 It's time to do a mid-season review about the Ravens. They came through in that first couple of games. The offense was blazing, but then it slowed up, and then it started to creep. And right now, I wish we could say that the offense was just short of amazing, but we can't because they've been slow. Sometimes we're like, hurry up, go, go, go. And then a lot of people seem to want somebody fired named Giro, but for now he's not going anywhere. And right now we're going to continue to stare at Wings' hair as he sends one, two, three, four guys on a blitz here, there, and everywhere. Team Keep It Clean, let's do a mid-season review of these Baltimore Ravens with a very special guest. Let's jump into it. Yeah, this feels like a dream. The Team Keep It Clean. In the building today, I got a very, very special guest. It is one half of the Purple Rain podcast, Sudden Left. Sudden, appreciate you joining us today. How you doing, man? What's going on in Graven? Thanks for having me on the show. Yet again, man. The question from subscribers, they're always a lot of fun. So I'm definitely glad to be back. Appreciate you, as always. But I've been doing good, man. On behalf of me, Alex, the entire rain gang over at the Appropriate Rain podcast channel, we appreciate all that you do. And yeah, like I said, man, couldn't be happier to be here. Oh yeah, appreciate that. Shout out to the rain gang. Now, before we get into it, let everybody know where they can find you, where they can find your podcast, all of that good stuff. Gotcha, yes. You can find me on Twitter or Instagram at SuttonDef. That's just S-U-T-T-O-N-D-E-F. You can find the Purple Rain podcast. So me and my guy simply is 10 hour Baltimore Ravens podcast that we do every Monday and Thursday, live at 7 PM Eastern time. That is just on YouTube at the Purple Rain podcast. You can find us on Instagram as well at the Purple Rain podcast. And the rain is actually not spelled like rain, falling from the sky. It's like actual like rain, like R-E-I-G-N, like a rain of terror, if you know what I mean. Purple Rain podcast, check us out. All right, that's what time it is. So we got some really good questions, like we always do every single time. So without further ado, let's jump straight into it. So the first question came from my guy, Great Ice. He said, greetings in Raven. Back in May during training camp, I asked you for the Ravens, how far they could go this year and what our expectations as fans should be. You responded that the Ravens would make it to the AFC championship game and have a great regular season. Obviously a lot has happened since then, 17 guys on Inja Reserve. In addition, five more players listed as questionable. Yet Ravens are six and three, lead the AFC North and have an opportunity to go into the postseason as the number one seed. My question is this, now that we have made it past the mid-season mark and seen how the Ravens play when healthy, actually we haven't seen how they play when healthy because we never have seen them healthy this year and we won't ever get a chance to. But anyway, he said, and we have seen how the Ravens play when healthy minus Nick Boyle, who is on the way. Do you still see us in the AFC championship? If so, who's it against? And if not, then why? And PS, who's gonna show out against the Chicago Bears? I've got a feeling it's gonna be Matabique. Hope all is well with you and the fan. All right, so this is sort of a mid-season review of the Ravens. Now at this point in the season, Sutton, how you feeling about the Ravens? And we'll start off, what do you feel like their biggest strength is right now? Honestly, I feel like right now, their biggest strength is just resilience. And I feel like that's been the team's kind of only strength if you really think about it because the majority of our wins have come from us either coming from behind or fighting some sort of adversity or whatever. And then of course, like you said, going into the season with so many players on IR, that's fighting adversity and having to put a really good display of resilience up there right there. Alone, but I think that's really our biggest strength, man. There's not really one thing I can point to because all the things that I would call strengths, like actually on the football field have been kind of inconsistent. Nothing's been too, too consistent this season. So there's not really one thing I can point to, but definitely a lot of room for improvement though. That's for sure we know that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They got a lot of room that they can improve in, but I would say probably biggest strength, similar to yours, but it would be certainty. Certainty and knowledge. And having that certainty and having that knowledge that you are able to come back from being down. Now, unfortunately, it obviously didn't happen in that Dolphins game and it certainly didn't happen in that Bengals game either, but we've seen it in the majority of the games with Ravens, they've been down and even down multiple scores and they've come back. They fought back and they've gotten past these leads that they've given up due to slow starts, which hopefully they get past that. But just knowing that you can do that because it can be one thing if you haven't done it before and you may be thinking, all right, well, if we get our chance then we could prove that we can do it. Whether it's in the regular season, whether it's in the playoffs, whatever. But now the fact that you've done it and not only done it once, but you've done it several different times throughout different games, you know that you can. So that gives you a nice boost of confidence if you make it to the postseason, which I still expect them to, but that gets you a nice boost of confidence of moving forward. Now, talked about that biggest strength. What do you think Ravens biggest weakness is? Man, biggest weakness. I mean, there's a lot of things that you could probably point to. For me, I would say the biggest weakness is gonna be just the inconsistencies on the offensive line. Now, we all know when it comes to the game of football, it starts and finishes with the trenches. What did you do in the trenches? And then, defensive line hasn't been terrible this season. We've got, you know, Kaleis Campbell who's been having a really nice year stopping the run, especially doesn't really have the sack numbers to put up with it, but he's been stopping the run pretty well. You've got guys like Odafe Owe Rookie, who's already got what four sacks right now on pace to, you know, basically get more than anybody had last year. And this is as a rookie. So that's already promising right there. When you flip it to the other side of the offensive line, it's just been kind of like, it's been a carousel, especially at the, you know, the tackle position. Who would have thought, and I actually talked about this on last, the last episode of Purple Rain podcast with Alex, who would have thought that we would, we would need Patrick McCarrey so much, this much, you know what I mean? Like he was actually a huge help and a big reason why that right side was, you know, kind of like lockdown for Lamar Jackson for a couple of weeks. And we were able to make some big plays through the air and things were looking good. But he goes down, you know, we start having new subbing guys like Tyree Phillips. And then you got Alejandro Villanueva. You never really know what you're going to get from him. Ben Powers is not really getting good push at the front. So it's like, and then you had Bozeman who had some low snaps last week. So it's just like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of things, there's a multitude of things on that offensive line that really do bother me. And that's what I say is our biggest weakness, you know, because I could easily point to, you know, I could say like, you know, the receivers haven't been getting open as much as they should. But I can't really say that too much. And or I could honestly say, you know, Hollywood Brown should be catching more passes or whatever, you know, but none of that, the fact of the matter is none of that stuff can happen if the offensive line does not perform and they're not healthy enough. So I would say as of right now, that offensive line is definitely going to be our biggest weakness for sure. Oh yeah, for sure. And when I think of Raven's biggest weakness is probably a word that you mentioned early on. And that would be just the inconsistencies. It's just been a lot of inconsistencies throughout this entire season so far. And it's just all through it. It is nice that there's six in three, despite those inconsistencies, they have been inconsistent with running the ball and I know JK and Gusta out and that's huge. And I think, I don't really think anybody just realized until we saw action without them. I don't think anybody realized just how big of a blow that was going to be. And so the running game has been inconsistent. Like you said, the offensive line certainly has been inconsistent and that's probably been the biggest inconsistency of this entire year. But then just the passing game, the adjustments, sometimes they'll adjust, sometimes they won't and just the receivers, like I know last game, it was rough. Last game, Hollywood I think had his, in my opinion probably his second worst game of the season. First obviously being at Detroit game with all the drops. But he had several drops in the Miami game too. And then he's had some drops every now and then throughout this year. And with the receivers, Sammy Watkins, like I feel like he wasn't even healthy yet. But on defense, the inconsistencies there because sometimes they'll place this lockdown defense, they'll stop the opposing team's offense. But then they'll turn around and they'll give up these huge chunk plays. Early on in the season, they had a big issue that we all recognized with tackling. Tackling was just so bad. But now tackling has been good. Over the past couple of games, it's been a lot better. But then there's again, the big plays, the chunk plays that they've been giving up. So this team, I feel like they, I feel like the best thing about the problems that they have is that they know exactly what they are. But the hardest thing to do is fix them. Mainly with the offensive line, because what are you gonna tell the guys to block better? You're gonna tell them to get better overnight? Like that is probably the hardest fix. But to fix that, I think it comes down to coaching. You know, you don't have your best five guys out there. Okay, all right, cool. You gotta deal with it. Injuries happen to every single team, definitely to the Ravens and to the Titans too, who I didn't even realize they had more people on injured reserve than the Ravens. But with the Ravens, you have to just, you have to hide that. You have to hide your deficiencies with the offensive line. So it's just been crazy to see that they just, they haven't yet. And it doesn't really seem like they tried to, because I would expect more of a quick passing game, some more screens, bring it to the running backs. Not all the screens just going to Hollywood, like every single play, like we saw in that Telfin's game. And I'm sure they are waiting and hoping and they are just so like ready for Nick Boyle to be back. Cause he is like an extra offensive lineman, cause he's known for his blocking ability. Now my guy, Gray Ice, he mentioned before, before the season, he asked me what my expectations were for the Ravens. And yeah, I did say AFC championship. Now, without this team is playing right now, of course still got a long season ahead of them. How far do you feel the Ravens can go? Oh man, it's hard to say right now, because it just seems like the injuries do keep piling up. And like we talked about before this season started, this is the longest NFL season ever. And we're not done with it yet. We're only about halfway through with it. So it's kind of hard to tell from, you know, for me at this very moment, where we're going to be at the end of the season. But like you said, you made a good point earlier, the resilience has been a really big thing for the Ravens this season. And that's something that can actually prepare you for the playoffs and those, you know, those, those gut check games where it's time to actually put up or shut up, you know what I mean? And like we've been there before in that position multiple times throughout the regular season. So I think that will help us and I think we'll get into the playoffs. But if I'm being realistic, I could see another divisional round exit this season. I could definitely see it. I think, you know, injuries will catch up to us. We won't have, we're really hurting without our playmakers, man. Like, and you alluded to it earlier, I mean, losing Gus Edwards and JK Dobbins, that hurt us a lot more, a lot, lot more than people think. Because I mean, you look at, you look at a stat like time of possession and we're beating most teams that we play in time of possession, but we're still letting them hang around in games. So we're losing some of these games. Why? Because we cannot lean on them with the run game like we used to. Because we don't have Gus Edwards. We don't have JK Dobbins. So we can't do the classic Baltimore Ravens. Okay, let's, you know, get this running back by committee. We got a couple of talented guys here and we're, you know, they're going to turn up at least 120, 150 yards a game. That's not happening now. That's not happening. And it's been like solely reliant. The offense has been pretty much reliant on Lamar Jackson passing the football. We actually have more passing attempts this season. They're rushing attempts. Like, a lot of people don't know that, but we do. There's only about like 20, but we do. We passed the ball more. So I don't know, man. Like I said, I could see the divisional round exit because I feel like at some point, you know, we're going to have one of those games where there's a lapse on the offensive line or the defensive line just because of the lack of experience for one. And then also just the, this is the fact that we don't have like, we don't have any of our anchors. Like Ronnie Stanley shut down for the season, you know what I mean? Two thirds of the monsters, Brandon Williams is out pretty much like what, every other week. And then you've got Derek Wolf who has just been shut down for the season, you know? So like I said, it starts and finishes with the trenches. I think that will be, end up being like our Achilles heel, if anything, this season. Now I hope I'm wrong. I'm praying I'm wrong. Listen, then Graven, trust me. And to entire team, keep it clean. I am, I'm praying I am wrong about this. I hope we can make the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl of course, because I am a diehard Ravensman about as diehard as they come. But I got to be realistic. I got to be realistic from what I've seen 10 weeks in or 11 weeks in, you know, this Ravens in the trenches, we're just not, we're just not good enough. And we don't have the other talent to mask it at running back. J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards, I feel like would have done a lot better running behind this offensive line. They'd have been a lot more productive than, you know, these older guys in Devonta Freeman and, you know, Latavius Murray, who's actually been playing pretty well for us when he was on the football field. He should be coming back soon. Or Levy on Bell, who we just released earlier today. So, you know, I don't know, man. I think it's the, you know, the deficiencies in the trenches will definitely end up being our Achilles heel. And I can see a division around exit. I don't see AFC Championship game this year. And this is why we just hoping the best for Patrick McCarrey and, of course, Nick Boyle. And hoping that they can get back sooner rather than later. Now with Nick Boyle, I would expect him to play this week against the Chicago Bears. Patrick McCarrey, obviously not, not yet. He's not even, you know what? I don't think they even put him on Endreserve. So I think they're expecting him back sooner rather than later. But with, we just hope we can get as many guys back as possible. Because you don't want what happened last season to happen again this season. And that's where the Ravens, they skated by, they skated by the whole regular season with poor play from their offensive line. Literally all season long from weeks one to week 17, they skated by. And now this season, the offensive line play has been pretty bad. Again, throughout the entirety of the season, minus the Chiefs game, but they've been pretty bad. And you just don't want what your problem, I mean, that's usually how playoffs end up working out. Whatever your biggest problem is in regular season, it usually gets blown up and emphasized that much more when it comes to the playoffs. So hopefully Ravens, I don't even know what they could do. I just think the biggest fix to the offensive line to help them out would really be play calling. But it's just, they are in such a tough spot because when you pick somebody up off the street, do you bring up like a Bowie or Bobby Carpenter, you let them get a shot? Right. I mean, it's in such a tough spot when it comes to the offensive line, they're very limited on what they can do. And that's why I know I've talked to so many people. And I think most Ravens fans would definitely agree with the state that their offensive line is in and with the state that their defensive line is in. A lot of people expect the Ravens in the draft this year to go offense and defensive line heavy. As they should, yeah, as they should. I actually wanted to bring up one more thing. So you said play calling should be one of the things that helps out this team. Yeah, play calling also in the very, very beginning of the game is something that I want to see improve and be a little bit more or a lot more cutting edge, because these slow starts are not going to cut it. So you think about like a lot of the games, pretty much all the games that we've won, the close games that we won this season, we started slow and we ended up having to show resilience and come back and build our way back into the game and ended up winning sometimes and sometimes we lost. And a lot of times those were against teams that were not that good, i.e. like the dolphins, we let them hang around, they ended up beating us when we played the Colts, when we played, what was the other team earlier in the season that we played that we started slow? I can't remember right off the top. Really every game. Really every game, exactly. Except the Chargers game was the only game where they didn't start slow. Or we jumped, yeah, we jumped out on the Chargers. Denver as well, even though they ended up, you know, heating up a little bit later. But my point is this, like, we cannot allow us to just start slow, especially when it comes to the playoffs, because in the playoffs you're going to be going against teams that are not like the dolphins, not like the Colts. Maybe the Colts, they might make the wild card. But listen, like these other teams in the playoffs, like they're not going to allow you to hang around and just come back, you know what I mean? Like if you start slow and they start fast, it's bye-bye from there. You know, you can just kiss goodbye. Like that's it. There's not going to be any leeway, any room to come back because this team is not, you know, up to par. They're not good, they're not the Colts or we can just run, hurry up offense and just march all the way back on them. You know, it's just not going to happen against the Bills. It's not going to happen against the Chiefs or they can put up the same sort of offensive firepower that we can. Right. You know, so starting fast and kind of setting the tone instead of letting other teams or opponents set the tone for us and having us to respond, we need to come out stronger, a lot stronger. Oh yeah, for sure. And yeah, you made a good point. It ain't going to be the dolphins game where if you get off to a slow start, then this team, you end up hanging around with them for a while, but since you started so slow, they don't end up blowing you out like they should have been. Playoffs is a completely different atmosphere, completely different vibe, completely different energy, man. So yeah, these slow starts, they got to go. So I know you did cover how you feel as of right now, the Ravens are going to do at the end of the season and the playoffs, you don't want it obviously, none of us want it, but you wouldn't be surprised if they ended up getting bounced in the divisional round just because of all the problems and the issues and whatnot. So with that being said, Ravens have a head coach, Ravens have two coordinators calling the shots on offense and defense. If they did get bounced in the divisional round, do you think there should be any changes that went down with the squad? And I was kind of premature, super early. Yeah, I mean, my biggest fear is that, I mean, I would want to see some changes, right? Like I want to see, I'm of the school of thought, I think Ray Roman does need to go, I think he does. I think it's to the point where like, when a team can run, cover zero on you 30 to 40 times and that hasn't been done since God knows when, you know what I mean? I think they said like the age is something like that. It was a while ago, the last time a team did that. But when a team does that and we just show the inability to make the proper adjustments, that's when you know, like, okay, something's wrong. There's a deficiency here, you know? And I don't know if you saw the video or the clip or that they were circulating on Twitter, a Philip River is talking about how like, you know, the Dolphins ran that against us so many times and it didn't really seem like, and he said it like sarcastically, like jokingly, like how could you not, you know, solve that? You know, like why would you not run these type of routes and that sort of thing? So I mean, that's very telling right there. They're in itself because you got Philip River who, you know, Hall of Fame quarterback who is basically telling you, hey, look, they didn't make the proper adjustments. So it's out there on front street for everybody to know and everybody to see that the Ravens do have a problem at offensive coordinator, you know, especially when it comes to these certain scenarios. Now, whether or not those guys will get moved out of Baltimore and Wink is definitely not off the hook either. Wink isn't off the hook either at all. And in a lot of ways, Harbaugh is not off the hook just yet. I feel like he's got, he still got some tenure, you know what I mean? Like he's, you know, he's still got some leeway, some leash to him for sure. But, you know, those two guys, I don't think they'll get moved out of Baltimore only because the injuries will be the excuse for this season, right? So like going into the season, we lost so many guys, Jiro, he lost his entire running back room. And we know what Jiro loves to do. He's a running backs offensive coordinator and he lost all of his running backs a week before the season. So I mean, it would be kind of unfair when you put it that way to like, you know, just get Jiro up out of there when he really never got the fair shake that he was supposed to, like the season he prepared for is not the season he's currently playing, you know? So he's kind of, you know, making adjustments on the fly. And for that reason, like, you know, I kind of got to like give him some sort of slack. But at the same time, again, like you cannot let a team like consistently, it's like you're playing Madden, right? Against like your little cousin and they don't know how to stop this one defensive play. They just have no idea what to do with it. They have, it's just, it's just mind boggling to them and they can't do anything and they're getting so frustrated. That's what it looked like on Thursday night against the Dolphins. Like we had no answer for that, like at all. Yeah, we were definitely, definitely the little cousin in that scenario. Now with Greg Roman, I felt like Greg Roman going into the season, he had a lot of pressure on him. I didn't necessarily feel like he was on the hot seat, but I feel like it was certainly heating up because we all knew Greg Roman, everybody had heard it and we could see it with the numbers too. That Greg Roman run game on fire all the time, top five and all that. But pass game, always bottom five. And that's, it was like that with the Ravens, it was like that Buffalo is like that with the 49ers as well. But so when your employer, when they hire some additional employees to take on the job that you struggle with, then that shows that you have an issue, you have a problem. And that lets you know and that lets everybody in the company know too, like, hey, okay, he wasn't capable of doing a job or wasn't capable of doing a job alone. So we brought in some guys that could do the job. So that put pressure on them. And overall, this hasn't been a bad year for Greg Roman overall. There's been a lot of bad moments, but there's been, I would say more good than bad. This is why with the whole Greg Roman, the back and forth, some people want to get him fired or want him to be fired. Some people don't, I can completely understand both sides. Now, one thing that's been said, I've seen it by so many people when they talk about Greg Roman, is that Lamar, he could do it. He's the one that's saving Greg Roman's job too. They feel like Lamar is the only reason that Greg Roman is still here. And especially in the case of the run game, because like you mentioned, we don't have Gus Attawoods, J.K. Dobbins, not even Justice Hill. We don't have any of the guys that he was expected to have. But the running game is still, I think, number two behind the Browns run game. And that's when you think about it, that's kind of crazy because they have, even though they injured right now, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, but they've had them for the majority of the season. And then even Deionis Johnson, who's been going off sometimes too. And we have, of course, Lamar, who's our lead in Russia by far. And then Devante Freedman and Laveon Bell, who they just cut. And Latavius Murray, who he's been hurt too. And Tyson Williams, who doesn't get any touches. So the fact that the running game is still, well, stats-wise, the running game is still in the position where it's at right now, that says a whole lot. Shout out to somebody riding a motorcycle through the neighborhood. But anyway, Greg Roman, he got a lot of pressure on him, a whole lot of pressure. And yeah, I agree about Wink. Wink is certainly not off the hook at all. And because I just feel like with Patrick Queen, I don't watch college at all. I had no idea that this whole time he's been playing out of position. I did not know that at all. All I knew was that he was an inside lineback and that was it. I did not know that he was not a Mike lineback. I was, oh, okay. Well, so when they activated Josh Bynes and they brought him on the roster and Patrick Queen been playing a lot better ever since. So, okay, that makes sense. He's in his natural position now. And with Wink, I know Wink, like, I joke about it sometimes. I say Chuck Clark, he's not a safety. He's really like a defensive end or outside linebacker because all he does is pass rush. Like this dude is Chuck Clark, like crazy. But you know, Wink, he lived by a divide with the Blitz. And I was never one of the fans that's like, oh, Wink, don't blitz at all. You shouldn't blitz at all. No, nothing like that. Because we know that the Blitz creates problems, especially when done right. But Wink just, he has to be a more a smarter blitzer and you got to recognize like, hey, if it's not working, then let's dial it back a bit. And also, like we as fans, you see all these graphics on the TV screen when Ravens play these different quarterbacks. And one of my favorite graphics that comes up, and every time I see it, I just feel like, oh boy, they're gonna go directly against it. And they're gonna do the opposite. Because it happened the past couple of years, like with Patrick Mahomes, it'll say, oh, Patrick Mahomes, he got like a 93 rating against the Blitz. And he's thrown, this season, he's thrown like 11 touchdowns to zero interceptions against the Blitz. And it'd be like, oh boy, here we go. All right, I know Wink's about to blitz him like crazy. And again, for the past couple of years, besides his last game, he was still blitz Patrick Mahomes like crazy. Even when it wouldn't work, he was still blitz Patrick, Patrick Mahomes like crazy. Even sending like Marlon Humphrey on Blitz is too. And that, I would just be like, why you sending our best cover corner? But anyway, he just, I feel like Wink has to do a better job of realizing when stuff is not working. And I feel like he has to do a better job of putting players in position to succeed. Right. And with, oh, go ahead. Oh, no, I mean, like just piggybacking off of that, like I think like simplifying the defense for like our younger players, because we got a lot of young players on this defense. And like you said, Patrick Queen for a year to this point was playing out of position. Now he's back at the week inside linebacker position and he's playing a lot better. Same thing, you look at guys like Odafe Owe, who has four sacks right now, you think he could probably have more if he wasn't being dropped back into coverage and he was just able to rush the passer like he's meant to do, you know what I mean? Like you got to simplify the defense for these young guys. You can't be throwing, you can't be throwing freshmen calculus for material. You know what I mean? Like you just, you can't do that. You know what I mean? You got to give them what they're more comfortable with upfront that way they can perform better and they can grow into a potentially a better player. But I don't know if Wink sees it that way necessarily. So yeah, I mean, I agree, Wink is definitely not off the hook either. And with that being said, with both Greg Roman and Wink, again, they're not bad coordinators. They're not terrible coordinators, but they certainly have their weakness. They have their strengths and they have their weaknesses too. But everything ultimately it falls on the top guy. And that's John Harbaugh. Because John Harbaugh is the one that's ultimately responsible for everything as the head coach. You're the one that calls the shots. You're the one that has that final say so. If something needs to change or something isn't working, it's your job to step in and be like, hey, we got to cut this out. Or, hey, we need to run this. Hey, I know Harbaugh, he likes to let Greg Roman do his thing and let Wink do his thing and really not interfere. But it's on him to really take that step as that head coach and be like, nah, I don't think this is a good idea. You know what, let's dial back on that. But we'll see how he does. Well, just how everybody does moving forward. Because everything has not been on the coaches. A lot of it has been on execution too. Like for example, there's been games, like even the Vikings game, for example. The Vikings game, the Ravens, on that first drive of the game. They were struggling to move the ball downfield and they, boy, oh my goodness, Greg Roman called, I hated the call. He called an option play on fourth and two. And it was, I didn't like the play call from jump. And even if it would have worked, I still wouldn't like the play call. I would have been glad that it worked, but I just did not like the play call at all. Now it didn't work, but the Vikings got called for a bogus horse collar on Lamar. So that saved that drive. But then this is where execution, this is where it was on the players. Lamar dropped back, a couple of players later, Lamar dropped back, threw a touchdown to Mark Andrews. What happened? Mark Andrews dropped it. So that's to no fault of Greg Roman. And then you look at games like the, like the Beatles game, Jamar Chase, he caught like a eight yard slam on Raven's defense. It's like, okay, eight yard slam. Yeah, we wish he wouldn't have caught it, but all right, Raven just gotta tackle them in all case, eight yards, but they didn't tackle them. They did not tackle that eight yard slam turned into an 82 or 84 yard touchdown. So Wink, he caught the right play, nothing wrong with that, but guys just didn't make the plays. So it's not, everything's not on the coaches. It's on the players too. And we've seen so much of the blame to be tossed around to literally everybody this season. Cause the players are, they're trying to make up for what's been lost. Trying to make up for the loss of Marcus Peters. Trying to make up for the loss of Brandon Williams sometimes cause he's been out. Trying to make up for the loss of Derek Wolf. Patrick Queens said he had been overthinking and whatnot. And it's, I know it's been a lot on them. And then of course with Lamar Jackson, I feel like him, he tends to press a lot of times because the offensive line that's in front of him, they just, those aren't the guys who they were scheduled to be their offensive line. And I guess, yeah, two out of the, two out of the five are backups. Well, Tyree Phillips was supposed to be a starter, but he's supposed to be a starter at left guard. But he's ended up, he's playing right tackle. Then Alejandro Villanueva, he's supposed to be at right tackle, but he's playing left tackle since Ronnie Stanley was out. Ben Powers, I don't know what the situation is with him because again, I remember the first game of the season, they kept flip flopping him and Ben Cleveland at left guard. And it's just been crazy on the offensive line, but it's forced Lamar to like really overthinking over process things because he hasn't had protection like that. He's had to be, he's been running for his life, like literally all season long. He's been running for his life. And I think that's why a little couple of games before the bye week, like a lot of people were noticing, Lamar, he's not as fast as he, he doesn't look as fast as he is. He looks a little bit slower. And I really think that he was just banged up and he was just hurting. And I know some people like, oh man, he probably hurting from just having to carry the team on his back. But I think he's just hurting from getting banged up just so much from trying to stay in the pocket, trying to make stuff happen and just trying to keep plays alive. So we're gonna see how this team turns out. They certainly got a lot of work to do, but hopefully they can get stuff fixed sooner rather than later. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like you said, like with Lamar Jackson, kind of wrapping it up with this, like Lamar Jackson, there definitely is some blame to go around on him as well. I think definitely when it comes to getting the ball out quicker, I think that our timing routes definitely need to be executed to a higher level. Getting the ball out, like I said, more on time in a timely fashion because we know what defenses are gonna try to run against us now. And the way to beat it is with timing routes and like with good execution and things like that. So all this, like, you know, hesitating to throw the football and trying to force it to Hollywood because we know he loves Hollywood as a target. I think that we definitely need to look at spreading the ball around a little bit more. Also, another thing, and I kind of wanna, you know, this is kind of backtracking just a little bit, but starting fast, that's not all on Lamar. I think it's also on the plate calling as well, like we were talking about earlier. Do what you need to do in order to manufacture a touchdown drive in the first two drives. I would say in the first two. It may be asking for a bit much on the very first drive, but on the first two drives, like getting a touchdown should be crucial. And of course, like getting a touchdown on any drive is crucial, but like manufacturing a touchdown drive. You know how like sometimes we'll have those drives where we have like the highlight feature key player of the entire drive is Pat Ricard and what he can do blocking, catching the football and, you know, that gets us down the football field. If you can do that in the beginning of a game, do it. If you can put up seven early by, you know, showing your hand, do it, you know what I mean? Cause that's going to give you momentum to, you know, go throughout the game going forward. And also, I mean, like starting slow against like bad teams, it gives these bad teams confidence that they can hang in, they can hang in there with us. You know, at the end of the day, this is a grown man's sport. It's a very emotional sport. You know, football is a very, very emotional and mental, you know, mental game. So if you give this like lesser team who's coming in here with a trash record, if you give them any sort of like sign of hope that, hey, they can hang with y'all, they're going to hang with y'all. Cause at the end of the day, these are other grown men professionals, you know, these are the professional coaches on the sidelines. So it's because their record isn't, you know, all up to par is what, you know, ours might be or some of the higher teams in the league. We can't sleep on anybody. We can't sleep on anybody. Gotta start fast against any and everyone. All right, the last question on this episode came from my guy Percy J. He said, do you think Lamar Jackson will come back next game and play better for his Louisville fans after getting his jersey retired? And also, what do you think about the ceremony? So with Lamar Jackson getting his jersey retired by the Cardinals, do I think he'll play better? I mean, I would hope like not even just for those fans, but for himself, for his team, first and foremost. Maybe I think Lamar Jackson was focused on the wrong homecoming. A lot of the Ravens were focused on the wrong homecoming this week. Because they were focused on the homecoming for the Cardinals, for Louisville Cardinals, instead of the homecoming coming back to Florida for the Ravens. And that game was yuck. But anyway, that was cool. That whenever a jersey is retired, it really just shows how special that player was to that franchise or to that team and to that school. And it really shows that that player has such a significant impact and that they're like, you know what, they don't even want to risk another player having to not even follow in that player's footsteps. It's not even that. But I think that they don't even want to risk the memories being tarnished by a future player, even though it will be to no fault of their own. Like for instance, at Louisville, if somebody else, whether quarterback, whether receiver, cornerback, whatever, if they wore the number eight, then all the fans, every time they see that player, they might think, oh, OK, Lamar Jackson. And they'll do comparisons and it won't be fair, but they'll make comparisons. And I mean, because any quarterback that came after him is going to get compared to him regardless. But especially if any player wears a number eight and fans see that, it's just going to take away from it. Because that's like somebody coming, getting drafted or signed by the Ravens or whatever. And I mean, the comparisons already happen, even though the number is 52, they're not giving out the number. 20 isn't giving out 75. And 55 probably won't be given out either. But it's unfair for those players. It will be extra unfair and just extra, like almost traumatic for fans if they saw another player playing in that same jersey, playing in the 52 Ray Lewis jersey, playing in the 20 Ray Reed jersey. Because the fans already do enough comparing. But if they see a player playing in that number, oh man, it would just be bad. And just like I say, it wouldn't be fair. So the jersey retirement is pretty special. What did you think about it? And did you watch it? What do you think about when jerseys get retired and Lamar getting his retired at his old school? I mean, definitely love Lamar getting his jersey retired at Louisville. I didn't actually get to watch the ceremony live, but I saw the highlights from it, how Lamar reacted and everything like that. Beautiful to watch. I mean, he definitely deserves it. I mean, what he did at Louisville went in the Heisman while there and just, putting up crazy numbers and winning them football games, he definitely deserves it. And to your point, retiring a jersey, it makes sense because the number on the back of the jersey is symbolic, just as symbolic as the player. That's how you match the name to the face. Ray Lewis 52, there's thousands, hundreds of thousands of Baltimore Ravens fans with a Ray Lewis jersey that's 52 on the back of it. Nobody can ever replicate what 52 did. So it's like you kind of have to put that number to the side and kind of just stash it. Because there could be a 52, some Joe Schmoe, number 52 that comes around four or five years later. And people start buying his jersey that, like you said, they're going to start comparing him to a Ray Lewis, which isn't fair to either player. So definitely love jerseys getting retired. And Lamar getting his retire was very, very cool to watch now. In terms of like, do we think he'll play better against the Bears because of how that you looked last week against the Dolphins. And right after that, he had the jersey retiring. I'm sure he probably felt the way, probably just walking into the Cardinal Stadium that day. He was probably like, oh, dang, I really wish I could be walking in here with a W underneath my belt. You know what I mean? But I'm sure it was still special for him either way. But just knowing the type of person like Lamar Jackson is mentally is very, very competitive. And he hates. When I say hates, I mean, he hates losing. Hates losing. So whether it had been a loss before or after three years down the road, two years ago, coming off a loss, he's going to want to play much better going into the next game. It doesn't matter. So I definitely do think he will play better. And hopefully the coaches and everybody else can, everybody can just perform in unison. In unison. That's my hope. That's my hope. Not just Lamar performing, but everybody around him as well. Because it starts with the offensive line, you got coaching, all the skilled players around him. If everybody can perform, I think definitely Lamar can have a good day and benefit from that.