to this point in the season, right? They’ve told you for three years how they felt about how they feel about Ben Cleveland. So I don’t think that’s changing now, but I look at the incumbents and you know, that’s where I have concern again. No problem making
Nestor Aparicio 23:02
changes. Look at that. We just talked about the safety position. They had no problem. Marcus Williams, you know, Eddie Jackson’s not getting it’s not happening. We’ll take the little guy and play him, because he’s going to get out there and be where he’s supposed to be, right and make plans. And so they’re not whatever their feelings are for Justin Tucker, or whatever their feelings are, in a general sense, about these players. They moved on from Zeitler and you and I didn’t love that. I mean, I, you know, I think, as we sat here in the off season last year, we thought he’s still an IS NOT A might be. And I would say this even about Morgan Moses as being a guy that showed up and was going to play 1516, games and leave McCarry on the bench, not make McCary a bright light, 60 snap starter over dozen weeks in a row that we would have said this would not be their best look. If this were the case, this was this was not ideal. This is not the way it was drawn up. And you and I, we don’t disagree with the cost of all that often, but I think we would have been much more comfortable. We would have talked less about the offensive line in the off season if they were to sign Zeitler, right and
Luke Jones 24:12
and again, this was what my argument for not being over the moon about the Derrick Henry signing. This is what it was based on. It wasn’t that I did. I love Derrick Henry. I love watching Derek Henry. He’s but he’s had a great year.
Nestor Aparicio 24:24
8You’re saying they traded Henry for Zeitler and Moses. I mean, that’s a simplistic way of looking at it, but there’s, yeah, whatever, whatever pre, whatever precious cap dollars you have, or whatever you’re
Luke Jones 24:33
willing to do with your cap is always going to come at the expense of something else, right? And look, I’m not even, I’m not saying definitively that they were wrong here. Derek Henry, second in the league and rushing. I’m not going to sit here and try to, like, complain about that, but, but it was always grounded in you’re doing that. So what, what is that going to mean for your offensive line? And look, Ballet’s had his moments. I. McCarry. I mean, you, you made, you made reference to, well, they benched Marcus. Marcus Williams is awful. I mean, these guys haven’t been awful. These guys haven’t been horrendous. But in the penalty standpoint, they have Well, well, across the board, they’ve been bad with penalties. I mean, all three phases have been guilty of that, but, but when they’ve had these elite matchups against really tough fronts. That’s where the it’s it’s struggled, it’s been a factor. And you know, again, how much of that is their protection, how much of that is Lamar need to get the ball out quicker, or in some cases, as his mom pointed out to him after the game, times where you need to just tuck it and run and not. You know, as much as we have talked about this evolution of Lamar Jackson playing from the pocket, does
Nestor Aparicio 25:42
not look to get out of the pocket and run as much well, but he’s got his eyes down, I mean, but they’re a lot of media, although we think he is. He can’t move out of the pocket and keep his eyes down the field and navigate trouble. And
Luke Jones 25:55
let’s also remember, and this is where I’ll stick up for Lamar on that front, those plays where, like he did against Hubbard, you know, like like he has done, where you see him running around for 15 seconds for every play like that. There are some ones where he’s going to end up taking a 15 yard loss on a sack, or get called for grounding because he tries to dirt the ball way too late, or so it in that way, it’s, it’s like Barry Sanders, right? Barry Sanders one of the all time great running backs, but also, go, look at the all time leaders in terms of runs for negative yardage. Barry Sanders is right up there, right? You know, in the way you think about a home run hitter who strikes out a lot there, there’s, there’s always the flip side to that. I remember the press conference with Brian Billick over at the Mexican restaurant where he made the case that Scott Mitchell operated in second and 12 and 14 and 16, because sometimes Barry Sanders went backwards. Sure, sure. So, so, so you have some of that. So look, it’s not to isolate one specific problem. It’s all of those things together. So you know that. But I again, I go back to interior offensive line. Justin Tucker, again, we don’t need to spend a 45 minute conversation on that, and we still haven’t, don’t know what they should really do, right? I mean, there don’t have the conviction as
8Nestor Aparicio 27:14
far as locker I didn’t ask you about that in that segment. You were in the locker room, and you know, you’re one guy. We used to have two or three guys in there. We used to get different ends of the locker room. I saw some. The one thing I will say, and this is my memo to Chad Steele this week, is now I’m just a fan at home. And the press conferences that come from the room when I hear Chad Steele come in and say, we’re going to do Lamar in the locker room, what that basically means is a middle finger to the fans that have tuned in 20 minutes after the game to do the post game thing that they’re not going to bring Lamar into that circumstance. I Tucker, obviously. So the podium is now, and imagine this, and I’ll say this out loud, not for your benefit, for anyone’s, but it’s a coward space the press conference, you know, like throwing people like me out, and now they they don’t even bring them into the press conferences to do what, for 30 years has been post game for me, which is hearing what lies they want to say which way John’s eyes move, an injury report some emotion, how it’s handled, and all of that. So I don’t know, but how was the locker room? I haven’t asked you that on the air or off the air. How was the locker room after because that was a bad loss going into why, and the kicker and the Philadelphia thing and the thick Fangio thing that I know plays bigger behind closed doors than fans care or think to know. But I know it’s a big deal. I know it’s really bad blood there. And just Philadelphia came in, I took their lunch money in front of 20,000 Screaming Eagles fans. I mean, I don’t know if my wife and I were down there waiting in traffic. It was 30 degrees out, and they lost, and fans are in the car waiting, you know, like doing post game and like all of that stuff, it’s a pretty bad loss. I mean, I fifth loss at this time of the year with a team that’s supposed to go to the Super Bowl. I mean, this that, I think that probably was a bad room. I would hope, I would
Luke Jones 29:11
think, I mean, it was certainly disappointing. I mean, bad law. I mean, Philadelphia is really good. So I don’t want to put in the bad loss that you’d say about the Cleveland game or the Las Vegas game, right? So, you know, semantics, though, but to answer your question, I mean, harbor didn’t take the podium till about 25 minutes after the game end. I sat here forever. I got this. That’s part of the problem, because, and look, if PR hears this, they might not like to, you know, guys can leave, right? I mean, unless you’re heading into the invitation
Nestor Aparicio 29:40
for them to leave, and the same gas lighting they gave me about taking my career away, it’s the same gas lighting they’ll give all the time because they lie pretty you know, like all of it is orchestrated, and it’s all orchestrated by John Harbaugh, so as much as I’ll give Chad Steele credit or blame, John runs the operation. As has been told to our faces by people who have worked for John for 15 years. So I would just say the 25 minutes, all of it from my sniffer from you being up in the little house, Kevin Byrne, press box up in the corner, and me watching it on TV and waiting for it on the internet. And it always comes to Facebook before it goes to their site this week. It did. I’m hanging on. It never came to Facebook. So like, literally, I’m out here as a fan who owns a radio station, who builds a business around this and makes a career around it, for better or worse. And I don’t know what their opera, their operation is. They got their fee, fees hurt. They got their ass kicked. Their kicker is in disarray, and the coach is taking 25 minutes to come into the press conference, and they call off the dogs on the rest of it. So I’m just that that’s what happened. Well, that’s all that’s true, and all of that is orchestrated so that they could hocus pocus this in Trumpian fashion, to make it all fumigate in some way. That’s why I think the Marcus Williams thing, like, it’s amazing that if this were in New York, Philadelphia, like a place where a guy making that much dough would just disappear, and it would be okay, they win a lot of games here. So, I mean, they, they have that going for them, but they, this is a bad loss. I mean, I I don’t know what else to say. I felt all of it was just a not bad in that they lost to the browns. I
Luke Jones 31:27
8mean, I think deflating. I think deflating, this is a real measurement
Nestor Aparicio 31:31
of whether we can win a championship or not, right? Look, I
Luke Jones 31:35
mean, you know, I mean Kansas City lost to the bills a couple weeks ago, right? I mean, if two good teams play, someone has to lose, right? So got their ass kicked, and they picked themselves up nicely, right? So, so it’s deflating, and but it’s not season ending. I think it’s disappointing, you know, but to finish up the conversation about that, you know, they ended up actually bringing Lamar back into the interview room, because honestly, from a media standpoint, we asked, like, look, you know what a post game locker room is like in terms of number of reporters, number of photogs, their you know, cameras, all that to try to have room for me. So try to have 40 people gather around Lamar Jackson in a locker room. Setting is absolutely impractical. So we asked to their credit, they put him, brought him back in. Now, I don’t know what the delay was about. Was he getting treatment? Did he just not want to talk? I don’t know again, but as far as the locker room, you can imagine when the head coach doesn’t take the the lectern, the podium, until 25 minutes after the game ends. It was, it was pretty cleaned out. You know, roquan Smith talked, Marlon Humphrey talked. There were a few players here and there that I did not get a chance to because I can only be in one place at one time. You know, Tucker talked, that was very early, and then, you know, so he talked, but a lot of guys didn’t talk. And, you know, it’s a disappointing loss. It’s no question about it, but, but yeah, they brought everybody’s
Nestor Aparicio 33:05
a hell of a winner. As I’ve written in both my books, everybody’s a hell of a winner. Every I learn. I learn about men, I learn about athletes, I learn about leadership when they lose. And I really learn the most about all of them when they threw me out three years ago, like just the fact that I’m not allowed to be in there because I’ve been discredited by Chad Steele. It’s disgraceful, and it’s disgraceful and it takes 25 minutes. It’s disgraceful that I’m sitting here watching this on TV. It’s disgraceful that they moved all of you up into the little box. It’s disgraceful that Kevin burns should want his name on a press box in a place where I’m not invited and I’m legitimate, as legitimate as anybody, as legitimate as you are, or as anybody is. And then I witness how they have their managing their loss and fatigue, from what standpoint, because they’re getting crushed across so drunk people on social media, eight o’clock at night. Like, I see what people really write. I see what people write on their own threads on Facebook, and I’m like, Oh, my God, they would ban me if I wrote write any. But again, the fan base and the fervor and the conversation on the streets, they’re always trying to manage that well that. And if they had a grown up like they did in Kevin Byrne a long time, there would be more of an organizational message other than sneak out the back door. You know, I got you covered. Sneak out the back door. The media doesn’t matter. The fans don’t matter. Nobody matters, Luke, that nobody matters like that’s the message, and I see that when they lose, and it’s what’s most disappointing to me, honestly about all of this isn’t even my own treatment, because I could be dead in the ditch at this point. Disappointing part for me seeing 25,000 Eagles fans come in and kind of take the stadium over, and our fans selling off all the tickets and and making money. And God bless them. And Lord knows, I lost enough money on PSLs and stuff. But I feel like the place being Philly South also sort of playing. Into it just not being a good day. And I’ll say this, if I’m writing proper rank three, or if you are, and they win the Super Bowl and beat the Eagles, and you and I, Vision plum that you know, vision that out last week. And I think even some fans thought these are two good teams. I wrote about this in my columnist, if they meet in the Super Bowl a I won’t be shocked. I mean, I’ll be a little shocked because, I mean, the Ravens have done some really amazing things. If they get back there, I mean, they they’re gonna have to navigate this road and do all the things that we’re talking about as they’re hanging their head a little bit here over two weeks, trying to figure out kicking, trying to figure out offensive line, trying to figure out schedule, all of that and how to win on the road. But I just found it to be really deflating. And I going into this by and this is where, as a reporter, as a reporter, you would have been in the John room that 25 minutes, I would have been at the door in the locker room, sniffing that out. You know that’s true, because that’s the way I always worked. It’s just the way I’ve worked since I’ve owned this business that this is they’ve done the fans at this credit by all of this the way they’ve handled it. But it’s also got my radar up as a locked out guy to say, all the money on the bench with Marcus Williams getting rid of Eddie Jackson, Tucker’s hanging head offensive lines not good enough. They’ve tried this thing with McCary and foul lately, and they’re, you know, it’s probably not good enough to go win three games in a row next month. And I would think that there’s, this is a tough two weeks for them. And I don’t say unprecedented, but given Super Bowl or bust, where you have them, the fact that Jim Nantz and Tony rabbit played the AFC Championship game here, they lost it. You know, when they come back from their set and they’re showing how pretty the stadium is. I just thought it some this is a moment of truth. And it might be a moment of truth for John’s future, too, to some degree, because if somehow they hiccup, and they lose to the Steelers, and they find themselves having to play to sort of even get in somehow like that, that five losses right now, to me, it it hasn’t been a great season, and it could have been, and it should have been, and it feels like and they have roquan and Mark, they have good player, Ronnie Stanley came back to life. Derek Henry’s been all that in a bag of donuts. The fact that they’re eight and fives really not good. I and I, that’s my ramble for the week, because you and I won’t get after it, but it’s all of it was disappointing the fans in the stadium, just all of it is disappointing to me to see where they are having to really have to fight uphill to write Purple Rain three in the next two months.
8Luke Jones 37:34
Yeah. I mean, look, they have to fight uphill from the standpoint of they’re not going to be the number one seed or the number two seed, I agree with that, but, you know, but they’ve also had some years where 13 games into the season, you know, they’re seven and six or six and seven, you know. I mean, they’ve, they’ve had years like that, too. Or they’re just barely trying to get in, you know, by the skin of their teeth, you know. So it’s not quite that. And as we talked about, you look at the landscape of the wild card picture in the AFC, I really don’t have, I mean, if we’re talking about them having being in a position to potentially not make it, then that’s a different that. That’s a different kind of it
Nestor Aparicio 38:15
means Anthony Richardson found the fountain of goodness, you know. And to your point, nobody’s coming and catching them, so they have that work in their
Luke Jones 38:22
rights. So you look at it through that lens, and it’s just like, how can you get better? And you know, everything you talked about in terms of, you know, the post game and all that I hear you I don’t even disagree. You know, fans selling that’s still noise as it pertains to what they have to do as a football team to improve in the ways they need to improve and find a higher level of consistency. And to your point, when you talk about what’s happened with Marcus Williams, and go back to when he was benched in Cleveland, which that definitely smelled much more of it, there being a disciplinary element in there somewhere. Yeah, it felt like there’s so years later, there was more to it than just like, Oh, he’s playing that poorly. Let’s bench. I
Nestor Aparicio 39:06
8don’t know when Earl Thomas do a punch it at Chuck Clark. I mean, I may have learned that five minutes ago. Literally, I didn’t in my mind. I
Luke Jones 39:14
don’t that wasn’t, that was what happened. Oh no, that was out there at the time. I mean, so, I mean, if I’m sure you just forgot, but that that was common knowledge at that point in time, because reporters, we were there and we I didn’t see it happen with my own eyes, but other reporters saw it happen with their own eyes, so but when you’re trying to figure this out, you know what’s going on Behind the scenes are guys pointing the finger? Are guys trying to cover their own butts? You know, which? Those are the kind of things that tend to happen, players and coaches, mind you. And let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that that’s happening. I’m saying I’m speaking in generalities here. When you’re going through adversity, how are you going to handle it? You know, do you have guys right now that are. Owning and groaning and and complaining about Justin Tucker getting a free pass because he’s been awful all year and is still the kicker. You know, I don’t get that sense, but that doesn’t mean that behind closed doors, that there isn’t some of that going on, or there’s the potential for that to happen. You know, the defense, the issues they had that have been mitigated some here recently, but issues given up big plays in the passing game. You know, how much finger pointing was going on there? You know, I’m fascinated to hear what, what John Harbaugh is gonna have to say about Deontay Johnson not playing. You know, even after Bateman went out, you know, we talked about this like, this isn’t a guy that is five years or move from his last good season. Go, look at the numbers he put up last year. You know? I mean, he was, think he was still a 900 yard receiver last year. I believe, you know, he’s somewhere in that neighborhood. So, you know, I’m wondering about that, you know, I’m wondering about other guys who have had their playing time cut, which not suggesting like that, that these are disciplinary things. But like, hey, Trenton Simpson’s not playing as much. To me, they’ve made a judgment that they think Chris board is giving them something that Trenton Simpson is not giving them as consistently. And, you know, look at some other guys. So, so they’ve made some changes, and my goodness, with the way the defense had played. By all means, if you feel some changes are warranted, do it that that’s competition. It’s a six. It’s a results driven business, as we talked about, for them to get better when they were getting beat, right, right? So, so, you know, but, but you look at all these things going on, and I’m sorry i i said for Deontay Johnson to 2022 we had 882 yards year before that, or last year, he was a little more injured, but still had 700 receiving yards last year. He’s not like this. Isn’t a 35 year old Deshaun Jackson who or des Bryant when they brought him in for you. Brandon Stokely, or, yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, not, not to belabor the point. I just wanted to correct myself on it. But just look at you. Just look at some of these behind the scene questions, at the very least, and it’s like, how are you attacking this? How are you addressing these things? I think they’re, they’re, I’m sure there was some of that going on on the coaching side, you know, especially earlier in the year, when they bring in Dean peas, and it’s like, Okay, how’s, where’s Dean going to fit here? You know, not just with helping out Zach Gore, but is he helping out coaching the linebackers or, you know, he’s a guy who coached linebackers even in Baltimore before he became the coordinator. What are his thoughts on how the secondary is being coached right now? So there’s all of that going on. So I think when you have a team that’s eight and five, which is good position, but not the position they wanted to be in, obviously, right? I think it’s imperative, when you go into the bye week, that everyone leaves their ego at the door and you say, how can we get better? How can we attack this, whether we’re talking about special teams, which have been a mess, and not just Tucker, but other elements, you know, tylen Wallace and penalties and, you know, the return game, all the different things you want to point to, how can you in the way that they’ve attacked their their past defense, which they seem to do after that Bengals game, where they had the mini buy, you know, the the second Bengals game, the Thursday night game, since then, they’ve benched Marcus Williams, and their past defense has been cleaner. It’s not perfect. I don’t think it’s going to be perfect, but it’s been better. But how do you attack some of these issues that you have, and how are you doing it, in terms of ego and all of that? You know, if you have guys that are still all pulling the rope in the same direction, you can improve some of these areas, right? You know the offensive line at guard, I don’t know, you know, I mean, you’re not bringing Kevin Zeitler is not walking through that door in week 16, right before he’s Cleveland. Thing That ship has sailed to this degree where, like they want continuity, like they don’t want to break continuity. And if you’re going to, this will be the week to do it, sure. And look, hey, there’s precedent. Bryant McKinney sat on the bench until the end of this the end of the regular season, and they put him in the lineup, and the rest is history. And right for as much as we talk about Joe Flacco and Anquan Boldin and Jacoby Jones at the Mile High miracle, go look at how that offensive line revamped as it was. Go look at how they played in January. Joe Flacco be the first to tell you that that was a big reason why they were able to do what they did by making that run. So I’m not saying that that’s impossible. I’m not predicting that right now, though, because Voorhees and Ben Cleveland are not Bryant McKinney, who played really well for them the year before and had a track record of playing at a high level in Minnesota, when his head was screwed on right, and he was healthy and all that. So, you know, I’m not predicting that, but I think when you’re eight and five and you feel that you can be better than that, and you feel like you’re still a Super Bowl caliber team from a talent standpoint, and I think they still are like, I’m not gonna and you said it too, I’m not gonna sit. Here and say they can’t win a Super Bowl for one thing, they’re really healthy overall, right? I mean, they’re they’re as healthy as you could reasonably ask to be at this stage of a season, especially when you have an out of BI week. So they have that going for them. But can they make some tweaks? You know, whether it’s just subtle that the average fan or reporter is not going to necessarily see, or is it more drastic in terms of some personnel changes, like they did at safety a couple weeks ago. But you know, they clearly have some things they need to tighten up here. And I’ll say this, and this will be my final point, and we’ve talked about this a lot, and this even goes back the last couple years. To be a championship team, yes, you need a great quarterback, and you’ve got to have great players on both sides of the ball. We all know that. But you also need to be really good in the margins. Kansas City right now, just, you know, Humor me here for a moment. They don’t look dominant whatsoever on a week by week basis. If you actually are watching them play, you know whether it’s needing a block kick to to stave off an upset from Denver or barely beating Carolina or, you know, whatever that was against the Raiders on Black Friday, baby. But one thing I will say that they do really well. They’re really good in the margins. They don’t beat themselves. The Ravens beat themselves a lot, even games where they win, they do things like the penalties, where you just say, My gosh, they just hurt themselves so many different times. They’ve gotta find a figure out, a way to be better in the margins. Because those margins, we think of margins, yeah, they’re small. Those small margins are really big in January. And if you’re going to go on the road, especially, and have to win three games to get to a Super Bowl, they absolutely have to find a way to be better in the margins, in every phase of the game. And you know, they’re chasing that, and they’ll there’s going to be a lot of chasing of that over this bye week for this coaching staff, I’m certain of that whether they come up with solutions or not with some of those issues, time will tell.
Nestor Aparicio 47:03
Dark days in Birdland here. Speaking of that, the Orioles also could be making some moves, looking out talks of baseball. Before the week is over, we have a busy bye week here. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour a couple of times. Going to be Cocos and where my cocoa shirt can’t wait to get some cocoa shrimp going, as well as a bowl of cream of crab soup, because it’s cold as hell. We’re gonna be there on Wednesday one before all the brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Ever even scratch offs to give away, also our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care, putting us out on the Maryland crab cake tour again on Thursday, we’re gonna be over gertrudes. He has so many cool things on his menu that I don’t know what I’m gonna get, but I love going over to the BMA. John shields is actually my cousin. He’s cousins with my daughter in law, so the shields is the is the maiden name. So by the way, that’s one before come on over. The BMA is free to come in. If you love art, think you love art. Have never been to a museum. It’s sitting there. It’s fantastic. It’s awesome. And they got a great gift shop too, and a great restaurant called Gertrude that will be broadcasting with Dan Rodricks on Thursday next week. We’re going to be at Faith he’s on Wednesday, and then two times two weeks from now, once at amicis, they don’t have a crab cake there, but I’m going to pretend they do. And I might bring Nancy, Nancy Longo over from Pier point to make me a crab cake, but it’d be great be down a little Italy for the holidays as well. That’s on Tuesday the 17th, Wednesday the 18th. We’re wrapping the crab cake tour for the year. We’re doing that at Costas in Dundalk, and by the way, couple Super Bowl is now underway for Super Bowl week, and I’m working on Cooper’s north for that week. We’re working on State Fair for that. We can get back to some of our great locations around, around the area, and shipping crab cakes, big, big business for all of our places that ship. So keep that in mind on the back end of what was a great, great Thanksgiving weekend of everything until the Ravens played late on on Sunday afternoon. Luke could be found at Baltimore, Luke. He is Luke at W nst.net, I can be found anywhere the internet travels, including blue sky. I created account there because of the fascists that are running X and Twitter, which I will address at some point through the holidays, but I’ve been busy working on music classic, working on a whole bunch of really cool stuff around here, including a bunch of Maryland crab cake tours for bye week. It’s not a buy around here. We got plenty of things to talk about, including a bit of a scuffling ravens team. Right now, we dove into Justin Tucker at length. You want to check that out, all of that Baltimore positive as well as in our podcast audio vault. I am Nestor. He is Luke. Don’t move too far. The Giants games right around the corner. We are W NST AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking. Baltimore positive. I.
