 So we've talked a lot over these past couple of days on what the Baltimore Ravens need to do to secure a victory in advance to the AFC championship. So it's known what's in front of the Baltimore Ravens and everything that they need to accomplish to get to their next goal and their next destination. But we also need to have the uncomfortable conversation about things that the Baltimore Ravens need to avoid things that they absolutely cannot afford to do against the Houston Texans. Now, I couldn't have that conversation alone. So what I decided to do is bring on a very special guest for the first time ever. So this is history. Team Keep It Clean, give our special guests a very, very warm welcome like I know you will. So Team Keep It Clean, very, very, very special guests in the building. This is, oh yeah, yeah, this is your first time being on here. So this is the inaugurable, well, I said that word wrong, but it's okay. Y'all know what I meant. It's my guy, Sam Najoku from Raven's Talk podcast. Y'all check him out on YouTube, check him out on Twitter, check him out on Instagram, because if you own Raven's YouTube, you've probably done seen him before. But if you own Raven's Instagram, you definitely done seen him before, especially with all the memes that he'd be dropping after every Raven's game in between Raven's games and whatnot. Yeah, he'll be on fire with it. So I appreciate you coming on. Let everybody know about your stuff before we get into everything. Yeah, yeah. So like you mentioned, you can find me on YouTube at Raven's Talk podcast on Twitter, Raven's Talk pod, Instagram, Raven's Talk podcast. I'm always dropping memes, like you said, very fun to do, especially around this time when the Ravens are winning and all the rounds are losing. So good times ahead. Yeah. If you want to have a laugh, head on over to Instagram. I'll definitely have stuff for you. Now, appreciate that. Now, what's interesting is that I remember years ago, years ago, before we linked up, I will see you on Twitter sometimes and I'll be like, man, this dude, he's sure got some takes. He got some powerful takes. But as I've witnessed it this year, so much of what you say, it ends up coming to fruition. Like, and you'll be like, oh, yeah, I don't expect this game to be closed for the Baltimore Ravens. I think they're going to blow this team out the water. It was they're going to win by at least 14. And I'll be looking like whether it was about the 49ers about the dolphin. I'll be looking around like, I don't know about that one. And then it ends up having like, whoa. And then even, not only just takes about the actual games, but about the business side as well. Because I remember when Dalvin Cook first got released, you were like, oh yeah, this Baltimore Ravens all day. That would be such a Baltimore Ravens move. I was thinking, I could see them doing it, but I don't know. At this point in the season, could they? I mean, they got obviously gusts and justice. But what they added Dalvin Cook to all the Ravens, like really in that, that mold, were they really looking to get even better than they already are even at this point in the season? And they went and did it. And there have been, of course, a lot more takes throughout the year that you've been spot on about. So I appreciate your work. I appreciate your craft. I appreciate the fact that you are literally a jack of all trades because you'll talk about the moves that the Ravens make, but you'll talk about the games. You'll talk about your expectations. But then you'll talk about the film too, because you watch your film and you see different things about the opposing team that Ravens can take advantage of or that they could possibly take advantage of when it comes to the Ravens. So I appreciate everything that you do. And I'm glad that we could finally, because I remember I had talked to you about it a while back. I'm going to bring you on. I didn't know when it was going to be, but I knew it was going to be. So I'm glad that we're able to finally do this. I appreciate you coming through. Appreciate you, man. No, for sure, man. For sure. Now, big game coming up. This is now the biggest game of the season for the Baltimore Ravens because this is it. Like, ain't no more like, all right, we'll get better next week or we'll make some adjustment. No, no, no. This is it. You either win or you lose. And your season continues or your season is completely over. And they facing a Texans team that's coming in hot after beating the Browns were 45 to 14 or whatever the score was. It was ugly. They dismantled them big time. We know what the Ravens need to do to get the job done. But what are some things that the Baltimore Ravens cannot afford to do if they want to get out of here with a win? Yeah. Well, there's two things. One on each side, actually. So on the offensive side, you can't start slow. If you're a Ravens team, you got to try and make sure you build that momentum you gain when you beat the Dolphins back in the years Eve, go and start fast. Do what you're doing. They usually do. Don't go crazy with it, but definitely, for the most part, do not start slow because if the Texans get another lead, the momentum can shift. And you all know in the playoffs momentum is everything. So on the offensive side, definitely start fast. Do what you've been doing all season long. Let the defense dictate what you do and attack it hard. The weakness on the other side of the ball on defense. Don't do what the Cleveland Browns did. Don't stay. Okay. CJ Stroud is a guy who struggled against man coverage. So our game plan is to play man coverage the entire day. You play mostly one high safety or covered three most of the day. And CJ Stroud tore them apart, did not give them a chance to breathe. And before you know it was all over. So luckily for the Ravens, they do a good job of having multiple looks. Definitely confusing. Their opposing quarterback to the line of screaming something that the Browns did not do against CJ Stroud. And against a rookie quarterback that's very surprising. So as long as the Ravens pretty much do what they've been doing all season, I see no reason why the Ravens can't come out here with a victory. Okay. Those are really, really good points. Now, if we go back to week one, Baltimore Ravens, they obviously took care of business against the Texans in that first game of the season. But what are some of the big differences that you see, whether it be with the Houston Texans or even with the Baltimore Ravens going into this game? Yeah. Well, it was CJ Stroud's first game. He was a rookie, of course. So one good thing I think that really sets CJ Stroud up well, and something that the Ravens might need to take into consideration is that they didn't really hide CJ Stroud. I know they tried to get the running game going a little bit, but really, Demico Ryan's put the ball in CJ Stroud's hand and let him try and compete and get a win. Of course, they came up short. But what they gained from that was the experience, you know, that they can go up against one of the better defensive in the league at the time and really do some damage. Didn't show too much on the scoreboard. But I saw some things from CJ Stroud, mostly poisonous and ability to read defenses, two things that a lot of quarterbacks that Ravens have gone against in this season have not had. So that's one thing. CJ Stroud's first game up to now, now he's his second postseason game. So expect a more fine tuned QB for the Texans. On the Raven side, look, the defense is firing now some of those. I think that Mike McDonald, especially as early as last season, he's finally got the pieces. He knows what to do with them. He's found a way to get Kyle Hamilton in different formations, different looks, different positions. And that's really been the key to getting this defense from dominant to historically dominant. I think so. Kyle Hamilton's health is a huge factor. I think he'll play in this game. And what he's able to do with them, Mike McDonald, I should say, is going to pay huge dividends because I think his ability to shake things up in the line of scrimmaging makes CJ Stroud think just a second or two longer than anticipated will give the defense that opportunity to make some plays. Oh, those are really, really good points. And you talked about Kyle Hamilton and his impact, him just being a difference maker. I wanted to ask you two players for the Baltimore Ravens, one on each side. I mean, you could throw in special teams if you wanted as well, but one on each side. Who do you think needs to be and will exclude Lamar Jackson? Because that's an obvious, but what do you think? Okay. So, okay, so we'll exclude both Lamar. Well, you wasn't going to choose him anyway, but then we'll exclude Kyle Hamilton and Roquan Smith on defense to make it that much harder. That's difficult. Well, offense, I'm going to say Ronnie Stanley, Ronnie Stanley can get his act together. And he's shown in recent weeks that he's back to form, but now he's got two or three weeks off healthy. The knee and ankle should feel all that much better. The Texans are really known to have a huge pass rush, but if they can keep Ronnie Stanley alone and not have a full back running back tight in the chip or hold that side of the line of scrimmage, that's going to open some things up for this offense, have them do things that they might not be able to do. They need to keep a guy at two back to help out Ronnie Stanley on his end. So, Ronnie Stanley's performance, seeing how he does, because I know D'Amico Reigns isn't going to be a contain type of guy. I expect them to attack the line of scrimmage. If you're going to beat us, you're going to be this at our best is where I'm assuming the Texans are going to go out with. So, expect Ronnie Stanley to be tested. And if he passes that test, it could be a big day for the offense. On the defensive side, I was going to say Brandon Stevens. He's been the guy that has been solidifying that defensive backfield. Mama Humphrey didn't practice on Tuesday. So we don't know whether or not he's going to be at 100%. I assume he's going to be ready to go because he was going to be able to go after that Dolphins game. So give these guys, this defensive backfield, a chance to really make some place solidify the side of the ball wherever they put Brandon Stevens and really forced CJ Straw to make decisions and go once. Because if he's in a little off of the football, Brandon Stevens, the company can make him pay. Yeah. And Brandon Stevens, I've been just amazed at Brandon Stevens this year, because the first couple of years, they were a bit shaky and he reminded me of Chuck Clark to where they're not bad players. They're not bad players at all, but they just struggled to make the play. They will be around the ball. They'll be in the area where the play was being made at, but they just wouldn't make the play. And I was wondering like if he was just, if he was going to plateau and that was going to be it. But this year, he's been making the plays. So I really love Brandon Stevens, just how he's grown as a player this year. He's taken a huge, huge, huge step forward for Baltimore Ravens and really just for his own career personally. Now, with all that being said, game is in a couple of days. Before I get your game predictions, how do you feel about the whole rust versus rest? You think these Baltimore Ravens are going to be rusty at all? You think they're going to come out a little bit slow? How do you think them resting is going to possibly impact or affect them, or do you think it just really ain't even no big deal? Well, John Halber probably said it best. Anybody who gets the first round by isn't telling the league, okay, we don't want the first round by. There's huge benefits to having rest. You see it with these players that were injured and are now practicing and getting ready to play in the division around. So I don't buy too much into the rest versus resting, although there is some statistics that will probably back that up. I think the Ravens are going to be fine. I think one thing that John Halber does very well, probably better than any head coach in the league is adapting. You saw it last time when the Ravens were in London and lost to Jacksonville Jaguars. They struggled. So this time around against the Tennessee Titans, they go to London early. They practice early. They do things differently to try and get a better outcome. So John Halber has done that this time practicing in the stadium, practicing in game live type of atmospheres, situations, stuff like that. So I think the Ravens will be ready for this game. I think they're going to be dialed up and ready to go in their laser focus. I have not seen Lamar Jackson this focus in his entire career. Of course, Roquon Smith, even though he's only been here a short time, it seems to always be focused. So perhaps Lamar Jackson is leaning on that a little bit for inspiration. But yeah, this team seems dialed in. They're not going to let the Texans come in there and beat them due to rust. I love it. Now, in closing, how do you feel like this game is going to go? What do you think is going to happen? And if you have an exact score prediction, cool, if you don't, that's fine as well. But how do you think this was going to turn out? Normally, I want to give you a score prediction. But because we're cool, I'm going to give you one. I think the Ravens are in line to dominate this game, honestly. I think the difference between the Ravens and the Browns, again, we mentioned it. The Browns' game plan coming into this on defense was faulty. You should not have done the bare minimum. Very base defense against CJ Stroud. Even though CJ Stroud again has struggled against man coverage, it's the playoffs. You put your best foot forward. You used the weapons that you have at your disposal. I think the Browns didn't do a good job of that. I don't think Mike McDonald makes that mistake. I think they're going to see a lot of movement at the defensive front, a lot of movement on the linebackers and what have you. They're going to really confuse CJ Stroud out there and force him to make decisions. If they lose this game, it's because CJ Stroud became one of the best quarterbacks in the league overnight. Now, he's great now, but he's still a rookie and I think the Ravens take advantage. So I think the Ravens win this game. Let's go 35 to 17. I think the Ravens dominate in this game and push their ticket to the AFC Championship. Okay. I would love that. I would love a nice comfortable win, especially as a Baltimore Ravens fan. But either way, as long as they come out of there with the win. Say, I appreciate you. Appreciate you coming through. Appreciate everything you do for the Baltimore Ravens community as a whole because you keep us engaged. You ask thought-provoking questions and you got, again, the takes be, they be spot on, man. They be spot on. Initially, when I see, I say, whoa, but hey, they end up being spot on. And we appreciate all the memes too. Thank you. I appreciate that. The hot takes are great until they're not correct. So, you know, I'll take the streak them on right now for sure. But you know, save me, give me some grace if things don't go my way. But I think for sure, these takes are going to be pretty spot on, at least for this season. All right, sounds good. So team, keep it clean. Make sure you subscribe to him as YouTube channel Ravens talk podcast. And I leave the link to everything, to his YouTube, to his Twitter, to his Instagram, all down below in the description. So y'all can check them out. So Sam, appreciate your time once again. And team, keep it clean. I'll see y'all in the next video.