Concern: Game Control

0:00Hi folks, welcome to the episode of Film Study. This is Ken McEuzick and we continue with our concerns series today and we're going to talk a little bit about game control and issues that are closely related to that. Joining me to talk about this is Baja, our friend from Reddit. I'm just going to call him that now rather than your name. Is that okay, Baja? Absolutely, Ken. And how are you doing today? Life is good. Great to have you back on. Still kind of reveling in the glory of the Couser catch that got the Orioles to 500 from last night. So we're recording this on September 1st in the middle of the day. But much it takes to what your concern is. And oh, you know what? I want to take a moment to talk about the concerns series in general because a lot of people, they just see the title of a concern and they get upset and they start to respond to it in Twitter. First of all, please listen to it. If you got this, at least this far, you got this far. This is an open mic opportunity for a lot of folks that are proven themselves outstanding

1:02Ravens fans from either their posts or tweets, things on Reddit, lots of other places. You know, that they're good thinkers to come on the show and talk about what their concerns are. In most cases, and Baja, I ask you about this, many Ravens fans think the Ravens are in a position to win the Super Bowl this year and have various levels of outrageous expectations from Super Bowl or bust. Even an AFC Championship game is a lost season, you know, a particular loss in the AFC Championship game, obviously, to, you know, nothing. I think most people even would consider anything to fail to make the AFC Championship game as a pretty significant failure. And yet, that's a very lofty goal. Absolutely it is. And it's the standard that the organization has set upon. You could say within the last 30 years now, obviously, when they came back to Baltimore, maybe, you know, there was a little bit of a recognition project to getting the roster

2:05to where they eventually made it to the Super Bowl. But I think us Ravens fans, we have high expectations. And I think this year in particular, we have some questions that we can definitely see if we can iron out through a week by week basis. Are we spoiled as fans? That's a great question. I have friends that are fan bases of other supporting teams. So I think we set ourselves a high expectations hard to say that we're spoiled when, I mean, when, you know, I think that's a hard question. I think that's a fair question to ask. Okay. So let me tell you a little story. Just the other day, I'm standing in a group of people and they were talking, two of them were talking about the cell phone that they got from work. And you know, it was a particular model they weren't pretty particularly happy with. And the first thing my first thing to give you mind is that's a first world problem. Because literally, if you go to the third world, and you know, we've been Africa and

3:05Nepal, places like that, that we're, you know, that's where a lot of our used phones end up getting sent and recycled. And those people are really happy to have them. And so literally, it's a first world problem to be complaining in any way about your cell phone. In the same way here, you know, the Ravens problems, and we're going to talk about this. We talked about, you know, the possibility that the running back room might not produce it previous levels and things like that. They're not indictments necessarily of the group at all. It's that, you know, you're trying to worry about those little fine tunings that could somehow knock this team out of a championship run. I think it's just curiosity. I think, you know, we, you know, we see what the Ravens have to offer offensively, defensively, even the special teams, right, with loop in the fresh new punter, the undrafted free agent. I think it's, I think it's curiosity. It kind of makes you wonder, you know, what the team will look like. We've seen low ends and high ends. And I think it's just fair to ask ourselves, you know, where do we stand within the

4:06NFL rankings and then how do we play out this 17 week season? Right. Well, fair enough. So let's talk, introduce your topic here. What is your concern about the 26 Ravens? Absolutely. So we've all seen a full, we've seen now two iterations of the Lamar Jackson offense. We've seen the Greg Roman ball run control game. We've seen Todd Munkin really elevating a Lamar as a, you know, drop back, quarterback. But three questions that I have when we talk about situation awareness, especially from the office of science, we're going to cover mostly on the offense is, my first question is, can the new office of staff establish an identity? And then the other two questions that I have in regards with ball control is, will they prioritize ball control over chasing explosiveness? This is a topic that I've, as a fan, I've heard, you know, different episodes as far as, you know, what is, you know, what does that look like? And the last question that I have is, can the offense make the right adjustments situationally?

5:08I feel we're going to dive a little bit into that. But this episode is going to be more so of understanding, you know, what we are walking ourselves in with the Declan door office now that we've seen two different iterations. And as Lamar is progressing and getting older as an elite quarterback. Okay. Very well, we'll lead out here. Let's dive right into this. You want to stop and start about establishing identity? Is that where you want to go? Absolutely. So the kid thinks off. Um, and we're really going to kind of talk about data points in regards with 2025. I know there's numbers for 2024 before then, but we're really just going to focus on last year season, right? So last year, the 2025 Ravens had the number two ranked rushing offense with about 2,662 yards averaged almost close to 5.2 yards per carry. And there go out there, Henry alone had 1,595 yards, which obviously makes them second in the elite and had 16 total touchdowns, right? So we've had some curiosity to, all right, well, we think the identity is to be physical,

6:14right? And Declan Dolen has already had his three non-negotiables about being physical, you know, being very detailed and being explosive. So I don't think the question is whether if they want to be explosive, it's whether they can make the explosiveness of the result of the sustainable offense rather than the foundation of it, right? And that's where I would like to dive deep into. What do you think for that or what are your thoughts on maintaining the idea of ball control, out snapping the team's defense and then also control in the clock for situations in the game? It is, it's a very, the two things compete against each other, explosiveness and the notion of controlling the ball and controlling the game. They do compete against each other. But you can have latent explosiveness and only choose to pull it out when you really want it and move the ball effectively otherwise. But the other team, obviously, you're going to get the best ball control components when

7:18the other team is afraid of your explosiveness and you force them to defend every blade of grass. So they are two things that definitely compete with each other. It's a, you know, in choosing that identity, you know, I think that the oftentimes the most valuable thing is to start by not letting by playing what the other team will give you. Okay. So if they're going to a real light box, well, they're kind of asking you to run the ball and there's other things about offensive identity. If they, most of what, you know, Lamar's high run totals of the past weren't based on strictly on Lamar. They were based on what the opposing team did in terms of crashing from the edges and whatnot. So if they crash on the running back, well, Lamar has to keep more. And if they are coming down on Lamar down hill because they want to try and get after him, well, then he has to give more. And it's, I think there's a whole lot of that that has to play out of this in terms of establishing the identity, though, I think it's an excellent question. I think it's, I see a lot of conversations as far as what the Ravens offense may look

8:26like. Even three weeks of preseason, a lot of play calls some more Manella or some of Manella, not really revealing a lot. It makes me kind of curious. And this is again, we're kind of talking about two, the three questions that I laid out. The first two are really kind of the same as far as ball control versus chasing that explosiveness. So it's kind of correlates with, you know, what we're trying to see. But I think what Declan Doyle can take from not only just the Greg Roman offense, but also analyzing what's happened from 2023 to 2025 is the number of attempts per game, understanding the usage and then also understanding tendencies as to when the Ravens will come out in a heavier set versus spreading wide. And really seeing how defenses will oppose to it or how the defense are calling against those particular four main so I think it's fascinating because us Ravens fans, we love

9:28to see 30 points per game. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's fascinating. My favorite era of the Lamar Jackson era was obviously the Greg Roman first year of, hey, you know, on first and 10, we're going to come out with two tight ends, a full back, and we're going to jam it down your throat. And my favorite part is something you've mentioned a lot on episodes, which, you know, when a defender has their hands on their hips, it's a tendication that's, that's, they're tired and keep going to the well. You keep running the ball, maybe a different formation, maybe a different look. And then also as far as their, their rushers, that, you know, who's actually doing the attempts, you know, are we going to see a Rashida Ali who I didn't think he was actually going to be on the, you know, actual team, on make it to the 53. Is he going to be that third ball carrier as far as, you know, getting those attempts to really take the load off of Derek Henry and then obviously Justice Hill as special team contribution. So I'm curious as far as obviously the place and then the rushers involved because, you

10:31know, Adam Random being on IR means that, you know, more work that's going to be for Ali than Hill, I would think on certain situations. But I'm curious on that as well from your perspective. Yeah, I don't know what to make of the whole item Randall situation because he certainly did not appear hurt in that final game. The explanation doesn't sound that good. So I'm wondering why he's, you know, sitting out the first four weeks. And the only thing I can say is I think it probably is a real injury because the Ravens could otherwise have used that spot in other ways because they have other guys they could have put into an IR status. Possibly, you know, possibly including Ali who'd been on the on the rack before, you'd already missed some time with injuries. But also some other players that you'd get another young player on the team because of it. So if you particularly if you're willing to cut Ali, which I was and obviously the Ravens were not willing to do, but it was a strange situation.

11:35You know, two years ago they had no running back three carry until week 15. So we went 14 weeks with not a single running back three carry. I don't anticipate that'll happen again, but I don't anticipate also that the third running back is going to get particularly many carries. Ali may be more of a guy who backs up hill as a passing down guy. I kind of hope Randall could be that guy. We haven't seen a lot of Randall as a pass blocker yet. So in terms of how these running backs are put together, I always kind of think I know during the summer last year, Keaton Mitchell was their most explosive player by far during the summer and he ends up sitting out the open earth buffalo. This year, you know, they're starting the year with that Adam Randall. So and he's been really, he has looked great this summer. I'm bothered. I really don't know what to expect anymore out of this group. I think it's fascinating. Because we, I think the question that when we have this type of conversation as far as

12:36what the Ravens identity, what we are expected, what we think they could be, we already know that, you know, they can run the ball. But how can the staff turn that into an identity that takes these games? And I think it's, it would have been easier to answer that question from the 2012, 2019 all the way to 2022 era. I think there were a lot of games can wear after an app, you know, after a game, I would come back to your episode. It'd be almost a social truth. And it seems like those losses in 2023 to me felt as if we got away from running the ball. A lot of the times where, you know, we're putting it in our situations where, you know, he has to go out and make the plays, whereas, you know, we could have just handed the ball a couple more times to our running backs. And it makes me kind of wonder, you know, why did Todd Monkin get away from that? Because you mentioned he scripted at least the first 15 plays, which makes a lot of sense. But, you know, when certain plays happen or when there's a turnover from, you know, if somebody fumbles, why do we go away from that initially?

13:40I think that's where I've always was kind of curious on that. You know, you bring up an interesting point because Doyle has been recently at the podium and he was asked about, you know, how many plays do you script per game? And he said, he read, he read a bill, Walsh book years ago. And he said the thing that he remembered, he really took from it was, make as many of your decisions as possible in air conditioning. I don't know. So he was in favor of scripting more plays, obviously. Fascinating, fascinating. OK. So I think there, we have so much to learn about what this offense is. I don't want to opine on too much here. We'll kind of want to move on to your next point here. But I will say this, there are people who think they know 75% of what the defense is going to look like. And I think they might be close to correct because I think positionally it's going to be similar to what it was. I think we'll see Hamilton and slot corner, which is the only big decision that defense has to make. Otherwise, they play a number of standard ways. And I don't think there's a lot of differences in how it went. The offense, I have no idea what it's going to look like.

14:41I have no idea. And I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. There's stuff to look forward to on defense too. There's enough on the margin there to be excited about. But with the offense, I probably know 10 to 25% of what I think is going to look like. I have a quick question for you. Can I have been meaning to ask you this for a couple of weeks, even on Reddit. So I guess my question kind of goes into, are we assuming that because Jesse Mentor being a defensive head coach, Anthony Weaver, also being a side home as a defensive courted, are we just assuming that there's going to be drastic improvements on the defense, meaning because he's going to have that side of the ball covered. We don't need to necessarily worry about things like the cornerback depth, because I just saw a longer beam just got signed by the Eagles. And that's someone that I thought the Ravens were going to try to hide what about Marcus Robinson or what about cornerback depth? So are we just essentially just assuming, well, you know, Mentor is going to handle the defense

15:42and uncertainty is still within the offense. So I think if we look at the preseason, we'd say, this is an awfully good start that our three is beat the crap out of the other teams. Three is in our two's beat the crap out of the other teams. Two's I do, I've asked the question multiple times myself. And sometimes on the show is whether that can be mapped to ones versus ones in the same way. I think a lot of the deception that Mentor has built into the defense, which he did more of that more of the pre snap deception components were involved in the preseason. I think that's going to be more effective on twos and threes. So opposing number ones will they be burned as much by it probably not? Are there other elements of scheme though? Mentor has a good record with San Diego of doing more with less. So that I think that's the hope for Ravens fans here. So that's probably the way I'd stated at present. And are we sure thing? I don't think anybody came into camp this year thinking, yeah, this is definitely going to be a great defense. It's a very old defense for starters. So that has me concerned.

16:44But, but you know, now after after these games, I can't help but be optimistic, frankly. Absolutely. Absolutely. We can go into that second question when we talk about, you know, will they prioritize ball control over chasing spalsettas? Right. So ball control versus chasing expulsiveness. And I actually have a few stats that are fascinating that I was able to pull. So the 2025 Ravens average almost to two and a half minutes per drive while Pony's averaged about 257. So they just converted about almost close to 41% on third down, which makes them 13th in the year. Now what makes this part interesting is Baltimore had an elite rushing efficiency. But that didn't necessarily consistently turn into sustained offensive control. So in total, they had almost about a thousand and eight office of plays averaging about 5.6 plays, but only generated 314 first downs.

17:47So with that data being presented, I guess the question that I have is, can this office consistently stay on schedule, convert third downs and finish drives? So last year, they were plenty explosive. The team is plenty explosive. So that, but that doesn't create a whole lot of first downs for you. You get a, you use up more of your yards per first down when you have more explosive plays. And they had a barbelled results, which means they had a lot of failures on third and short. They had a lot of, you know, sacks for starters, they had a number of other things that got them behind the sticks, including runs that were for losses. That really hurt the overall ability of the team to grind out first downs in their series success rate or drive success rates, called various things, which is the percentage of first downs that get, then get converted into a subsequent first down or touchdown was much lower than it's been during the Lamar era. And that's the frustration. That's where I think that, you know, choices have to specifically be made to be an effective grinding offense.

18:52I think that's a very, very positive thing to be when you can manage it. And I think it's something Doyle has to decide he wants to do. A lot of it comes down to play calls made on first down on second and short or medium and on. Sometimes on third down, third down and shorter medium. I'll call it because if you're willing to make it in two downs, that's, that's a, that gives you an advantage. Fourth down aggressiveness is another thing that that affects it. The 2019 and 2019 in particular, I had a time. But if your goal is that any time it's second and short, you automatically want to throw the ball down the field, you're probably going to hurt yourself in those terms. And if it, and, you know, if you're, if you're going to try for explosive passing plays on first down to a higher degree, it might be the right choice for your offense, but it's probably going to hurt you in terms of play count. And I do want to preference because I know we have probably some Raven fans that, you know, they will hear this episode and think that, you know, we, you know, we are asking a lot of questions, but we want to provide as much context and details,

19:56as possible as far as what we've seen from 2025, even though it might not be a full indicator of what this offense really has to offer. And for me, specifically, I'm not even saying ball control doesn't even need, it doesn't need to become a boring offense. But what I am saying is it's making sure that the defense can defend you for 10, 12, 15 play drives at a time, right? And with Lamar and Derek Henry spear hitting that offense, you know, I have more optimism with a newer fresh of eyes. And obviously we're going to talk about the my last topic as far as making adjustments with how do I will communicate the plays, what that looks like, having a different, you know, look as to what the defense has to offer. Just makes me curious as to, you know, how many 19 play drives 70 yard, you know, 70 yard drives that took maybe eight minutes off the clock. How many times are we going to see this in the offense because that's really going to control the snaps, the controls and also, you know, helps out our defense because it gives them off the field.

21:00And then it allows our offense line to gain more confidence and continuity is kind of getting your idea because I like Gwen. I like what boss stated in Friday morning GM as far as you know, Gwen's explosive as he has a chance to start and pose it, you know, pose it. We, you know, is he healthy? You know, is he not, you know, I saw that bullet, you know, bullet just got picked up by the panther. So it's like, you know, we're really limiting with type of center options we have here. And I know that's for a different episode. But, you know, the continuity that the office of life to get by running continual plays that can make the defense wear down. We'll give them the confidence that when a pass play is called, you know, you have the, you know, the tackles and guards in unity. So just kind of curious on that perspective. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an excellent query. I think that, you know, the first thing you, you know, there's a lot of things about ledford. But one of the first things you notice is how focused he is on physicality. And let's put this in a particular sense.

22:00Cory Bullock had that it was a very costly, unnecessary roughness foul where basically licked in hand had at pancake the guy. And then Cory Bullock fell off right on top of the mafter. It was a, it was a cheap shot. We saw Posek have a cheap shot at the end of the game there. I think ledford has to basically be talking out of both sides of his mouth when they go to the sidelines on those. And he is, and he's saying, you know, you really shouldn't do that. And having a hard time keeping a straight face while he's telling these players not to do that. I think he really loves that, you know, to the echo of the whistle, whistle of physicality. And it's an incremental value that you get on when you're able to generate long drives that you can be stuffing the guys in the dirt every so often. It knocked him down and making him really feel it. One thing, there's two things I look for more than anything else about how people are tired. The first is hands on hips. You mentioned that earlier. Don't need to go over it again. The second is what players start to fight back against run blocks.

23:02So at the end of a run black, there'll be a linebacker at a defensive line. Or sorry, an offensive lineman engage and all of a sudden the offensive lineman has this violent spasm at the end of the play to push the guy off him. Or he's talking at him or he, you know, he rips his head or he turns his head around quickly. And you can tell he's really upset with the lineman over the play. That's a great sign that you're inside his head that you've got that guy. And I think Ledford wants to build an offense that basically imposes their will on offensive lineman. It poses their will on those defenders. One last thing I wanted to preference. Before I go to my last topic as far as offense making adjustments, I, one Ravens game that I like to replay. Often is the playoff game against the bills in 2024 or 2025 season. And there was a moment in the game where Lamaris already committed his turnovers. And there was a point where not only Derek Henry, but Justice Hills started breaking for little runs every now and then every now and then.

24:10And it was, you can see the bills defenders just annoyed with how the Ravens were getting to the first second level. And it kind of made me wonder, well, why did we go away from that when we were on the goal line? I think the second play on second and goal was like a play action and Lamaris ended up getting sacked. You know, we could have had so many other plays where Derek Henry could just punch it or at least three times of Derek Henry. Just run the ball in the goal line. I think, you know, I think we can get, if we can find a way to get back to that, you know what, you know, we've already are punishing the defense. Let's keep going with the amount of physicality we're presenting to them. I think it's eventually going to have the defense give up and wear. And so that's one thing that I wanted to give an example. You know what was funny about that? That was that same year that they rolled up 299 yards on the Steelers and the Steelers. I've never seen a Steelers team give up like that against the Ravens, but they were beaten and beaten badly by the Ravens run game. They had in that game, they had the 15 play run drive where they ran at every single play.

25:14And Patrick Queen felt compelled. He should have shut his mouth, but he kept felt compelled after the game to come out and say he was sick. And that's why he played as poorly as he did. And Bill Bellicic calling him out on air about, you know, I don't know what Patrick Queen's doing on this play, but it wasn't physical. It wasn't just could not match that physicality. I think, you know, then the very next week, they're in Buffalo in this divisional game. And yeah, they did pass up on some opportunities to run the football. And you know, that is kind of frustrating, I think, to a lot of Ravens fans. We looked at 2025. There were opportunities to run the football. There were also times during that 2025, particularly the early season when Deerak Henry had fumbles against Buffalo and again, against Detroit that were very costly. So, you know, it's it's a. I just not there's not probably not going to ever be any one answer because it has to be out about what the defense is willing to give you, but you sure boy, if you've had success running the football, you sure want to keep trying that for longer than you normally would do before you give up.

26:23Absolutely. I think that 2024 season, especially putting it on the Steelers was one of the one of the best times I've seen the Ravens just out physical the Steelers. Right. Mike Tomlin, lead Stealer team and getting back to that, getting back to the momentum of running the ball first, right. And yes, we want our alignment to be pass blockers generally like a Yone is generally a pass blocker, but this tone that he will set. I think will allow this team to say, you know what, we have a rookie right guard. We're going to run it right behind him and see if the defense can stop it. So I'm looking forward to that and you know, hopefully can get back to that drive. So my last question that I have is can the offense make the right adjustments right and the reason why I pose this as a question is because obviously we know that you know, it's not an alpha room, but we know dole comes in with zero experience play call. Right. And the 2025 Chicago Bears had about 365.5 yards per game, which is six in the NFL and they finished with the 1186 record winning the end of senior.

27:35Now, obviously the difference in Chicago is Ben Johnson actually calling the place. And it makes you kind of wonder a little bit with dole, you know, his adjustments of, you know, in game calling. So he's going to be in the coaches booth and gives him a clear communication and really, you know, problem solving skills with more in the code of our coach. Now, Israel Wolforp, it makes me kind of wonder, we've seen this defensive staff last year, right. And they adjusted and kind of makes me wonder what the office of staff is going to look like if the defense takes away the run can dole pivot, you know, they take the deep ball. You know, can you make sure can you find ways underneath completions, you know, zone beaters. And most importantly, can you recognize what he's what's working and then what is not working. Yeah. All very good questions. Let me address the ones aside from recognizing what's working, not working, which I think is separate from what I'm going to try and address here. I've heard two fantastic things from dole about how he wants Lamar to play.

28:38The first actually came from Wolforp originally, but it's doils idea to do this. And that is to turn Lamar into a left foot forward in the shotgun quarterback is a left footed quarterback. Now, there are advantages to each side, more quarterbacks probably are naturally right footed and they want to they want to start there. And you give away more supposedly with your first step if you're a right footed quarterback in terms of what savvy NFL cornerbacks the veterans can really figure out about what you're trying to do by how you change your leverage on your foot on your first step. And supposedly you give away less to these cornerbacks if you start with your left foot. And so that's the reason that he's trying to go to it. And forcing Lamar to do it is, you know, you could be fish out of water kind of stuff. So he, you know, no doubt we'll try it. If it doesn't work out, he'll go back to the other to what does work. The other thing where I think I've been very excited about the prospects of what he's doing is he says, we want to do two things with Lamar.

29:44We don't want to change him. We don't want to stop making for being the best second play quarterback in the game. The best extended play quarterbacks. What he means by that. And so what we do want to give him very clean first reads where he can hopefully have an opportunity to make on schedule throws. And I've never heard it said any better. I'm not going to be impressive at the podium period. But for him to explain it that way was probably the best I'd heard it described and give you the most confidence of anybody who's been around coaching him during the Lamar era, whether that means a quarterback coach or a defensive coordinator. And you know, he had guys he liked before, you know, Brent, not Brent Urban, the other urban, urban, the quarterback coach. He really liked it. Yeah. He really liked him. Israel Wolfwark is extremely intelligent and very impressive at the podium as well. I think they got a really good guy there. I think Monkin had, you know, he had a good idea of different ways he wanted to run the

30:46office that were probably generally positive for Lamar. I think the oil, I was skeptical too, but in terms of will he make the right adjustments, I'm probably more sure he's got the right talent around him and he's the right guy himself to have that. I'm not 100%. By the end in particular, I didn't really believe in Monkin the same way. I know a lot of people had problems with who Roman was and it was fairly specific in linear. He challenged the field horizontally like nobody ever did, but he wasn't a great, you know, he wasn't challenging the field vertically as much. Monkin did more of a two-dimensional look at both horizontal and vertical. I think what we're going to find with Doyle was a lot of purposefulness and routes and a lot of good, clean reads for Lamar early on and then they're going to go ahead and let Lamar make place. Oh, the other thing. He said is that the extended play spacing is going to have more purpose to it.

31:46Is that, you know, when you get to those plays, there's a set of rules that they'll go by, but they're going to have to be more natural spacing because of the rules that they're going to have. I'm excited for Doyle to get Lamar to a point where timing and rhythm, and we've talked about this in previous episodes and per previous episodes specifically as far as what Lamar needs to work on. And I'm excited for Doyle's creativity. I think the one thing that I will just, you know, monitor specifically is third down and possession numbers, right, because they just weren't quite at the same level as they've been in previous years. Just wanted to see if the offense can just be physical enough to control the line of script. Right. And I do also am wondering, you know, being adaptable enough when plan A doesn't work,

32:51you know, immediately being able to pivot. And that was John Harb, that was one of John Harbels, like one of his biggest pros as far as him early on in coaching. He initially, with Flacco, you know, they were doing one thing. He calls the gym call to all say, hey, we can beat them by running this and that worked against the Patriots. So, you know, the ravens in the past have shown to be able to pivot off of something quickly in game. So I just want to see what that looks like. And obviously, if this leads to success, a concern that we might do a year from now would be as Doyle going to be a new head coach, is it going to be a head coach for an NFL team? If everything turns out, and so that's just being optimistic. But ultimately, you know, those simple fundamentals is one of the most important. Let's go to that last question for a second here because that's it. We should be concerned that Doyle does not end up being a head coach in candidate. I mean, he's got, he could not have a more Eden-like situation to have success. He's got their canry in Lamar Jackson. Okay, he doesn't have the greatest offensive line, but he's got Ledford in terms of a run

33:55game scheme guy. They have a terrific situation here for him to excel. And if he does not end up being a head coach in candidate within a couple of years, I think it may be that he doesn't fulfill some of these concerns we have on this episode. But the other thing I want to say is, we've gotten to the end here of a concerns episode. This is so far from a concern that we're talking about. We're kind of like reveling in, oh, there's just maybe a chance this won't work out, but I think we're both saying that it probably will work out with the staff they have and their ability to do that. We just haven't seen it yet. We just don't know. And it's kind of like knowing 10% of the offense right now or you're not being sure that they'll prioritize ball control over explosiveness, for example, or at least big good choices in that regard. And I think that's fair because we don't know. We just haven't seen these guys coach yet. But is it really a concern? It's a first world concern. Let's put it that way. I agree. It is a first world concern.

34:56I just have two quick questions for you, Ken. The Jigoby Lane hype train. How real is this? Is he going to take over as Y receiver number two? We understand the Rashad Bateman things. We're not going to really discuss that on this episode. But I was curious. Does he have an opportunity to really subplit himself as Y receiver number two? My next question and my question after that is, what are your expectations for the offensive line? I think we've given up. We gave up a close to 36x. Some will say, looking at film, Lamar could have gone the ball out. Comkins would literally say, you know, the offensive line could have played better. But those are the two real curiosities I have going into the season. What do you think about those in particular? It just didn't episode where I had to give out an expectation of percentile rank at the various offensive lines. It's not very high across the board.

35:57It's 50th for Stanley, 55th or maybe 60th for Rosengarden, 55th for Yawane. He could be higher. We could be surprised on the episode. He could also be a little lower as a rookie. The left garden center, my numbers are lower. I would say about the 40th percentile, not be my expectation. For Simpson, it's maybe the 30th to the 35th. You look at that line overall. I think it's a damn average line all the way across the board. I don't think there's a real superstar. If it was, it probably will end up being Yawane. Who is that guy? It could be Rosengarden to get stepped forward. It could be just a couple possibilities. I don't think you get a positive surprise from Ronnie Stanley at this point. I think he'll be. He'll be a C-player and that actually will be a very good thing if it could continue. For the offensive line, I'll say that. Let's get back to Jacobi Lane for a second because he's been clearly already anointed as the number three receiver by order of entry and how long Walker and Serrat had to play into the game.

36:58He's definitely the number three receiver at least. In terms of whether he's the number two receiver, I think it comes down to whether or not Bateman. There's any restriction to him staying on the field. I think Bateman will be very effective this year if he does. But last year was not a good year. 2024 was a fantastic year relative to Raven's history. I'm so optimistic that Bateman can do something with despite the dark cloud hanging over his head right now. Absolutely. I was a big fan of Bateman. I jumped up and down with that draft pick. Even more than the Hollywood Brown pick. When he got hurt and I remembered the play he went 80 yards on the Miami dominant slant, I figured out this is going to be our deep threat. He showcased that in 2024. I think there is a reason to be optimistic for the receiver core in general. I'm glad we didn't bring in a veteran wide receiver. I think that would have messed up the chemistry and even LaJonza Western.

37:59I'm having a one handed catch. This is a very good wide receiver room that will make some noise. But again, it will just come back to balance and then understanding what the defense gives us. I'm curious on that, but it's going to be an exciting season. I cannot wait for it. All right. Appreciate you as always, Bob. Thanks so much for coming on. Tell folks where they can contact you if they want to talk football with you. Absolutely. You can find me on Reddit. My handle is available underscore lion 7012. I'm probably going to comment on one of the Ravens post just because we're all Ravens fans working at it together. That's where you can find me on Reddit. By the way, highly recommend the Reddit community. If you're not there already, it doesn't mean you have to change from whatever your regular board is. Just give the Reddit community a try. It's a fantastic discussion at high level. I think I've seen a growth in that community in terms of the... Certainly the average quality of posts is way up, but the discussion is at a very high level.

38:59I'm continually impressed with it and appreciate the mods over there as well in terms of what they've allowed me to do in terms of posting content there. Bob, great to have you on. Thanks so much for coming on again. Other folks out there, I've got to plug one thing here. I'll do it really quickly. Femi and I, the Femi and I, and I are doing a show beginning on September 9th. It'll be every Wednesday at the elephant in the room. That's in Miller'sville off I-97 on Veterans Highway. I hope you all will try and come by. It'll be sure to be a great event. It'll be a great food there. We'll have games, giveaways, and great football talk with Femi and me. So we're going to enjoy that. We'll be able to take your questions in some form while you're there. So we're hoping we get a good turn out for that. Baha, thanks again for coming on. Absolutely. Can I meet Tom? Next time, I'm Philmstep.