Jonas Shaffer, Baltimore Banner Ravens Reporter

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That's JamesAllen.com Code Podcast. Hey Jonas, thank you for taking the time to hop on, man. How are you? I'm doing great, Jared. How you doing, man? I'm excellent.

Thank you for taking the time to hop on. I guess my first question is, we heard earlier this week Lamar Jackson talks so much about how he feels so confident despite his one in three postseason record. How confident are you that these Ravens will take care of this young Houston Texans team? Oh man, how many Ravens fans are listening?

I feel on the spot right now. I feel confident enough that Lamar has grown since the Greg Roman era. You know, it is a new structure. It's a new system. It's new skill players around him. There is a new confidence within him. But you know, I'm in the results business and I need to see something from Lamar tomorrow before I can confidently go out on that limb and say, yeah, you know, he is built for the playoffs because he, you know, over his career, has come up short.

And you know, when they have one, it's been because he's been using his legs or the defense has been, you know, by his side kind of lifting him up. So it is a put up or shutout time certainly for Lamar. And you know, you can't help but point out the similarities between this setup and 2019. You know, that Titan team that came into Baltimore was a 10 point underdog, excuse me. The Texans coming into Baltimore tomorrow, nine and a half point underdogs. You know, Ravens 2019 were considered the best team in the NFL.

Again, now 2023 Ravens are considered, if not the best in the top two. So you know, you don't want Lamar to be a prisoner of those memories, but they should also be, I think, fair warning to him and to that team that, you know, stuff can go wrong and you need to be present, you need to be mindful and just stay locked in because if you're not, boy, things can go upside down in a hurry. Jonas Schaefer is joining us from the Baltimore Banner.

It's the JR Sportbreeze show on CBS Sports Radio. We know about some of the changes of this go round with Lamar Jackson. We know that Todd Monken has come in and that there's a new set of offensive weapons that Lamar Jackson is working with.

What do you think, especially as it looks like he's going to win another MVP, what is the biggest change and adjustment and improvement that you have seen in Lamar Jackson this year? It's probably just the overall command of the offense. You know, this was an offense that under Greg Roman was late to get in plays, late to get out of the huddle. There was a lot of, there was not a lot of time for him to, you know, can calls to adjust for protections, adjust plays. And now the Ravens are, you know, at the line of scrimmage with 12, 15 seconds to go. There's not enough time for defenses to kind of get creative with their blitzes or change stuff up. Lamar, you know, has audible out of bad plays into good ones, into the touchdown where he plays.

He, you know, is adjusting the protection. He's doing everything that he hadn't before. So there is more ownership in this offense. There's more say and sway over this offense.

There's more of a dialogue with Todd Monken and the play callers and the offensive, you know, game scripters that maybe there wasn't in the past. So, you know, obviously like with any offense, the portions rise and fall with quarterbacks, but I think Lamar is more intimately involved in the pregame, pre-planning process. And you can kind of see that this is the offense that he's always wanted to be in.

It's pass first, which is kind of surprising because the Ravens lead the league in rushing, but you look at early down kind of mutual setting ratios, stats, you know, analytical stuff. The Ravens are like a top 10 pass first offense, which would have been crazy to think, you know, just a couple of years ago was possible. Well, when you take a look at the defense, Jonas, there's so much attention on Lamar Jackson with great reason. You look at their defense, they were number one in scoring this year, only given up about 16 points per game. What has changed here with the defense?

I mean, it's typical if we go back years, everybody knew about Ray Lewis and everybody knew about Ed Reed, and they certainly have some other Roquan Smiths of the world. Who are some of the standouts here on defense that have allowed them to keep teams, A, off the field, and then also just stop them completely? I think you got to start with the coordinator himself, Mike McDonald.

I mean, you want to talk about just changes in philosophy. You know, we were talking about the Ravens offense going from run first to pass first. Well, the Ravens defense under Wink Martindale, obviously most frequently of the Giants, was a blitz first to ask questions later kind of unit. You know, they had the corners out wide to hang up in man coverage, and so it was a lot of cover one, a lot of cover zero, that they felt good bringing pressure and, you know, living with consequences.

Under Mike McDonald, it's different. They are, I think, bottom five in blitz rate, but they are still, you know, leading the league in quarterback pressures, I think, according to PFF because they have these bespoke packages with featuring guys like Justin Manabique, Patrick Queen, Kyle Hamilton coming off the slot, you know, Jidebi Clowney and Kyle Van Noy, both revelations, you know, as one-year deal players, and so they really just have an incredible spine. I mean, all pro players at every level of that defense. The cornerbacks have been more than good enough, even though Marlon Humphrey will be missing this one on Saturday, so it really is just a perfect marriage of scheme personnel and this offense just, you know, being able, being good enough to put this defense in situations where they can really pin their ears back and do unfair stuff to opposing quarterbacks. Did you say unfair stuff? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, you know, imagine getting a, you know, a free runner at a quarterback with seven guys dropping in the coverage because you have Michael Pierce, all 350 pounds of them, you know, taking up two blockers and then dropping in the coverage in that middle hook zone. I mean, it's just, it's stuff that you don't really see a lot of these defenses do and, you know, obviously C.H. Stroud, maybe to his benefit, saw the Ravens in week one, but that was a lifetime ago and I'm sure, you know, Mike McDonald will have some different stuff cooked up for this Texan offense in round two.

Yeah, like unfair stuff to me is just handing out an ass-whooping. I'm all here for it. No, no problems at all. Jonas Schaefer is joining us from the Baltimore banner here on CBS Sports Radio, the JR Sport Brief Show. I have taken a lot of calls over the past few days about rest and it doesn't matter if it is on the AFC side with these Ravens or it's the NFC side with the 49ers. How concerned would you be with the fact that a lot of the starters have not now played for weeks? I think normally I would be concerned, but everyone that, you know, we talked to in the Ravens locker room, John Harbaugh, including that, and included in that as well, has been very gung ho about how practices have gone.

You know, they went out onto a grassy field, but in the snow in Wednesday and Thursday just to prepare for what is going to be freezing temperatures tomorrow. Obviously, Houston has had their own kind of cold spell that should probably help them, but, you know, I'm not going to lie to you and say that it's not a concern, especially for the offense. I mean, the problem for the Ravens, one of the big problems for the Ravens and Lamar and even Tyler Hundley when he started against Cincinnati last year is his close start. Under Greg Roman, they've been scoring a single first quarter point in the playoffs, and that, you know, puts you behind.

That changes your game script. That changes what you can do in the second quarter and the second half if you're not caught up yet. So, the Ravens have been a very, very good, very quick to start offense this season under Todd Monk, and I think they're like fourth or fifth in points per quarter in the first quarter. So, if, you know, we're looking at that second quarter clock and it's, you know, 13 minutes left and the Ravens are down and nothing, they would be in a bad spot, but it wouldn't be altogether surprising just because of their history. So, we hope if you're a Ravens fan that this break has, you know, done them a service by getting guys like Adafe Oweigh healthy, getting guys like Devin DuVernay healthy, but, you know, there is of course that Russ vs. Russ concern that percolates every time of year right about now.

Okay. Well, final question for you here, Jonas, as we wrap things up, what do you think will happen with this game tomorrow? Where do you think things will end when it's all said and done this season for the Baltimore Ravens?

Tomorrow, I think it'll be a relatively close game, or at least a relatively close scoreline at games end. I had Ravens 28, Texans 24. I think the fact that Houston does not have much of a crown game to speak of can kind of keep the Ravens pretty comfortable with how they defend C.J.

Stroud and Nico Collins. You know, they are a very good deep passing defense. There's not a lot of explosive play that they allowed and I think that's what Houston is going to need to rely on to move the ball with any kind of regularity tomorrow. And then I guess, again next week, depending on that Buffalo-Kansas City game, I mean, the Chiefs are not really a boogeyman for the Ravens because the Ravens beat them the last time they saw them, but that was a couple years ago. Josh Allen had the Ravens number in Baltimore a couple years ago with a pretty jarring, unbelievable comeback at M&T Bank Stadium. But I think the Ravens are pretty comfortably, on paper anyway, the best team in the AFC. So I don't disagree with anyone who says that they're the favorite to get to the Super Bowl, but I have been burned by watching this offense, you know, fall in kind of embarrassing ways and let down really good defensive efforts. And I just want to see Lamar have this playoff play crew that so many in the locker room are also wishing for him. I hear that and this is going to be the first playoff game for the divisional round.

It'll be the first one that we see. It kicks off Houston taking on Baltimore tomorrow. Things are supposed to get started at 4 30 Eastern. Jonas, I want to thank you for taking the time to hop on. Where can people follow you and all of your great coverage? Yeah, thebaltimorebanner.com. We're a little bit in the news now because of everything that's happening with the Baltimore Sun and certain people with money getting involved in local news media. But follow me on Twitter at Jonas underscore Shaper, J-O-N-A-S-H-A-F-F-E-R. And yeah, I'm hopefully the Ravens win. So I have more good stuff to keep writing about.