How concerned are Ravens about Madubuike injury?

The bright lights will be out for Monday Night Football but it’s the injury report that has Luke Jones and Nestor concerned beyond the roar of the Detroit Lions. How long will the Baltimore Ravens be without Nnamdi Madubuike bolstering the pass rush as Jared Goff looms with a high-powered Motown attack.

Luke Jones and Nestor Aparicio discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ concerns about defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike neck injury, which could sideline him for multiple games. Abika, a key pass rusher, missed two practices and is unlikely to play against the Detroit Lions. The Ravens are also without Kyle Van Noy due to a hamstring injury. The conversation highlighted the importance of Abika and Van Noy to the team’s pass rush and run defense, especially against the Lions’ explosive offense. The Ravens are preparing for a short week before facing the Kansas City Chiefs, emphasizing the need for depth and creativity in their defensive strategies.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Prepare the Ravens’ defense, especially the secondary, to cover the Lions’ talented wide receivers and running backs to limit big plays.
• [ ] Analyze the Lions’ offense and identify ways to pressure quarterback Jared Goff without Mada BK and Van Noy.
• [ ] Evaluate the performance of younger edge rushers like David Ojabo, Mike Green, and Tavius Robinson and their ability to contribute in the absence of key players.

Nnamdi Madubuike Injury and Its Implications

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the significance of Nnamdi Madubuike’s neck injury and its impact on the Ravens’ defense.
• Luke Jones explains that Nnamdi Madubuike played through the injury and it wasn’t immediately apparent during the game.
• Nestor Aparicio expresses concern about the severity of the injury and its potential long-term effects.
• Luke Jones highlights the importance of Nnamdi Madubuike to the Ravens’ pass rush and the potential challenges without him.

Concerns About Nnamdi Madubuike’s Availability

• Luke Jones mentions that Nnamdi Madubuike missed two consecutive practices, raising concerns about his availability for the game against the Lions.
• Nestor Aparicio emphasizes the seriousness of the situation, given Nnamdi Madubuike’s high salary and importance to the team.
• Luke Jones discusses the potential for Nnamdi Madubuike to be placed on injured reserve, which would sideline him for at least four games.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones reflect on the potential impact of Abika’s absence on the Ravens’ defensive front.

Impact of Abika’s Injury on the Defense

• Luke Jones explains that Abika’s absence will put additional pressure on younger edge players like Mike Green and Tavius Robinson.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the importance of depth in the defensive line and the challenges posed by the Lions’ offensive talent.
• Luke Jones highlights the need for creative schemes to pressure Jared Goff and cover the Lions’ skill players.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the potential for other players like David Ojabo to step up in Abika’s absence.

Ojabo’s Opportunity and Past Injuries

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss David Ojabo’s potential to shine in his limited opportunities due to past injuries.
• Luke Jones recounts Ojabo’s history of injuries, including a torn Achilles and an ankle/knee injury, which have limited his development.
• Nestor Aparicio emphasizes the importance of Ojabo’s performance for his future with the team.
• Luke Jones notes that Ojabo has appeared in games but hasn’t had a significant impact yet.

Challenges for the Ravens’ Defense

• Luke Jones discusses the challenges the Ravens’ defense will face against the Lions’ explosive offense.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones highlight the importance of players like Roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey in covering key receivers.
• Luke Jones mentions the need for creative blitzes and pressure schemes to disrupt Jared Goff.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones reflect on the potential for big plays from the Lions’ offense and the importance of limiting them.

Ravens’ Offensive Performance and Expectations

• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the Ravens’ offensive performance against the Browns and the expectations for Monday night.
• Luke Jones notes that the Ravens’ offense struggled in the first half against the Browns but improved in the second half.
• Nestor Aparicio emphasizes the importance of a strong performance from the offensive line and the running game.
• Luke Jones highlights the need for better play from the guards and the offensive line as a whole.

Lions’ Defense and Offensive Capabilities

• Luke Jones discusses the Lions’ defense and their ability to pose challenges to the Ravens’ offense.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones highlight the importance of key players like Aiden Hutchinson and DJ Reader for the Lions.
• Luke Jones notes that the Lions’ defense is still recovering from injuries sustained last season.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the potential for the Lions’ offense to score points and the importance of a strong defensive performance.

Predictions and Final Thoughts

• Luke Jones shares his prediction for the Ravens’ win over the Lions, with a score of 31-27.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the potential for a high-scoring game and the importance of key plays in the kicking game.
• Luke Jones emphasizes the need for the Ravens to win to avoid starting the season 1-2 and to prepare for the Chiefs.
• Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones reflect on the importance of the game and the potential impact on the Ravens’ season.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Ravens concerns, Madebuike injury, Lions attack, pass rush, defensive tackle, neck injury, Kyle Van Noy, Jared Goff, offensive line, defensive coordinator, Monday Night Football, Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit offense, high scoring game.

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SPEAKERS

Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are, Baltimore, positive, positively, happily back out on the trail watching football all day on my couch on Sunday and counting my Raven scratch offs. I got the new they’re kind of shiny and shimmery. I kind of dig that a little bit. Maybe it’s a new helmet color for them or a new scheme as we go blackout on Monday night, Luke Jones joins us now. You know, you and I went away for a couple days. Anybody follows me out on social media knows I was running around Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey and Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and, Lord knows, whoever else said, Show Hey. You know, amongst other things this weekend. But you know, Monday football is something, and the lions coming in last game of the weekend, exciting day all the way around. Even Joe Flacco got a victory and some surprises, and we see the Chiefs next week and seeing what they did and all that. Dude, I’m out in Phoenix, and I’m on a shuttle. Actually, I was in one of those driverless cars. I did a driver. I did a Waymo in Phoenix. Did several of them. We kind of liked it in some sort of safer way, thinking, like the machine could drive better than a person, and I’m in the back seat with my wife, and I saw your thing on Matt of ek when, you know, like Thursday, Friday. You know, Camp sort of opens up for the weekend a day late because they’re playing Monday night. Now we’re going to have this short week, no matter how it goes on Monday night. Luke, this Mada BK thing is, I said to my wife, I’m sitting in the Waymo, and I’m like this, this isn’t good. Where did this come from? And I And and I say that on the other end of watching, like the Cleveland Browns front four dominate again, and thinking like how important the run stop is?

Luke Jones  01:45

Yeah, no question about that, and it’s it’s a concern. And as you and I are preparing to watch the ravens, everyone’s preparing to watch the Ravens take on the lions Monday Night Football, it’s exciting. National TV game, really important game, knowing you’re going to Kansas City next week and and not even just viewing that through a daunting lens, as much as a chance of, hey, you’ve got a chance to make the Chiefs one and three. They, they weren’t exactly impressive, even taking care of the giants, especially in that first half, which was pu bad football on both sides. But this was, you know, this, thisNnamdi Madubuike neck injury. You know, there wasn’t anything that came out of the game in terms of, like, you see this play where, you know, he calls a trainer over, or he’s down on the field. I think he played all the way through the next to last drive of the game, which, if you recall, was garbage time. I mean, Cleveland even put in, you know, replaced Joe Flacco, put in the rookie quarterback, Gabriel and, you know, the Ravens had some of their backups in. So, you know, even having reviewed the game, there wasn’t necessarily any specific play where you say, oh my gosh, that might have been where it was. I mean, he had kind of an awkward block on roquan Smith’s fumble return for the touchdown, but that said he played at least a couple more plays after that, and that was what midway through the fourth quarter. So a lot of times when you’re talking about something of this nature, it can be something that doesn’t pop up till the next day, you know, and maybe the next day you a player wonders, Hey, maybe I just slept on my neck. Funny, whatever in the way that we all have that happen. You know, as you get older, you I have

Nestor Aparicio  03:27

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felt that way for the last six months, but that you know aside, you know, once it happens and your neck feels funny, you never know when it’s not going to feel

Luke Jones  03:36

funny. Sure, exactly. And you know, as I say it in jest, when I feel like I wake up twice a month with a jacked up neck

Nestor Aparicio  03:41

dude taking on physical contact in a National Football League game on Monday. Lions it that’s a whole different just holding my head up to like, talk to you on the screen some days can be a challenge, you know, yeah,

Luke Jones  03:52

but, but obviously, we’re talking about something that sparks way more concern when we’re talking about, uh, some an individual who’s one of the best defensive tackles in the league, someone who was paid lucratively just a couple years ago, four years $98 million contract, a two time Pro Bowl defensive tackle, and so he missed Thursday’s practice. You know, one one missed practice with a neck issue. That’s not necessarily something that raises an alarm right away. I mean, lots of guys miss practices for a next train, you know, little bit sore, whatever. But come Friday, when he misses practice again, you start to hear some whispers. And look, when you’re a reporter, you hear whispers and rumors and online chatter and all kinds of stuff. And 98.5% of the of the time, it’s stuff that you know isn’t reputable, right? Or it’s it’s something that, even if it was reputable, it ends up not necessarily being the case. You know,

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Nestor Aparicio  04:51

our audiences for our sake, we we aim way higher than that, sure, but Right? You know, over 27 years, if we’re reporting something, or if you’re saying. It’s serious, or I’m saying it’s serious, it’s to the point where we’re putting our reputation with the fact that it’s not a rumor anymore. It’s, it’s, it’s more trusted than that, and this is a deeply concerning conversation about one of their highest paid players at this point in season, where the alarms kind of gone off a little bit, right?

Luke Jones  05:21

Yeah, no question. Well, especially as it pertains to this week when, or the, at least the short term Kyle van noise out with a a hamstring, you know, for at least this game, probably another game or two after that, right? So you’re really in a position with the pass rush where there are some question marks, and in the case of Nnamdi Madubuike, I mean, let’s face it, when we’re putting the whole front together, we tend to focus on the edge rushers that a BK is their best pass rusher. I mean, overall, he’s the guy that you know can makes this thing go you know, the scoreboard

Nestor Aparicio  05:56

is, look what they pay him, sure, right? And even if you don’t know much about football. You know that at one point they really liked him, and they’ve, they’ve always liked him. I mean, he from, from the minute he came, he shined in a little bit of a way that had some Haloti nada in him, but didn’t come with that draft price, right?

Luke Jones  06:16

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Sure, yeah. I mean, it’s a third round pick, but, I mean, you’re talking about someone who led all NFL interior defensive lineman was in sacks two years ago, right? So we’re going to see how this plays out. He obviously is not playing on Monday night. John Harbaugh rolled him out even before the injury report came out. But you know, he was very not wanting to share too much, but when he’s saying he came up with some symptoms after the game, nothing specific in the game where we saw the injury actually happened, but they’re dealing with the symptoms. They’re running through tests. He’s going to be ruled out, and they’re going to try to get to the bottom of it. He declined to say whether Nnamdi Madubuikeis an option to go on injured reserve, but that’s certainly something that is being talked about and and when I say that, I don’t say that just in the terms of, oh, well, we miss his four games and he’s totally fine, so we’re going to find out, and maybe over the weekend, they got some better news on how he’s feeling. But we’re dealing with a neck injury here. When you talk about the neck, when you talk about the head, knowing how brutal this football game is knowing that the ravens, current defensive coordinator could quite possibly still be playing in an alternate timeline, and has been retired for eight years because of now, it was more of a congenital neck, you know, spine condition for Zach orb. But we know how serious that can be, so this is clearly something where they’re going to err on the side of caution until they absolutely know what they’re dealing with here. And you know that we also know what this could mean in terms of, and look, I’m not, let me be clear when I bring up Zach Gord, that’s not me saying that.

Nestor Aparicio  07:55

Well, I was going to say you didn’t bring him up. I was going to bring him up because you and I went through this and we liked Zach. We knew Zach. We take Zach. We, you know, Zach was a hell of a player, and had it taken away from him right before he got paid, right? And in this particular case, you know, to your point, motor functions and and pain and football pain, and the kind of condition you need to be in to play the game. And when doctors are checking you out and shaking their head, LeAnn crow gets up on you and shakes her head. I mean, that’s who I always looked at any time there’s an injury on the field, as I look at the doctors and see what their reaction to all of it is, and if the doctors are saying he can’t play, and it’s neck related, Zach or would be where we all look and say, That’s what can happen. That’s what can happen. And thankfully for him, he’s upright, he’s alive, he’s got a great job, he’s got a good gig. He’s coaching these guys, but he’s also in the room with these guys, and when they’re having these kinds of physical trauma, I would think there’s a different kind of emotional intelligence in regard to Zach or I would think that well.

Luke Jones  09:03

And I also think anyone who’s just been around the game, you know, whether you’re talking about coaches and you think back to their playing careers. I mean, I think anyone who’s played the game long enough has had a link to that in some way, whether it was a player with a season, you know, season ending injury, a career ending injury, you know, heaven forbid, situations where you know, I mean, we know players have been paralyzed, right? So even if it’s just a scare, you know, even if, even if it’s someone carted off on a backboard, but all things end up being totally fine. I think anyone who’s been tied to the game of football understands just how seriously you have to treat those things. Now, let’s, let’s also be clear, this is not me saying that, that that’s going to happen with Matt abika, that he’s out, you know, that he’s going to be definitively out for the year, or his career is in danger. But the point is, you have to be very, very careful with these types of things. This is not like, Oh, you try to play through a bum ankle, right? You try to put up, you you harness some. A shoulder and try to play through it, right?

Nestor Aparicio  10:01

There’s no remember Peter Boulware playing with one arm for a year, right? Yeah, so, but,

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Luke Jones  10:05

but this is, this is different when you’re talking about something like this. And to be clear, there’s a range of outcomes here. I mean, I can remember Tavon Young had a a season ending neck injury and had a surgery, and then he was back the following year, right? So there’s all types,

Nestor Aparicio  10:21

almost died, and he’s back on the field, so, but, but

Luke Jones  10:25

you just want to be careful, and you need to be smart. And again, you know, I, I’ve had the question a few times from some fans that, you know, it’s a fair question, you know, what happened during the game? Why wasn’t this caught during the game? Why wasn’t this identified during the game. And the reality is, when you’re talking about football players banging around, having many car crashes on every play, there’s lots of things that a player might feel or might not feel, quite frankly, that may only surface the following morning. This is why doctors watch them and pull them out of games, right? Exactly. But but it’s also, you know, there are also times where there isn’t the proverbial smoking bullet, right? That of, oh, this is definitively where it happened. No, you might not know, right? So everybody

Nestor Aparicio  11:11

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wants to play doctor on the internet. I mean, at the end of the day, from a football perspective, people want to bet on it. They want to know what’s playing. From a humanity standpoint, we talk about these people as people, because I’ve spent enough time around them to know that they are people and they’re not. They’re not rotisserie players or, you know, digitally created AI creatures. They have to be ready to play. And I guess for this particular team at this point in this defense, the inflection point of the One and Two Kansas City Chiefs waiting in the wing and the lions waiting to play. You’d rather have just a meta BK, or do we call him namdi? I want to be respectful Nami, okay? Because I we have called him both my bad. We just call him Matt abika, kind of like a, you know, a Japanese Sumo wrestler, just one name, like, like Ichiro or Otani, who I saw last week, but, but in the case of Mada BK, this is a huge loss for the team in the near short term, whether it’s rams game, you know, just whether it’s any point this year to think like you’re going to pick that productivity up from a football perspective. And we can talk more about the humanity of it, where they are. He might be playing three weeks from now, six weeks from I don’t know, but he’s not playing Monday night, right?

Luke Jones  12:27

And you do bring it back to a football perspective, because that there’s also that part of it, right? I mean, that the game goes on, right? I mean, but you’ve seen that so many different times with guys, whether it’s a three week injury or whether it’s a season ending injury. So this is a, this is a concern, right? I mean, this is a Detroit offense, as we’re talking about tonight’s game, that certainly is explosive, as among might be the deepest collection of skill, offensive skill talent they’ll see, you know, certainly one of the deepest groups in the National Football League. And I’m talking about that in terms of, I mean, the way they can beat you running the football. They have two standout running backs. Jameer Gibbs is one of the very best playmakers in the league out of the backfield. David Montgomery can still hurt you running between the tackles. So you have that ABK out of the picture for tonight. You have Kyle van Noy out of the picture. And you’re, you’re relying on younger edge players. You know you’re going to see more. Mike Green, you’re going to see more. Tavius Robinson, Adolfo away, of course, is already a starter, or a guy that’s established, but you’re asking for more from him. David ajabo is going to be active. No, I’m not saying he’s going to play a whole lot, but you kind of look, you need a rotation of at least four, generally speaking.

Nestor Aparicio  13:40

Now there’s a guy. We’ve been talking about him for years and years, right? Yeah, well,

Luke Jones  13:44

there’s another guy, though. I mean to bring it back to, you know, there’s a human side to it as well, but he’s just missed so much time with injuries, right? I mean, he coming out of Michigan, he was perceived to be a very talented, upside kind of prospect, but also a raw prospect, and when you tear your Achilles at your Pro Day. Now, the Ravens knew about that part, and that’s why he fell to the second round, right? He wouldn’t have been a second round pick had that happen. But when you tear your Achilles before your rookie year and you play and practice sparingly as a rookie, and then year two, you have an ankle slash knee injury that costs you most of year two. I mean, that’s a lot of time on task that you’ve lost. That’s just so much development time that you’ve lost that, you know, that he just hasn’t developed now, you know, maybe Kyle van Noy being out here, out these next couple games, we

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Nestor Aparicio  14:36

haven’t seen him not play capably. He hasn’t played much, right? Like, it hasn’t been like, he’s been in there and been overwhelmed and been like, I don’t, they win a lot of football games, and these fringe guys, these Ben Cleveland’s, I mean, tell so much about McCary in the offensive line, and he played, so there is a report card on him, you know? And we could say, well, Cleveland. Played a couple snaps here again. It was fine. It was okay. Not good enough to start, not good enough to to displace lower ranking members of the starting, 22 or 32 or however many you would call starters, and such a hybrid defense. But there is a point where these names that exist, like I saw TJ Tampa make a play last week, and I’m like, Tampa, it’s more than a place. Look at that. We got Tampa. We got Cleveland. But I’m just saying seeing these guys make plays in real games, not you seeing them run around and scout or watching them run around in these preseason, whatever the mess they are, but like in games, seeing someone not succeed. Simpson, you know, seeing guys get demoted last year, Marcus Williams, whatever, seeing guys get playing time and can’t do it, is different than than, you know, I felt that way about ties Bowser a little bit. I just felt like there were some guys that like, I never saw him on the field because he never earned it, knowings Mills, but I never saw that. They really couldn’t do it. They just really never did it. And ajapo feels a little bit like that to me, like I haven’t seen him scuffle and think that guy sucks. I know he’s been injured, he hasn’t been out there, but to your point, there’s a chance to shine. I mean, this is as good as he’s going to get, as healthy as he’s going to be as and now he has an opportunity. He’s gonna get snaps,

Luke Jones  16:24

yeah, well, and he’s also in the final year of a rookie contract, so, so there’s that as well. But I mean, see the thing with the job? Oh, and I hear your point, and I agree, to an extent, but I mean, he did appear in 13 games last year. He did play 275 defensive snaps. Now that’s not a huge role, but it’s a role when you’re out there. And he also had some games where he was a healthy scratch, because what doesn’t help him is he’s a backup and he doesn’t play special teams. So that kind of, you know, I remember 15 years ago, we talked about Paul Kruger in those terms, you know, being a backup who didn’t play special teams. And you kind of would look at certain game days, and if you had a need, you’d say, well, I’m sorry, man, like your your fourth or fifth in the pecking order, you need to play team.

Nestor Aparicio  17:07

I’m an old guy if we’re going to celebrate 30 years of this. This, this speaks to Ed Hartwell and Bart Scott and Matt judon and guys that were dogs for a minute and got paid, unlike an Anthony Levine who hung around forever and was a dog, and, you know, the Benny Thompson’s of the world that become that kind of player. But it is an opportunity to the next step, and it’s a way to stay on the team, and it’s a way to, when someone gets hurt, get on the field more quickly. I just the ajabo thing. You brought him up, dude, Michigan, his brother, I’m watching our balls. Brother win games out in LA, by the way, too. So, you know, they there’s something formidable that’s come out of me sitting here watching football all day on Sunday. But the job of thing i i really want to see the kid shine. Because I thought, like I followed his story when he was injured. And I thought this is kind of an interesting Raven steal, you know, grab a guy, put him away for a year, bring him back. Brother approved. You know, all of that, you know, I I’d like to see him make a play, or make a big play, you know what I mean, and say, Hey, there he is. It took him this long. Look at what that guy’s been through. Yeah.

Luke Jones  18:15

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I mean, look, he’s a nice kid. I mean, it’s a good story. You know, Nigerian born, and you know his story, you know, bad Michigan, and

Nestor Aparicio  18:24

he didn’t play football as a kid, right?

Luke Jones  18:26

Yeah, so, but, but at the same time, you know, this is year four. You know, he missed a ton of time his first couple years. Last year, he was mostly healthy, but just didn’t do much. So, I mean, the reality is, Nestor, I’m not sure he’d be on the 53 man roster if a decent Isaac didn’t dislocate his elbow in that Dallas preseason game. I mean, that’s just a simple reality of it. So I don’t again, I don’t want I think this is much more about. Hey, OA needs to do. You know, he little bit of a quiet start for him the first two games. He needs to stand out, right? I mean, he had 10 sacks last year, like it’s go time. You don’t have van Noy out there. They need you and Mike Green, tavious Robinson and the big ones. Mike Green, right? I mean, second round pick, you know, I think he quietly has done some nice things the first couple games. You know, he’s had some reps where you look at him, you know, he had a quarterback hit on Flacco last Sunday, but that’s where you’re kind of looking at and let’s be clear. I mean, I’m not, you know Kyle van Noy is not Lawrence Taylor, but when you’re talking about a position that is one of the relative questions on your football team, right when you’re trying to stack up the Ravens roster on either side of the ball, we talk about the offensive line on the offense and on defense. We talk about Ed rusher, the pass rush in general, and we talk about safety, safety depth. I mean, you know, behind the two starters. So when you lose van Noy, at least for this game, if not for another game or two after that, then yeah, there’s going to be a spotlight on these guys. And really, again, you know, I don’t want to make it out to be one position or. The other I mean, really, it’s their defensive front, you know, and to make it, to bring it back specifically to this Detroit game Jared Goff. I mean, we know anyone who’s followed his career, even in passing, knows that he generally has been a guy that is way better at home than on the road, although last year he did do better in that regard, but still, he loves to play in that dome in Detroit, play indoors. And he’s generally someone, and this is true of all quarterbacks, but his splits, when you’re talking about being pressured compared to a clean pocket, it’s night and day. I mean, you have quarterbacks like Lamar that, yeah, if you pressure Lamar, he’s not as good as when you pressure or when he has a clean pocket, but Lamar still kills you against pressure. I mean, then the numbers bear that out. That’s why he’s one of the very best in the league. Whereas golf is one of those guys that stands in a clean pocket, he looks like one of the very best in the league. You pressure him, he becomes one of the very worst passers in the league. So well, that’s where deep coordinators to get him off his spot, yeah? But that’s where, when you don’t have Kyle Van Hoy, when you don’t have nominee banner BK, that becomes a little more challenging, because how do you do that? Right? Give him another second and a half to think, right? Yeah. And that’s where you say, Okay, well, we Blitz, but then, okay, are they going to hit Gibbs on a hot route coming out of the backfield, right? Or he’s

Nestor Aparicio  21:20

gonna see that that’s the that’s the part disguise blitzes and this discovery of such a thing, and then getting to him, who’s gonna get to him, who’s gonna make him move? Right? It’s this. The whole game’s about making him move tonight, exactly.

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Luke Jones  21:36

And unlike week one, and obviously in week one, they had their issues. Can keeping Allen contained in the pocket. You know, they like to do that cage rush, where you make him stand there, but he doesn’t really have anywhere to go. The difference here is, you know, golf’s not some he’s not going to hurt you with his legs in the way that Alan does, but if you just let him, you know, if you’re not getting home with a Four man rush, or you Blitz, and you’re not getting home with your Blitz. I mean, you look at the weapons, I mean, Jameson Williams on the outside, big time speed. I’m on Ross st Brown, one of the very best wide receivers in the league, and certainly one of the best slot receivers in the league. So that’s gonna be a

Nestor Aparicio  22:12

big man. That guy’s unbelievable. Like, from the minute he got in the league, it’s like he had the mid round game. And who is he and where did he come from? And like, my god, that guy is excellent. Yeah, I mean, and it really speaks to wide receivers in the league. We go back to Antonio Brown was a knucklehead or whatever, or later picks, or that everybody’s not a top five draft pick. From a wide receiver perspective, it is amazing how some guys hit. And I tell you, what does a flowers thing from the Ravens perspective, probably as good as it’s ever been for the organization. And I’ve seen Hollywood brown run around on his third or fourth team, whatever it is this point, you know guys that they’ve tried and, yeah, I’m still Facebook friends with Mark Clayton. You know what I mean? Like, I like Travis Taylor, but, but having a guy that clicks, this kid for the on the other end of what they have with Megatron for all those years,

Luke Jones  23:01

right? Yeah, no question. And I mean, so they have two really good wide receivers there. I mean, they’ve got some other guys that, you know, Raymond’s not a stiff. They have a good tight end in la porta. And as I said, I mean, Jameer Gibbs, whether you’re talking about him getting to the edges, getting an open space, his ability to catch passes out of the backfield. You know that the other element, when we think about Mada BK and Van Noy, you think about the pass rush, but you also think about how you plan against the run, and when you’re talking about younger edge guys, and the guy that we haven’t mentioned, that I want to mention, and especially in case he steps up tonight, you know, a nice Peebles, the six round rookie who it was this weird under you know, not. I don’t want to say he’s weird, but the body type is weird in the sense that he’s this undersized guy playing defensive tackle, not really a guy that you’re going to want on the field to stop the run a whole lot. Not to say that his effort isn’t there, but he’s just undersized. But, you know, he could be part of the equation of how you’re trying to collectively fill the void of a nom de madabica Not being out there. But the problem is, when you think about these younger players in terms of, all right, you want to pressure Jared Goff. You want to pressure Jared Goff, but at the same time, you need to maintain your run fits. And you have a Detroit team that will run the heck out of the football if you let them. So you know this, this is a challenge. I I think you could tell. I mean, believe me, on the flip side, I have my doubts about Detroit’s ability to slow down the ravens, but I think you can tell, you know, for me, yeah, the defense bounced back against Cleveland, and that was great and but you look at the challenges with these couple injuries, I think you know, for me, roquan Smith maybe played the best game of his ravens career last week, but this is a step up. When you’re talking about Jameer Gibbs and Montgomery and Laporta tight end, you know it’s going to be a challenge. This is why you pay roquan The big box, you know, to to not allow Jameer Gibbs to wreck the game. He’s going to make plays, but you can’t have him take a pass in the flat and he goes 75 yards for a touchdown, because he’s capable of doing that. So you know, this is, this is not the matchup where you want to be down a couple players on the defensive side that are as pivotal as Mada BK and Van Noy can be. So that’s where, hey, Zach Gore, you’ve got to call a great game. The secondary needs to cover and cover at a high level. They’re going to have to be creative with how they scheme up some pressure, because especially not having Matt ABK. I mean, you know, when you have Matt APK and Travis Jones, Travis Jones takes on the double teams, and then Matt abika gets a one on one. He wins that one on one. Who are there other individuals that are going to win, win one on ones? And that’s

Nestor Aparicio  25:47

8

that’s a big question. Well, that’s why you pay guys $25 million right? Exactly. Luke Jones is here. He’s Baltimore, Luke, we’re getting ready for football. If you’re on the W, N, S, T tech service, you’ll get it first. It’s all brought to you by cold roofing and Gordian energy. I’m wearing my curio wellness gear. Here we are down to number two and number one on our tastiness tour. I’ve stretched this thing out into football season. We’re going to want to talk at some baseball and some Trevor Rogers as well as we’re into the last week of baseball season, even though we’re in a football mindset here. You know the blacks are out and the whites are out tonight, and the lights are on, and, you know, all the stars are out and all that. And I think this is a night where the Kyle Hamilton shine, or the Marlon Humphries, or somebody gets a big pick, or one of these young, you know, corners and secondary guys, they’ve drafted Stark somebody making a play, but it is, this is not the way you want to go into the game. Health wise. On the defensive side, let’s talk offense for a minute, because I think we’ve, we’ve had the Sunday night scaries. Now, about the Monday night scaries, of what the Lions defense going to not punt like the Colts didn’t punt for two weeks, right? You better hope that they’re punting a little bit but, but it feels track meaty as we sit here and talk about it, and we haven’t even talked about our side of the track is when the Ravens have the ball. What does that mean? And how can the lions be better than they were two years ago, when they were new to this thing of being a good football team and having expectations, and they had the big injury last year and all that. But all that being said, the lions, if they’re going to be taken seriously, there are four and a half point underdog. Madape is not there, you know. So they’re going to have the ability to score some points. They scored 52 last week. So we’re thinking, well, they’re good for 2426 2831 where are the Ravens going to be in this and the Ravens offense, and you mentioned injuries, we talked about Matt ABK, one of the holdovers. I’ve been thrown out for four years now, so I don’t know a lot, and I’ve never met more than half the guys on this team by far. You know, one of the holdovers is Pat Ricard, the other main event of my time there, along with Mike Flynn, and where they are with him. And I think for this offense right now, we talk so much about the offensive line play and the guards and where they are home game, NFC, bright lights, black jerseys, let’s go. Lamar is good. Week three chiefs short. Rest all of that. I’d like to think that. I don’t want to say they’re good for 40 on Monday night, but they should think they’re good for 40

Luke Jones  28:36

on Monday night. I mean, you’d like to think good for 30, at least, right? I mean, I think it’s a lot to keep asking them to score 40 plus points, you know, the way they did the first two weeks. But you’d like to think you can score points and score at a high rate. And I think they will. I think one thing that came out of, you know, as far as my impressions coming out of all the Sunday action, is that Cleveland defense is legit. I mean, you saw what they did against the Green Bay Packers. I mean, look, browns had a great win. Wasn’t because of Joe Flacco on the offense. Let’s just call spade a spade that that Brown’s defense came up big time with the late turnover and all

Nestor Aparicio  29:11

that. When they get the field going, I’m like, well, at least they scored. You know, right? Exactly, exactly where I was. Everybody’s gone. There’s just Packers fans there taunting the browns,

Luke Jones  29:21

yeah, but they get that late pick sets up a, you know, put some what at the four yard line, or whatever it was, and then just, I mean, just craziness. I mean, it’s funny. Just in general, Sunday and I saw early Monday morning Adam Schefter put out a tweet it. It was about the the number of games that came, you know, where the final, the game winning score came within the last few minutes, and, you know, is the most since the merger, or whatever it was. But it was also funny watching NF that NFL Sunday in real time. There was also a lot of really bad football on Sunday, watching red zone. I’m like, What am I watching here with some of these games? Well, this is

8

Nestor Aparicio  29:59

bad. Games. I mean, the saints are horrible, the Titans are hard. A lot

Luke Jones  30:03

of have nots. There’s no doubt, but, but, yeah, there were seven games on Sunday that featured the game winning score in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter. That’s that’s the most in a single day since the merger. But there were a lot of really bad games as well. But to bring it back to the ravens and what you mentioned about the offense, I think the one thing that you come out of Sunday, just as an observer, thinking, is okay, how the Ravens offense scuffled against Cleveland in that first half last Sunday. That’s way more forgivable. Now, having seen what they did against the Packers as well, that Cleveland defensive line, I mean, and it’s not just Garrett, I mean, it’s the rest of that defensive line. I mean, Garrett’s the headliner, obviously, but they’re tough. So I will say this, yes, the lions do have a healthy Aiden Hutchinson back after he missed most of last season with that ugly, ugly injury, you know, with his leg. But you know, this is still not a Cleveland front or this is not a Detroit front seven that is going to, on paper, pose quite as many problems that said, we’ve talked about it. We talked about it a few days ago. We’ll continue to talk about it. The Ravens do need better from these guards, and they need better from their offensive line in general. I mean, they for as well as the offensive line played at times against Buffalo, and they played very well through the first three quarters. There was also the end of the game where that offensive line really let down against buffalo in crunch time, and then they just struggled. They kind of struggled all day against the browns. Now, Lamar got away, because Lamar is apt to do that and but they didn’t run the ball at all, so you want to see a bounce back performance in that way. But that said, this is a Lions defense that is still waiting to have a couple guys come back that are on the P up list from all the injuries they had last year that if you recall, as the season went on, just gutted that defense. So they’re still not at full strength anyway, Marcus Davenport, their starting edge rusher, who’s, I don’t think, is a great player, but starter and someone that they’re counting on nonetheless, he’s out. So yeah, they have Hutchinson, and yeah, they have DJ reader at defensive tackle, and you still have to watch out for Brian branch in the secondary, whether he’s playing nickel, whether he’s playing safety. He’s a heck of a player, but I still look at that defense, and you kind of go back to the NFC thing, right? I wrote, I wrote about it at Baltimore positive.com there are so many stats that we hear about the wonder and the amazement that Lamar Jackson creates, right, because of how great of a player he is. And there are a lot of arbitrary stats where, just because of how unique he is, you’ll just hear it thrown out there, and you’ll say, oh, okay, I’ve never thought about that, but all right, but I still think you go back to that stat that the ravens are 24 and two, and one of those two losses was Philadelphia last December, who, oh yeah, went on to win the Super Bowl. So it tells you what kind of defense they were, what kind of team they were, but ravens are 24 and two in games. Lamar started against NFC opponents. I think that encapsulates so well in terms of how unique he is and how much more difficult it’s all. It’s always difficult. I mean Cleveland, Jim Schwartz will tell you even, even when they have success, Pittsburgh will tell you even when they have success. It’s still really, really, really difficult playing Lamar Jackson and this offense, but it’s so much more difficult when you just don’t see it very often and there really aren’t any comps. It was interesting. We didn’t mention it because it was just kind of a little little more of a factoid than anything else, the lions actually brought in Malik Cunningham last week, who had been with the ravens, you know, was playing wide receiver. You know, went to Louisville, you know, friends with Lamar all that. They brought him in this past week on their practice squad, at least in part, to kind of pick his brain, maybe give them a practice squad. Look, you know, to do some of the things Lamar does, but no one does the things Lamar does, so I still think ultimately that ends up being the difference. I think it’s gonna be a high scoring game. I mean, you could check out my 12 ravens thoughts and my prediction at Baltimore positive.com I picked a Ravens, 3127 win. But when you’re talking about a game like that, and especially on the heels of everything we saw around the league on Sunday, is there a big defensive play? Is there a big play in the kicking game? I mean, my goodness, the number of blocked field goals, the number of made big field goals that we saw on Sunday, when you’re talking about a game like this between two heavyweight offenses, and I think they’re, you know, not saying the Ravens won’t have a heavyweight defense at some point, but until we see that come together in a complete effort. You know, there’s questions. There’s certainly questions about Detroit’s ability to stop the Ravens. So I think this, it may not be 4140 like Detroit or like buffalo. What? Was a couple weeks ago, but this could be one of those games where you say the first to 34 wins, or the first of five touchdowns wins. I mean, it’s, it could be that kind of game. So I like the ravens, but man, you talk about the kicking game and all those other things that can come into play when you’re talking about a close game. And, you know, should be fun, but certainly a lot riding on this one. You know, you don’t want to be one and two and going to Kansas City, even if the Chiefs look very much, relatively speaking, a mess right now compared to what you think of them normally being. But you want to get this win. And then, to your point, it is a short week, and you need to turn the page. And yet, you do have that challenge of going to arrowhead so but all all eyes on Monday night, and to your point, the black jerseys and all that the crowd, it’s going to be fun, but certainly a big time matchup here and a team that’s more than capable of winning on the road, if you’re not going to come out and play your

Nestor Aparicio  35:59

best Track Meet downtown tonight at the Purple Palace. Luke Jones will be on the scene. He’s Baltimore, Luke. We’ll have you covered with our W N, S T tech service, which is, I think, which alarmed me on Friday when I was on the road about Matt ABK so certainly, we’ve discussed that at length. Luke’s got his looks at the at the game. Got a lot of Maryland crab cake tour residue that I threw up at Baltimore positive earlier over the weekend as well. We do have a short week in the Kansas City. Chiefs. We’re gonna talk a lot of football. Take a break, come back. We’ll talk a little bit more about what happened on Sunday in preparation for Monday night and the short week and a little evaluation, maybe in of John Harbaugh’s little brother. I am Nestor. He is Luke. We are wnst. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we never stop talking Baltimore positive. We.