Rob Long | Host 105.7 Baltimore

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Instacart for the win. We're pleased to welcome our friend Rob Long, who's getting ready for the Big Bad Morning show on our Baltimore affiliate, 105.7 The Fan. Rob, what were your emotions like watching this game on Sunday afternoon? They completely went to bed in this one, to be honest with you. They should have been tears. I mean, you had a great opportunity right in front of you, the AFC Championship game in your building, and you squandered it away.

So there should have been tears. This was the, in my opinion, the epitome of missed opportunities for the Baltimore Ravens. And you're right, they just seemed to never get rolling.

What happened? What did you see that stands out about this game against the Chiefs? It just didn't seem like the same Baltimore Ravens approach to a football game that we come accustomed to down the stretch to me. I mean, the Baltimore Ravens' offense just seemed to be really, really off. They ran the ball 16 times, Amy. I mean, you got three carries, Justice Hill three carries, you know, six carries by your running backs.

That had not been the formula. You know, leading into this game, the team was a little bit more balanced, and if it swayed one way or the other, it was more Russians than passes. But, you know, Lamar Jackson, 37 attempts, and 16 Russians, it's just one game that was in the seven at halftime, 10 to seven after three quarters. So you're not talking about when you're playing from two or three touchdowns behind.

Right. You know, this game was close throughout the course of the game. It wasn't like it finished at 17 to 10, but the Ravens were down 17-nothing.

That was never the case. It just seemed like a very uncharacteristic approach on offense for them. 37 attempts, passing attempts at 16 Russian tips.

Keep in mind, out of those 16 Russian tips, eight were by Lamar and two were by Zay Flowers. Right. So this thing, I mean, it was really, really swayed in the wrong direction in my opinion.

Any idea why? No, sometimes you out-think yourself. Sometimes you out-smart yourself. Gus Edwards in three carries averaged a 6.7 yards a carry. Justice Hill couldn't get it going, but he only had three carries to do it. I mean, I think the biggest question is, what were you thinking?

This is very untied, munking-like, and, you know, it was a lot of head-scratching. The Baltimore Ravens held the Kansas City Chiefs scoreless in the second half. And that's not even going to be talked about because they lost the game. How tough is it to keep the Kansas City Chiefs scoreless for the entire half of football?

But it was three points total in that second half. And the Ravens defense is not going to get the tip of the cap on this because they lost the game. This should have gone down as one of the better defensive performances by this team against arguably the best quarterback in the league. Well, then what stands out about the Chiefs defense? The Chiefs defense seemed to keep Lamar off the spot.

He was running for his life a lot. You saw the strip sack there early in the game in the first half. They just seemed to take Lamar off of the spot a lot.

And I think some of that also, Amy, was they were pinning their ears back. Ravens was dropping back the past six consecutive times. After a while, you just pin your ears back and assume they're going to pass the football.

And more often than not, that assumption was correct. It just seemed like they never allowed Lamar to really get comfortable in the pocket. And when he was comfortable in the pocket, he made some pretty good throws. But that was the key to me. The key to me was that.

And also, I would love to see from the R-22 because I couldn't. But it didn't look like anybody was opening downfield because Lamar was holding it and holding it and waiting and looking. And checking out to the second or third receive was a lot. So it looked like they played way off the ball. And to me, that interception that he threw, attempting to get the football to eyes there likely in the end zone with three defenders back there. Bad throw, number one. But with three defenders back deep, it looked as if the Kansas City Chiefs defense was okay with giving up the underneath stuff. They just weren't going to let the Ravens over the top. Rob Long is with us from Baltimore where he's getting set for his morning show on 105.7 The Fan.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Let's talk about the rookie because he did get behind the defense on the touchdown. And he's able to haul in that incredible throw from Lamar. So that's the first quarter. Then in the second half, he has another awesome play. Great throw. Huge chunk. Was it 54 yards?

I believe. And he stands over Lageria Snead and gets called for taunting. And then turns around a couple minutes later and fumbles on the goal line courtesy of one Lageria Snead.

Talk about, I don't believe in karma, but what goes around comes around. How would you describe the performance by the rookie? Number one, the taunting call was trash. With all the trash talking in that game and all that was said and done and all the guys getting, the thought of taunting for a flag there to me was garbage.

Absolute garbage. You could have thrown that flag a hundred times earlier on both teams, to be honest with you. To use that moment right there to throw a taunting call, was the referee not watching the game? It was trash talking before the game. Kelcey threw a kicking tee out of the way. I mean, this whole game was trash talking.

So that to me was a garbage foul. One thing you got to know, when you leave your feet, you got to secure the football. That's football 101. He left his feet, he didn't secure the football. Great play made by Kansas City defenders.

I'm not taking anything away from that. But you got to secure the ball around the goal line when you leave your feet. And that's a tough lesson to learn in the AFC Championship game. I thought Zay Flowers, again, it's sort of like the Ravens defense. You know, it's a great game not to be talking about because of the results. Zay Flowers had five catches for 115 yards and should have had two touchdowns. But we're going to remember that fumble. And we should because that fumble, you can look back now and say that ultimately, possibly could have lost the game. You know, who knows whether they would have gotten a field goal later on. But, you know, that's seven points taken off the board when he fumbles at the 1-yard line.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio with Rob Long. I know it feels pretty quick to start thinking about what else they need or what they do in the offseason, but they did deal with a ton of injuries. I love the connection with Todd Monken and Lamar Jackson.

Back to earlier, I'm sure you were sleeping, but I was comparing it to this Dallas situation where Mike McCarthy and Dak Prescott combined for his best season ever. And yet it's going to get lost, of course, because of the playoffs and what happened. So I hope that's not lost with the Ravens because they did make that change.

One that you've been asking for for years. Get away from Greg Roman to bring in somebody different for Lamar. But what should be their next job when they recover emotionally from this game? Got to address the secondary quarterback position, in my opinion, to be specific.

You know, Marlon Humphrey hadn't been healthy in a while. You know, who's the number one corner? I think that's the position he got addressed. I don't know if they addressed the left tackle position, but another guy who hadn't been healthy is Ronnie Stanley. They had to address that offensive line position.

And I think they have to address the pass rusher. Jadavian Cloudy came in and played great this year. Will he be back next year?

I don't know. Kyle Van Noyes filled the spot as well. But it seems like in the past the young guys that they drafted in that position hadn't quite panned out to be those number one studs getting to the quarterback. So, you know, if I'm king of the world for a day, I'm addressing that cornerback position, the offensive line position, and someone that can get their hands on the quarterback. And it's the best players available at those three positions of who I address first. If the first one is a pass rusher, he grades out higher than everybody and I get him. Officer Wyman, I'm not really putting it in order.

I'm putting it in order of the best players on the board at the time. I know that Ravens have won a Super Bowl in the not too distant past. In fact, it was our first one here at CBS Sports Radio. But how does the letdown, maybe the failure of this one, compare to some of their recent playoff exits?

Ooh, that's a great question. I think this is pretty high. Because I remember losing to Pittsburgh Steelers and Joe Flacco's first year in the AFC Championship game. That's a team that nobody expected anything from. They came off of maybe a five-win season that first year before then. Nobody expected a lot from that. Losing to the Tennessee Titans in what was that, 2019, that was tough, but that was early.

You didn't really get teased. This one was tough because the expectations were so high. Consider what they did to some great teams on a regular season along the way. The Ravens went into the best team in football.

I don't know the last time we could say that going into the playoffs. They were the best team in football. And not only by their record, but the rest of the championship resume that they were building along the way. The two teams in the NFC Championship were demolished by the Baltimore Ravens. You saw what they did to Miami. You saw last week what they did to Houston. They weren't just winning games.

They were just destroying people. And to get all the way to this, and again, to give up 17 points to the Kansas City Chiefs and lose that game. When you're just putting 30, 40 points on the board against other people. I think to me, this goes up at the number one most disappointing moment. Because two Super Bowls, they haven't lost one. I don't know if I've ever been more disappointed with the results of a Ravens game than I am right now. Does it make the NFL MVP feel empty? No, because you earn that. If you feel empty, he might feel empty because he's playing for the championship. That's probably a better question, better for Lamar.

For me, it's not empty because you earned that. He played 16 games this year. He missed one and missed the last game. And his performance was MVP worthy. You don't include a playoff for that.

You don't. So what he did for the regular season to me was to have an MVP performance. And he should be rewarded with that trophy and have NFL honors. You can find Rob on Twitter at Rob Long Sports getting set for his Big Bad Morning show on our Baltimore affiliate, 105.7 The Fan. And you can hear, he says, this has got to be tops on the list when it comes to let downs and disappointments because of all the potential and expectation. Thank you so much for a couple of minutes, Rob. Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Have a good day.

A Peanut Butter M&M's production. In a world where Super Bowl winners get the world's admiration and a fancy ring, but the runners-up get nothing. One retired cop returns. That's one retired quarterback. Read the script.

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