 You know what's funny, today we were gonna make a video talking about more extensively why we think Melvin Gordon is not a lock to make the roster because we mentioned it in the video from the other day where his salary actually got cleared up because none of his salary is guaranteed, none of it. So he could be cut at the drop of a dime and the Ravens wouldn't blink twice because it would not infect their salary cap whatsoever. But this, this article, this interview that Melvin Gordon did with Kyle Goon. What a name right there, Goon? All right now Kyle, what's up, buddy? But from Kyle Goon from Baltimore Banner, this interview might actually guarantee him a spot on the roster even with his non-guaranteed salary. And first and foremost, this is why I love Team Keep It Clean. Anything that I don't see? Y'all won't let me miss it. Shout out to my guy Ian because he was the one that actually sent me this. But anyway, Melvin Gordon, he confirmed it that J.K. Dobbins is holding out. It be your own people, right? Well, I mean, I guess I can't really consider him his people but still like, it'll be people that will have just came on to the scene, just came to the roster and they get to talking boy, they get to talking and they say, y'all quick. Like remember last year, remember Sammy Watkins, who the red, when he got cut from I think the Packers and the Ravens were like, hold up, buddy. We ain't signed over while receivers this past off season. We ain't draft none. We got rid of him. Sammy come back, buddy. And he came back. And remember how he was talking about Lamar Jackson? I ain't forget. I ain't forget Sammy. But anyway, this is the same thing. Just brought him on and now he talking about J.K. Anyway, let's just get it to it. So the article from Kyle Goon. It was called Ravens, Melvin, Gordon's Advice. Don't be a running back. So the way that it started, we're not gonna read the whole thing. We're just gonna take snippets from it. Talked about how it was just four years ago that Gordon was considered one of the best, one of the league's best running backs since 2019. Holdout, when he was with the Chargers, was a canary in the coal mine, a forerunner for the discontent that has settled in the NFLs, or with the NFL's rushers today. It said now that he's with the Ravens, Gordon has said before that he regrets going through the holdout. And he said, if you're thinking about playing running back, think twice. Unless you really truly feel like God put you on this planet to run the ball, if you're athletic enough to switch positions, I do so in a heartbeat. And so that's just basically, I mean, you know the current state of the running backs in the NFL, it's rough. It's rough. Saquon Barkley, he was just holding out and he pretty much got the franchise tag with like a little bit of incentives on there. He didn't really get much of a change in his deal, but he's back. Josh Jacobs, they said he got off of the deal. Josh Jacobs insinuated that maybe he didn't, but who knows, but he left the Raiders to go hold out. It's rough for running backs. Ezekiel Elliott, one of the, just recently, a couple of years ago, was one of the best running backs in the league. He's a free agent, Dalvin Cook, one of the current best running backs in the league. He's a free agent. I mean, he might not be by the end of the day, but still he's a free, and he been a free agent for a minute now. There's some other stuff that he's dealing with on the side now. So that may play a role. I don't know. I can't speak on it, because I don't know about it, but yeah. So the state of the running backs is, it's in a very weird place. And then Gordon said, with Gordon's story, he says when he didn't end up getting the contract that he wanted and was done with the Chargers less than a year later. Seemed like a cautionary tale at the time, but now it's just how things go for running backs. And then he, this is a quote from Melvin Gordon. He said, I know that, I know I said that if I was Josh Jacobs, I'd come back, but I didn't lead the league in Russian. And I sat out for way longer than he did. So I just know it's a tough time for him right now, because I've been in that position. There's no other place right now I know he would want to be, then with his teammates. But then this is the part I gave about JK Dobbins. This is the part from Goon from, so this is the part from the article. He said, you don't have to scour other markets to see the tension brewing in the Ravens Zone and running back room. There is a murky situation. Fourth year back, JK Dobbins has started the year on the physically unable to perform list, but the discourse about his hamstring injury has felt somewhat loaded. He mismanaged Tori Minicamp to the frustration of coach John Harbaugh and offensive coordinator, Todd Monk, and yes, we do remember how they were talking about JK Dobbins. John Harbaugh, you know John Harbaugh, like if he feels a certain way by the situation, like upset about it or frustrated with it, he'll let it be known without letting it be known. Like you could tell by his body language, how he speaks about people if he frustrated with something. And JK Dobbins to me, he was getting the, who was the fullback? Who was the fullback that they cut and he went to the Patriots recently? He was getting a Ben Mason treatment. Remember how John was talking about Ben Mason? It was the same way with JK, but anyway. So it's that when he was asked about Dobbins' availability to start training camp, Harbaugh's words were ambiguous. But here we go. Oh, and he talked about how the Harbaugh said, I wish it was a simple answer. There are always a lot of things that go into football, but there's some complexity to it. And we're working through all that. So, let's get to the good part, man. This is Melvin Gordon's part about JK Dobbins. Gordon said, I didn't even know he sitting out, but JK is sitting out. They're not even making a big headline out of it unless you're in India, I guess. And they got other players sitting out. I didn't even know JK was sitting out until I came here. Man, what you doing, man? That's like, that is your teammate, man. Like you really throwing them under the button. I didn't know, like, I guess he was more so saying that it's not getting national headlines. Like a lot of other headlines are getting like with everything going crazy right now with JT with Jonathan Taylor from the Colts. That's been a situation right there. The whole back and forth first, Jim Ursay puts out the quote about the running backs and the marketing whatnot. Then Jonathan, oh, then Ian Rappaport, I think. He was like, oh, I hope this situation can get resolved or something like that. And then Jonathan Taylor's agent, I forget her name, but she was like, no, it can, it won't. And then like a couple of days later, it was said that he had, he made a trade request. But then it came out like a day after he made the trade request that they may put them on the non-football injury list, I believe, because they said that he's dealing with back soreness. So they may put them on that list. But then after that, he came out and said on Twitter that, excuse me, not Twitter, on X. Cause it ain't Twitter anymore, it's X. But anyway, he came out and said on X that he never had any back pain. He never told them about any back pain. He ain't been dealing with any back pain. And it's just, it's a mess over there. And it's a loud mess. It's a crazy mess. It's a wild mess. But I guess with Melvin Gordon confirming that J.K. Dobbins is holding out, excuse me, sitting out, Ravens is more of a quiet mess. It's more of a controlled mess. So it can reach stages of ugly. It really can. It has the potential to, especially with J.K. Dobbins currently being on the physically unable to perform list. Cause that's where they can get real tricky with the whole contract stuff. And him being in his last year is, and I've expressed this before with J.K. Dobbins, he is in such a tough and frustrating situation for himself. Because as we know, as we've seen, all the talent in the world, all the talent in the world, he can be that home run hitter, he got speed. He can cut, he can make somebody miss. And J.K. Dobbins, again, very similar to Ray Rice, he got some sneaky strength as well, but he can make it happen. I think with more opportunity to catch the ball too, he could probably do that as well, especially in the offense that it's seeming like the Ravens are gonna be running. I think it's gonna involve the running backs catching a lot more passes. So they'll be involved in a lot more different ways instead of just running the ball and staying back to pass protect for Le Mans. But I think they'll be involved in the short passing game a lot more. But anyway, with J.K. Dobbins, we know everything that he can do. We get it, but he's missed a lot of time. A lot of time, like full seasons worth of time. And it's tough, man, especially because of the position that he's in. If you look at Le Mans, you know, Le Mans like last year, I think he missed four or five games. I think the year before that he missed maybe four or five games too, I think something like that. So he missed some significant time over the past two years. And again, fluke injury, but still he missed the time. The time was missed. But with Le Mans, see, that's the big difference between with Le Mans and J.K. situations. Without Le Mans, Ravens can't do it. It's been shown, it's been proven, they know. And that's quarterback, but his impact at quarterback is crazy. It's crazy good. They can't get it done without him. With J.K., he's missed time, a lot of time. And again, J, phenomenal running back, but the Ravens, they've kept it moving. Especially at that position. That's a position where a lot of times these teams, they ain't investing nothing crazy into no running back, man. Like him being a second round pick, that's a big investment nowadays for a running back. Cause you got a couple of guys that's gonna be first, that would be first round picks. And that were first round picks even last year. But first round picks, second round before running back, that's high nowadays, man. Teams ain't doing that like they're used to anymore, man. So running backs having to take, look at Joe Mixon took a like a $4.5 million pay cut, both this and next year. Just to stay with the squad, man. Cause they squeezing everything in the kid. They can get out these running backs, man. And somebody explained it really good. I think it was on Speak. I want to say it was Acho, Emmanuel Acho. It might have been somebody else. Maybe it was the Shady McCoy, whoever it was. They explained it really good when they talked about how teams look at running backs nowadays and it made a lot of sense because they'll be like, all right, if you are, if you're a running back, and you run for like 1600, 1700 yards in a season, the teams will look at that like, oh man, hey, nice season. But man, he, he might be kind of washing now. His legs might be done. He might be too tired now. He may not have it anymore. But as far as like the wire receiver, say wire receiver go off like 1800, 1900 yards in a season. They'll look at that wire receiver like, okay, can you give me 1600, 1700 yards this year? It's just, the position is just, it's looked at so differently. And it's still important then. Don't get, don't get it twisted. It's still a very important position and something that is a necessity. I mean, not even just, I know a lot of people talk about playoffs. Playoffs is when you need to run back the most. Well, you do, but throughout the season, cause a run get, it's nice to have balance. It's nice to have diversity in your offense. Cause if you just gonna be passing ball 24-7, that's cool, but no man, you gotta be able to run that ball too. You gotta be able to drain the clock and whatnot. You gotta be able to sustain drives, make the drives longer and whatnot. Especially if you, you're trying to really kill the clock and whatnot. Even if you just trying to get a longer drive, do something different, give people a break, get a receiver and tight ends a break and whatnot. Hand it off to the running back. So the position, it is still very important, but it's weird because it's very important, but the value of it is just as low as it's ever been financially, monetarily. So it's tough, man. JK's in such a tough spot cause it ain't looking good for these running backs, man. It ain't looking good for them. That whole conference called the other day that soon called, what was that gonna do? I don't know what that was gonna do. What are they gonna hold out? They hold out like these teams, like with that position specifically, if it's a wide receiver hold out, if it's a tight end holding out, certain tight ends, okay. If it's a quarterback holding out, obviously, but a running back holding out, teams like, okay, go ahead and hold out. Go. That's fine. Do your thing. Again, look at Saquon Barkley. Now he has missed a lot of time too. He missed significant time with injury. Significant time. But his impact on the Giants was big because they have Daniel Jones. And that's not a shot at Daniel Jones. You know what I mean? Daniel Jones and they beat the Ravens last year. But with Daniel Jones, Daniel Jones is not a little more Jackson. The impacts are completely different. So him with the Giants, in my opinion, is a lot more valuable than a JK with the Ravens. Not saying that, don't get the words, don't get it twisted. But Saquon Barkley to the Giants, he's more valuable than JK Dobbins is to the Ravens, especially because of the quarterback position. Because I feel like with Daniel Jones, he's not a bad quarterback, but he's not as valuable. Since he's not nearly as valuable to the Giants, Daniel Jones is as Lamar Jackson is to the Ravens. That's why Saquon Barkley is a lot more valuable to the Giants than JK is to the Ravens, in my opinion. So he had a bit of a leg up when it came to that. Even though, again, nothing really changed. The franchise tag was pretty much the same as the contract that he got, the one year contract that he got with some incentives. So it's tough spot. But like Melvin Gordon did to JK Dobbins, yeah, he put him out. And we're gonna go ahead and get off of here now. That boy really trying to get that rising spot. Boy, he said, hey, interview me. He probably went over the goon and said, hey, interview me. I got some stuff to say. You gonna wanna hear this, man. That boy Melvin Gordon trying to hold it down on a rave. He's trying to keep that number 33. And he trying to keep his spot, trying to keep a roster spot. He trying to make it happen. Because you know he gonna get some opportunities, man. You know he gonna get some. But I know there have been a lot of people that also been thinking that the Ravens brought in Melvin Gordon to give JK a little reminder in a couple of different ways. Like one, hey, you wanna hold out? We got somebody that can replace you. Know that we'll replace you or whatnot. Let them just give them JK a reminder. Cause people will do that. Teams will do that. Companies will do that. Not just in the NFL. Companies will do that with employees. Oh, you wanna threaten to quit? Oh, you gonna leave? Okay, hey, this person, we're bringing this person right here. They'll take your place. So try us if you want to. They'll do it. And that's life. They'll do it. But also, like we talked about earlier, like was mentioned in the article, Melvin Gordon, he went through the whole holdout thing too. He went through the whole holdout thing and it didn't work out in his favor. That could be another way that they trying to remind JK, like, hey, he done been through it. So you could try it if you want to, but it ain't gonna fly with us. That's why JK's in such a tough position, man. But we'll see how this thing goes. Thank you, people, I love y'all. Appreciate y'all. And we out, baby.