Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the mounting injuries for the Baltimore Ravens and the inexplicable explanations of head coach John Harbaugh after poor clock management and a fair catch punt by Zay Flowers with 2:03 remaining cost the team in a bad 22-19 overtime loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ravens, game, orioles, playing, week, john harbaugh, kick, happen, talking, timeout, point, sunday, luke, cleveland, hardball, baltimore, newest sponsor, clock, lamar jackson, flowers
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home we are wn St. Am 57 at Towson Baltimore, of course Baltimore positive here all week long. Recapping, our Maryland crabcake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery conjunction with our friends at window nation even get a chance to wear the fun hat and our newest sponsor Jiffy Lube, we’ll be telling you about the multi care and all that’s going on there. Above and beyond just oil changes but great, great conversation with Mike we’re sick Liano and my old friend Max Weiss, who and I we went back and forth about the Orioles and even a little colts and ravens history in there. As we did the show and Lara Ville from Coco’s pub had delicious coconut shrimp. That’s where the K rustig is my co host with a que que yo co host as the coconut shrimp with a que like Coco’s I have to get used to all of this stuff. They’re our newest sponsor, had a great, great day. And then of course, the alternate day, who I’ve known for 20 years I’ve never had on the show. We talked house music Ross and a lottery came over always good to see Roslyn because she gives us these Raven scratches. We had a bunch of winners at Coco’s the other day too. We had some winners over the weekend, the Orioles won some games after sort of stumbling against the tribe, former tribe I should say the Guardians on Thursday and Friday, keeping us up late at night, but it was the Ravens on Sunday afternoon when the rain. Luke Jones now joins us to discuss the aftermath of a strange game and a lot of ways. Look anytime the Colts come back to Baltimore. It’s a strange day for me Luke. It was the 50th anniversary on Saturday of my first ever Colts game that my dad took me to to see Joe Nemeth get sacked by Stan white, John Riggins ran the ball that day and the Colts threw the Baltimore Colts through eight interceptions that day for from already dimers more from Bert Jones, and 50 years and a day later, it was a series of gaffes that cost the Baltimore Ravens a game against the Indianapolis Colts and the decision to John Harbaugh. And look, you can read my letter to John horrible that’s about his integrity and about truth and about who lies and Who’s stopping press conferences and all of that. But this is this is football. And this is two minutes and three seconds left to go. spiking sorted out hardball, hardball a little bit loose.
8
Luke Jones 02:18
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, to make it very simplistic. I mean, they won the game, right? I mean, ultimately, it’s about winning and losing. And if you come out on the losing side, the mistakes you make are magnified, the decisions you make are magnified if you win, as we said in a previous segment, if if Matt game misses one of those 53 yard field goals, you know, I guess not the one in overtime, because we missed that one game probably ends in a tie. But if he misses one of the other ones, you know, we’re having a different conversation. We’re saying that it wasn’t a pretty win. But a win is a win, right? When you lose, everything’s magnified. And certainly when you look at just the way the Ravens played in general, you know, I mentioned how it felt early on, like, this game might end up being a blowout, like this game might be even if not a blowout, more like the Houston Texans win in week one where, you know, they didn’t run away with it, but they never the outcome never felt in doubt. Let’s I think we’d all agree with that, at the very least, and they turn the ball over the offensive identity. They were chasing it the rest of the way, you know, it was at best choppy at times. And at worst, it was lousy. You know, I mean, that was lousy and overtime, they didn’t even gain a first down. But to bring it back to John Harbaugh, as you mentioned, I think you can you can always pick apart decisions here or there. But when you look at what happened as Gardner Minshew steps out of the back of the endzone, and it was a strange, it was a strange couple moments where, you know, he steps out, there was a sack you know, as the whistle, you know, the referees trying to blow the whistle. he sacked in the endzone, but he stepped on the sideline. And that’s the safety right there, the clock stops right there. They did go back and review it and look at it to see where the clock should be. And according to John Harbaugh’s explanation, when by the time they realized that there was 158 on the clock, and you know, or let me rephrase that, by the time they realized that wasn’t 158 And it was actually 203 Because, you know, as it ended in real time, it looked like 158 and then they review and they put time back on the clock. By the time they realize that as John Harbaugh explained it, they were unable to get it communicated as a flowers. Now, I don’t understand how no one on the coaching staff, no players, even even veteran players, no one realizes that in time to alert ze flowers and look, he’s a rookie returning a kick. You know, he’s not their primary kick returner. He was the returner on that free kick, post safety kind of situation. So I don’t put that on him nearly as much someone has to alert him. And what do you do if you can’t get the message to him? call a timeout. They had timeout. They had three timeouts at the time. So
Nestor Aparicio 05:08
this sort of harkens back to the Billy Kondo thing for 10 years you know, it’s like when you have timeouts you keep them and they’re there and harmless and that problem challenging things and losing timeouts. But when you have timeouts that should always be the first go to for for everybody on the field wrote for leaders on the field is, we don’t want to burn a timeout, but we don’t want to get beat neither. Right like ever.
Luke Jones 05:29
Sure, sure. So I mean, you look at that. And look, let’s be clear, even that happening. If your offense can get a first down. The game’s over.
Nestor Aparicio 05:39
8Well, I was gonna say, the minute that men’s shoe stepped on the line, and I’m watching it and be very, it was clear he slept on the line. It’s clear he went out right away. Sure, like games over I mean, games over. The game’s over. I mean, like, at that point in the casino up in Hollywood, like I don’t know what odds I could get that the call, you know, like, like the game’s over. That’s, it’s, that’s when you think about it that way. It’s really unacceptable. I mean, they lost the game a couple times. But that’s the Colts gave you the game at that point. I mean, they’re playing out of the red zone. That kid didn’t feel the pawn. I mean, the culture made a ton of bad decisions to lose the football game to. Yeah,
Luke Jones 06:19
I mean, it’s not as though they played a perfect game. And the Ravens didn’t. And you know, that it was like that. I mean, both teams made mistakes. Neither team was perfect. And how they played, you know, the, the Ravens definitely are the more talented football team. But that was neutralized somewhat, when you’re talking about go look at the inactive list and the number of starters, they were missing. So, you know, we can go back and forth on that. I mean, Indianapolis didn’t play a perfect game. But yeah, when you have the backup quarterback for the opposing team, step on the step in the back of the endzone, you know, back on the end line, that should have been it. And even if it’s not the idea that you punt the ball back to them, and they get the ball back 22 seconds later, or whatever it was. I mean, that’s unthinkable. How in the blue, you know, what does that happen? It’s just it’s absolutely inexcusable. And let’s be clear, I mean, they kick the gametime field goal with what just under a minute to go and regulation. It’s not as though if they didn’t make that mistake on the free kick that, that the game would have been over. But Indianapolis would have had very little time to operate with. And when you do that, and then oh, yeah, you also commit a penalty on third down, even though it looked like the officiating crew did miss a face mask, that would have been an offsetting penalty situation, and they would have replayed third down and maybe the offense would have actually converted, they’re not holding my breath based on the way they were playing at that point in the game. But I mean, you just, it’s unthinkable that you’re getting the ball back on a free kick with two or three to go. Knowing that your opponent has one timeout left, and you put it back to them with 148 to go and Gardner Minshew is going back on the field with what 141 to go. I mean, it’s how does that that can’t happen? That just can’t happen from a coaching standpoint, Todd Monken is play calling their execution. And I get it, Gus Edwards wasn’t out there. And, you know, you’re down to Melvin Gordon, who the Ravens thought so highly of that he didn’t even make the 53 man roster. Let’s keep in mind that talking about practice squad, guys, they were counting on in different spots. But I mean, that just can’t happen. That’s just sloppy. It’s bad coaching. And it’s bad that bad execution. So it’s really, really disappointing because and, you know, I don’t give the defense a total pass. I mean, they could have made a final stop. Part of the issue here was no one made the big play at the end, whether we’re talking about Lamar Jackson or someone on defense, you know, force a turnover, you know, get a strip sack, whatever it might be. But instead, they allowed indeed to tie it up and send it in overtime. So it was just a complete breakdown. And for that to happen, that sequence of events to happen after Gardner Minshew pulls a Dan Orlovsky and runs out of the back of the endzone. I mean, it really is unthinkable that the final two minutes played out the way they did. And, again, I think it starts at the top with John hardball and his staff failing in that situation, I mean, that was someone, anyone, you know, whether it’s someone else on the kick, return team, St. Ze, they put two or three, you know, two or three to go. You can’t fair catch this, especially if you’re going backwards. You know, it’s one thing if it was a kick where he had to run up and you’re running into the coverage coming down field, and you call a fair catch and that situation fine, but you know what, when they boot it and you’re catching it as you’re moving backwards, there’s really no reason to fair catch that anyway, in that situation. So I didn’t really understand the thinking Even if it was 158, don’t you want to take a few more seconds off every every few seconds you can bleed from the clock in that situation is a good thing, the clock running down as your friends. So I don’t know why you would do something in that situation. Again unless say flowers is sprinting forward to catch the ball. I didn’t really necessarily get that philosophy anyway, let alone talking about what happened where they put two or three back on the clock and, and the Two Minute Warnings back and play just did not make sense to me. And John, Harbaugh’s explanation just did not jive with me. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 10:34
mean, and this is where, look, I’m on the outside, and I’m the wrong guy to talk to you about whether they’re honest, or whether they’re accountable, or whether they’re front facing or whether they’re transparent, because they’re not any of that if they were any of that I would have been in the press conference in my seat. Like I was the first 26 years of the franchise, right? So I this is the point where and I’ve written about this in my column this week, which was just the Orioles are going to play five games this week. And the ravens are in a position to be able to hide here a little bit for a couple of weeks, in my opinion for the from the fan base here for people spending money on playoff tickets for 50,000 people going down there on Saturday night again, to be a part of this and the fact that tickets were 10 bucks on Sunday, nobody wanted to go to the game. Nobody wanted to get there were empty seats everywhere. Maybe they wanted to say oh, maybe just the weather. I mean, rain never used to bother Baltimore sports fans. I was one of them. I sat out there ponchos. No problem. I just the whole Mojo for the Ravens right now. They’re going away for a month. With this. They can go in high. But if they come back to and five, or they come back three and four, and they can’t hide on Sunday and Monday, but the Orioles are really going to change the oxygen around you’re in a way that even if you you scoff at me now, three weeks from now, that whether if the Ravens lose the next two weeks, people will be mad, whatever. And there’ll be, you know, two and three or whatever, you’ll say, well, they lost road games in the division. They’re banged up. You know, at this point, we got to talk about Edwards, we got to talk about Bateman add that in to your Infirmary report this week for coons Ford and the wn S T tech service is going to be alive as well. But there is a point where they just make this up as they go along hardball with there was little song and dance on Monday and reiterate why he wasn’t lying to you on Sunday. And nobody knew the clock and how could it be his fault? And they’ll practice but the Orioles are going to play games where the fans are going to be talking about that. Maybe not by the weekend. And maybe not even in the next week because the Orioles won’t you know won’t play for five days next week. If they do things right. But you didn’t buy it. You didn’t buy what he was selling you in the postgame?
Luke Jones 12:46
Well, look, I don’t know this and maybe, you know, maybe getting a chance to dig around over the next few days, we’ll get some semblance of what really happened. We also know there are times where, look, it’s a flowers as a rookie, Nestor, it’s possible. He messed up. And no, and look, I’m not suggesting you did. But it’s possible that something like that happens. And a coach then will try to cover for a player publicly or teammates will try to cover for a player publicly. I don’t know that. Like I said, someone, anyone, coach, staff or quality control guy, a veteran, another veteran on the kickoff team or the kick return team. Someone has to alert him there. And like I said, part of the reason why this doesn’t jibe with me is I don’t understand the rationale of why you’re why you’re directing him to call a fair catch if he’s moving backwards to kick the, you know, to catch the ball anyway. Even if it’s 158 to go when you rather ze flowers, jog around, you know run around for another 567 seconds. I’m gonna SharePoint,
8Nestor Aparicio 13:56
he’s not their first choice in there. They just want to make sure he catches the ball. Because the thing that will get them beat is a month is a month punt. Right? Like he doesn’t catch the ball that gets them beat.
Luke Jones 14:07
Well, he’s their first choice because they were you know, they’re in their kick return for a free kick and that’s what I assumed, you know, Devin DuVernay, it’s not as though he was injured. So
Nestor Aparicio 14:16
it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that they wouldn’t onside that. Sure. Yeah.
Luke Jones 14:21
8I mean, you know, it’s a free kick situation. So you never really know what’s going to happen. But, again, that’s where I go back to even if putting the clock issue aside. You know, I don’t know why you’re so you know, so adamant about wanting him to call a fair catch when he’s running backwards 20 yards to catch it. I mean, again, if he’s coming forward on a very short kick, and you want to try to avoid the situation where he’s running forward and someone pops him and the ball pops out that I get that call a fair catch in that situation. So it just, it was it wasn’t the way it needed to be executed. Whether it was directly horrible weather There was Chris Horton, whether someone else on the staff who’s in charge of monitoring, replay and changes to the clock and all those different things, whether it was any veteran players who saw it, but didn’t say anything. Or even if they flowers, like I said, even if he just messed up now that that can’t happen, I mean, those are, that’s the kind of thing that gets you beat. You know, that’s the kind of thing when, you know, that part administrative and then part not executing a play the way it needs to be executed. I mean, that was crucial. And I want to point out, again, it’s not like Indianapolis, kicked the ball at the, you know, at the buzzer, to tie it and send it in overtime. So it’s not as though they necessarily wouldn’t have had enough time. If that happened. But you made it could have made it way more difficult, you made it way easier for them by preserving and giving them an extra timeout, that that much is the obvious. So it was just poor execution, however you want to explain it. And again, it could have been as simple as even if you couldn’t alert it, call a timeout, you have three their time preserving a timeout for yourself isn’t nearly as important there as executing that play correctly. When you are at the advantage because you have a three point lead with 203 to go so just it’s unacceptable, especially when you’re talking about a veteran head coach and you have plenty of veteran coaches on his staff. I mean that that just that shouldn’t happen. Someone had to recognize that more quickly than they did to prevent that from happening.
Nestor Aparicio 16:31
Here’s Luke Jones. He is Baltimore Luke He will be in Owings Mills all week bringing you a Ravens coverage as the Ravens prepare to go to Cleveland where the Orioles stumbled a little bit over the weekend and then figured it out by the end of the weekend and we will be monitoring all things Orioles all week Luke will be at the ballpark. The nationals are in town. The Terps are playing great football and undefeated. I got a Preston coming on this week. Rick Dempsey yes that Rick Dempsey used to have a restaurant now. Now he was the MVP, the ad free World Series. He’ll be on this week talking about some some winter camping possibilities. I don’t know if my back kid could handle time in the cage or whether I could, you know, get down and get hot grounders. But Rick Dempsey is doing a fantasy camp be talking about that as well this week, and certainly with the orange dust being everywhere. The Browns are. This is an interesting week for the Ravens an interesting couple of weeks as they do this three game road thing. And we’ll talk a lot about this because the Orioles are going to go to own this place. Do you agree with that premise? Or do you hotly dispute that the Ravens will be on the tip of people’s tongues on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday when the Orioles are playing game two and three and four? Well,
Luke Jones 17:47
I don’t think it goes away to the degree that you’re saying because it’s the NFL. I mean, it’s King and regular season NFL games, outdraw baseball postseason games. Now that said, when the when the Orioles are actually playing, which keep in mind, there are no playoff games this week. And if they take care of business with their magic number at coming home for the final homestand being at three, they’re not gonna have any games until the following weekend. You know, we’re still, you know, a week plus almost two weeks out from when they’re going to start playing. So the Ravens aren’t going away. There’s no running and hiding, I get what you’re saying in terms of going on the road in terms of, you know, people coming, you know, being in attendance and all that
Nestor Aparicio 18:28
Harbaugh can hide a little bit this week after the two minute warning gap because there’s gonna be a party in town. I mean, literally, the city’s gonna catch fire this week. Like, they’re going to win the division, they’re going to have a buy, they’re not going to play next week. And there’s going to be a night at Camden Yards this week, that’s gonna make the people forget about what happened on Sunday. I guess that’s my point that that never used to be the case around here when the sky would be falling on the franchise this week after this ish on Sunday against the Colts no less to and then have to go on the road and play Cleveland who looks good Pittsburgh who looked okay. And, you know, I’m not saying they’re gonna be underdogs, but they’re not going to be heavily favored after that effort on Sunday, and especially with the way the infirmary looks. It’s not that the ravens are playing bad football for me. It’s that they’re, they might they might not be any good with 10 or their starters out. They might not be and and that would be for most franchises.
8Luke Jones 19:18
Well, I mean, I don’t know if I’d say any good. I mean, there are two and one even with the injuries that they’ve had, but your points well taken. I think there’s plenty of oxygen for what the Orioles are going to do this week. And for the ravens, quite frankly, I mean, I’m not saying you because lots of people bring this up. I mean, I I’d like to think we have a bigger attention span here in Baltimore than you know, we can only focus on the Orioles and then forget about the Ravens or vice versa. Now, plenty of years we forgot about the Orioles because this time of year there was nothing they were playing out the string you know for much of the Ravens existence but I mean, it’s you know this, this is a big week and for the Ravens they’ve got to get healthy and what you just mentioned in terms of the number of starters meaning it’s gonna apply to any When Nestor I mean, it really is. So I mean it. I would say when you have your franchise quarterback out there, you know, and this is where we kind of get into and we’ll talk more about Lamar Jackson. And, you know, there were plenty of good things that he did including with his legs on Sunday, you know, the the rest of their running game didn’t leave a whole lot to be desired. You know, Gus Edwards had his moments until he was concussed and left the game. But, you know, they didn’t make enough plays in the passing game. And when you’re talking about your franchise, quarterback, being one of the guys that is on the field, you’d like to think he can make that up. So they’ve got to get healthy. There’s no doubt going to Cleveland this week, not gonna be easy, because, as you pointed out, browns off to a pretty good start. And more specifically, their defense is off to a really good start. So ravens need to get as healthy as they can get, and get themselves back on track. They very much need to have an effort more closely resembling what we saw in Cincinnati than what we saw against Indy on Sunday, because that will not cut it on the road. And my the early lines that I saw Nestor actually has the Browns being a slight favorite in Cleveland, which speaks to how well they’ve started, but also speaks to the Ravens just you know, the injuries just piling up and not quitting at this point.
Nestor Aparicio 21:13
Yeah, my pic stunk on Sunday early in the day. So you know, I was 21 intending to Christian Horton from Hollywood casino is going to join me a little later on in the week. We’ll make our picks before Thursday. Get them out on the interweb What a week we have around here I’ve got letters to Steve shotty and John Harbaugh, a columnist on just the whole Purple and orange smoke blowing around here this week that’s very unusual rarified. I found my pictures as I’m rummaging through curio, wellness and our friends a foreign daughter sponsoring our 25th anniversary, I finding all of these old pictures and scanning them down. And, you know, I found the pictures of me with Rick cribbed and Ray Miller and Elrod Hendricks and Mike bordick and Eric Davis, in the Orioles taped up clubhouse in 1997. After the celebration and beating the Seattle Mariners I have pictures of me and Messina and Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey came over to the Orioles locker room. So I have these pictures, and it’s 1997. And what I really remember about that day was Kordell. Stewart playing Memorial Stadium and doing both of the games. Cleveland had that on Sunday, right. Cleveland had the Browns playing a home game and the Orioles playing on Sunday now Cleveland this Sunday, the Ravens will be in there playing football this week. But we have that dual sport thing happening all week. Luke is getting some toothpicks and some extra coffee from ROFO gonna hook him up with some mud Jamaican blue mountain over there like Justin Tucker, seeking out a little extra kick this week for what we’re going to need here for the celebration as the magic number whittles down and the Ravens go on the road to Cleveland in Pittsburgh in London. We’re going to be up in Hollywood casino in parallel with the main Christian Norton on the 15th of October doing breakfast from Tottenham. We’re looking forward to that to get up there with us on October 15 That’ll be a Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery in conjunction with our friends at window nation certified master installer I am not my shirt says So Windows siding doors. I got my my Windows done last year 866 90 nation the way to do that with window nation and our newest sponsor Jiffy Lube, and the multicam is typically right around the corner. A mine is the merit Boulevard location because they treat me right over there. And it’s my homeland and Dundalk, but you could find a Jiffy Lube around the corner from you as well. We got a lot of things going on and really the baseball vibe this week and we’re gonna get to that but we got to get some more Lamar Jackson Luke’s got both on his mind you find him out of Baltimore Luke you can find me anywhere the internet is search. I’m even now that I’ve been banned by both franchises the Rotary Club is invited me out to be their guest speaker I’m I’m very appreciative that I’ll be a little literally at a genius on Tuesday, giving a civic speech and believe it or not the theme of my speech, and I’m going to get down with this this week with Marty Conway is the significance of sports teams and why we gave him $600 million to keep stadia here. And oh by the way, John Angelo still has a sign the lease on masteries Luke stay with us we’re wn St. am 5070, Towson Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive
