Bob Kravitz joins Nestor from Indianapolis for a primer on Colts past, present and future as Ravens start season with huge promise

0:00Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson Baltimore. We call this thing Baltimore positive. It's going to be very, very good around here this week because it's football season and uh, some would say it's what I do around here. It's brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. I will have the Raven Kiss face bird to give away. I cost this in Dundalk on Friday looking forward to a little homecoming. What a week of football here for the Ravens is we don't we have no idea how good they are like they don't really play preseason games anymore. New coach, same quarterback, lots of changes and it's been a C 84. Four years, 43 cents. We won a world series. 42 cents. Bob Urse brought those Mayflower vans in and. Curried our team off to the friendly heart of the Midwest. So we'll be playing football on Sunday Bob Crabbits. You know, he feels like he's from Indianapolis, but I remember when he was in Denver and some other places. Um, did you sort of wear the Indiana Hoosier thing as the long time sort of spokesperson sports writer semi retirement guy, but like you wouldn't even

1:10go around there. I mean, as well as you knew Jim Urse, you're not even from there, right? I grew up in New York and we lived in Chicago from our last two years of high school. So no, I mean, I'm from here in the sense that I went to college at Indiana University, national championship Hoosiers, we're a football school as you well know. And no, I moved all over the country, but I'm here to stay that Scott May era. Is that what we're talking about here? No, no, no, I was there during the Isaiah Thomas championship. Oh, okay. All right. You were a little older than me, but we're a sort of contemporary. What do I know? You know, I go back to Marquette with Kevin burn back in the day and whatnot, but sports writers in your era. And as far as I would say with John Eisenberg once used the term the golden era of sports writing is what you said to me. And that's an era I wanted to be a part of. I think Ken Rosenthal Buster all needs him, curts and all those guys on covered baseball here at the sun. Your pathway was column this different, but like as known for Indianapolis, as you've been over the last quarter of a century, especially on this show and with deflate gate and Peyton Manning and the Ursa family and all of that.

2:30Andrew Luck is well throw him in there. What a place for you to settle and to come on the Baltimore radio all these years later with a guy that really remembers all this. Colts Ravens is just Baltimore Indianapolis, right? It's just like all the Ursa all the Johnny you. It's over. It's just over. I totally understand that, you know, Baltimoreians would have a would feel a certain kind of way about the Indianapolis Colts. I mean, I totally get it, but, you know, I mean, they've been in Indianapolis now longer than they were in Baltimore. I've heard that and I'm sure I'll hear that more this week. You know, I got over it. What about two decades ago? It's been almost 20 years since you had your Super Bowl, right? 15 years? What year was that? 2011 or 12, right? 2011. 15 years since you had the Super Bowl there. Bob's gone, Jimmy's gone. Tell me what the Colts are now. You know, they're not the stolen team from Baltimore. They're not Peyton Manning's Colts. They're not Andrew Luck's. Like, what are they from an identity standpoint? And they're woman owned, right?

3:39Like the daughters run the team. It is a unique franchise in that way, right? Well, it is. I mean, they're a team looking for an identity. Right now their identity is mediocrity. You know, every team in the AFC South has won the division at least twice since the Colts won their last division. So right now they're just traversing the desert and search of an identity. I think they've got a chance if Daniel Jones can stay healthy, which he hasn't done since 2022. But if he can stay healthy, they've got a good, got good guys on the front line. I have questions about their depth, but front line, they are really, they're a team that's going to be reckoned with. Well, you say reckoned with Ravens in trouble this week? No, no, okay. No, I, well, look, I think I think the Colts can play with anybody. The eight and two that they started out with last year.

4:46Not, you know, it's not a mirage, but I have a lot of questions about this Colts defense. They're linebacking situation is kind of a mess. They have no, no pass rush to speak of. They got their waiting on layout to lot to have a breakout season yet eight and a half sacks last year. They fully expect him to be double digits this year. But there are so many questions defensively that it gives me pause, especially when I think about Lamar Jackson. Yeah, I mean, you think about Lamar coming in and we're here questioning it all and other than Luke out there watching them run wind sprints, you know, run run seven on seven or whatever they've been doing the last couple of weeks. We have a new coach here for the first time in two decades. He doesn't say anything and he's complete. He is as vanilla as I've ever seen anyone and I've covered them all. Like it's like and he's not trying to be vanilla. I think it's the way he is. He's a coaches kid. You know, in the hardball school where he never had to step up to the podium. It was always, he always had hard balls in front of him.

5:55This is a fascinating offensive line for the Ravens. What they're trying to do with the aging part of their roster, which is Ronnie Stanley Derek Henry, Mark Andrews, Roku on Smith, Marlon Humph, I go through the list of all the usual suspects. All of the guys who haven't won big playoff games around here. So in an era where Joe Flacco took him to the Promised Land right Lewis took him to the Promised Land twice. This new thing is really new and I've been around a long time. It's a 30th year for the Ravens by the way. The Ravens came 31st year, I should say 30 years ago this week is when Ray Lewis played his first game. Vinnie test of Ernie the Oakland Raiders game in. So September 1st, 1996 was the day the Ravens were born. So so we're in the middle of that in 30 years is I everyone thinks the Ravens are going to be really, really good because the other more and everybody probably thinks the Colts are going to be. I mean, who's they got Jones right? 98 98. That's why that's why I've got the Colts. I do think the Ravens and I haven't studied the Ravens real closely like you do. You're there every day.

7:06They seem to me in the preseason to be one of about five, five teams that could reach a Super Bowl out of the F.C. And that's fair. I mean, I think I wouldn't say Cincinnati can't. I mean, if you have a quarterback, you can. We look at Pittsburgh and Cleveland and say, okay, they're they're not going to be the answer. But that being said, the Ravens kind of go sing for their supper and they have a really easy early schedule perceived as such. Like they go to Brazil later in the month, play the Cowboys, but the first six games, they could be six and I mean like I look at it and say if they roll the ball out the right way if they're half as good as you and I think they are, they'll be six and oh. And that's why this Colts things that can under free road game so much new offensive lines new there's the Ravens have plenty of questions to. Yeah, no, I think the Colts, Colts, if they can stay healthy, which is always, you can say this about every team in the league, but I think the Colts are particularly susceptible to injury because they they lack depth.

8:07You know, you don't really like to read much in the preseason, but their second and third team guys got absolutely annihilated in the preseason. They went heavy into the into the waiver wire. They're going to continue to do so here in the next couple of days. So again, I think if they're starting if they're starting guys can stay relatively healthy, they're going to be a team that can win nine or 10 games. But some injuries in there in deep stuff. But rabbit is here. He is the long time voice sports in India andapolis in the friendly heart of the West you can find him at Bob Kravitz. It's with a K R A V I T Z. I'll get all that information out as well as on social media. Well, did you arrive in India? It was the last century, right? 2000. Oh, I was right at the turn of the century. Okay. So you came in right when Manning came because year after, huh? And he came in in 98. Okay. And so he played two seasons before I got here.

9:08And yeah, that was it. That was a thrill covering him. I mean, he's such a wonderful guy and a delicious quarterback. And it was great fun to cover those. Seems I, I've been very lucky and Cleveland, I had Bernie Khozar, who was very good. Go to Denver. I covered John L. Way. He was damn good and now pay and then pay Manning and Andrew Luck. So I've been pretty fortunate. I've seen a lot of good quarterbacking. You know, I've been in Baltimore my whole life and I was syndicated turn of century and I went at Chicago and LA and did all my, did all. I've been everywhere, man. I'm like Johnny Cash. But when I think about my place here, having watched Brooks and Johnny you and then had the team stolen after Burke Jones or whatever. And I have the legends of Arty Donovan and Lenny Moore and you know, and Boog and you know Jim Palmer's on television every night. And if not him, it's been McDonald here. It was another one one. As we get, you know, we're a two sport town here. And I think about what you landed into an Indianapolis where 20 years early you wouldn't have thought of one of the big columnists in Indianapolis.

10:13Right. When you were in Cleveland, you're doing Bernie Khozar. You wouldn't think like Indianapolis. And then we lose our team and get a team back. Ray Lewis, John A. Den, Rodwoods and Shannon Sharp, you know, the guys that have come through here. And now this Lamar era, you know, we've had a hard ball through here, right? Like we have a Lamar era going on here. They have one man. I mean, and the patent thing when you came into the patent era, I remember being down in Miami with purple rain and prints and the rain and all that. Like it took patent manning a long time. It takes a lot of guys a long time. I was just going to mention it that patent didn't win a playoff game until I don't have in front of me. But five or six years in the league before he won a playoff game. And for the longest time, the question was the same question you have about Lamar. Can he, can he do it when the pressure is the highest? And for a long time, patent did not get it done just like Lamar has struggled in the postseason.

11:15You know, it eventually, the, the worm turned eventually and the colds got over the hump. But that's kind of where Baltimore is right now. It seems to me. Dude, you covered L way. First of, I loved L way, even though he cost us to franchise and like I always rooted for L way. I was at the drive game in Cleveland in 86 because I flew out there because I wanted to see L way play. I only saw him play one of the greatest games ever. One of the greatest things I've ever witnessed was the drive in Cleveland that day, even all these years later, 40 years later. Right. But L way didn't win. He's famous for getting the Super Bowls and not having the team good enough to win kind of sort of, right? They got smoked and he, those teams were good. They weren't, they weren't great and then go up, go up against San Francisco, Washington at the time. I mean, they got, they got blown the hell out in those Super Bowls. And I remember when they played Green Bay and they were, they were heavy underdogs, heavy underdogs.

12:19And they beat them, they beat them to death. They're, they're all undersized offensive line. Had Gilbert Brown, sucking, sucking win really on the second, on the second possession. So, yeah, they, that was an amazing win and then hell, the helicopter play with L way. I remember turning to Mike Littwin, who you know, who was a columnist in Baltimore and of course in Denver. And we both looked at each other and said, it's over. They're going to win this game. I mean, when L way, when airborne, you just knew I was in the front row of the end zone at Jack Murphy Stadium when the helicopter happened. And I've only been on the cover of sports illustrated once in my life. I'm on the cover of that sports illustrated and I'm like, I'm like this in the end zone as Terrell Davis is going, you know, the picture that was on the cover of the sport where always turned around and doing this. I'm on the cover of sports illustrated from that.

13:20I'm just big about I'm in the stands. I'm telling memories and stories. I'm doing a lot of music stuff. We're about to go into this baseball strike, which doesn't affect you folks in Indiana, which will be a big deal around here. This football season feels a little bit more urgent in Baltimore than it has in other places because this group hasn't won. It's been tick tock 12 years. We got the coach fire didn't make the playoffs last year. Had a scandal with the kicker all of that. I mean, the bright lights on Lamar at this point start to feel like maybe where they were. And say, same thing with Josh Allen, right? New coach, new stadium, all that going on. The pressure on quarterbacks that are $85 million cat numbers next year. You know, to cost that to take questions this week, you never had a lot of that nindy. Like it was pretty stable there because Peyton made it stable. And the ownership wasn't even like stable. Jimmy was a lot of things. I don't love he was stable.

14:21But Peyton calm things down there. And I think after the first victory, right? It got very calm. And then the neck, right? Then it became a medical issue for him later in his career. But what a glorious quarterback error to cover. I can't say that I've had that here with Lamar Jackson even being thrown out because it's been choppy injury. He's such a different kind of quarterback. How's it going to play when he doesn't run anymore? Like we're still very in progress for a guy with Lamar that we've already said. He's going through the Hall of Fame. He isn't one games. He isn't one big games. Oh, no. And you talk about, you know, the pressure involved to more. I mean, there's enormous pressure here because basically Chris Ballard and Shane Stuykin are coaching. And they're playing for their jobs. You know, Carly Ursa Gordon has made it abundantly clear that if they don't make the playoffs.

15:21And I would say if they don't make the, if they, if they make the playoffs and get run in their first game, I think either way Ballard is done. I think Stuykin might be done. I hate the idea of bringing in a new GM with the old coach. I think that's a recipe for disaster. But yeah, they're, they're playing for their, for their employment lives around here in Indianapolis. So this is, this is an enormously important season for Indian and Chris Ballard and Shane Stuykin. You know, in your market, women's basketball explosion, right? I mean, Indiana is always there for basketball and now they're for football. The markets changed a lot in Indianapolis for what Carly Ursa has that her grandfather and father didn't have with the franchise. They stole from us. I'm going to still point that out 42 years ago. But what kind of owners she going to be, her owners sisters and what, what is the state of that there? Because I think people here would remember young Jim, were the girls born there?

16:25Were they born here? You know, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking like they might have been like sort of born here. But all they know is Indiana, all they know is Colts and they were really groomed to do this role, right? They are, they did, they are and they have. Carly has been very hands on. She's down on the sidelines for games, for practices. I see her wearing a headset, right? What's a headset? Yeah, now I don't know if that's something she's going to do in the short term as she learns the team and the game better and then goes up to the owner's box later. Or I have to ask her, or if this is something that she's going to continue to do for as long as she's the steward of this team. But I give her credit and the players, I look, I don't know if they like her, you know, standing over their shoulder necessarily. But hell, she is the owner. She can do whatever the hell she wants.

17:26And, you know, and she's learning the game and at a very granular level. And I think that's great, you know. You know, Jimmy for all his, his eccentricities, really new football. And while he made some really bizarre decisions in the last five years, decisions that I think were fueled by his drug use. You know, he was a football guy who started, you know, from the very ground up under his father. So that's, that's essentially what Carly has done. The other two sisters are not as involved. They do a lot of stuff with marketing and with the mental health initiative and stuff like that. But Carly, Carly is the one amazing Bob. Bob Kravitz is our guest in Indianapolis is the Ravens travel out to start the season in India this week. You can't mention Jim without mention his drug use, right? And you and I talked length after he died.

18:27I on earth that really interesting interview I did with him down at the owner's meetings about 2009 or 10 was right after one superbolts or maybe 10 or 11. And well, they won in six. So right six or seven, right? So it was eight or nine is when it was and I sat with him and talked to him about his father and about leadership and about leadership style. He was very sober with me that day. And, and I knew Jim and I liked Jim and Jim invited me to things and people and people in Baltimore have always thought it's sort of weird that I didn't think it was weird at all because Jim was always so nice to me and hospitable. And I want to talk to him about Tom Petty and the Beatles. Like when I think about Jim or say we did not talk about his father or Owings Mills or the Colts or Bob Lethler or anything Bert Jones. We talked about the Beatles. We talked about music when I talk with Jim or say we talk about Hunter S Thompson, Jack Kerawak, Jack Ginsburg or Alan Ginsburg.

19:27And we talked about writers. So you want to talk about writers with you. And we talked a lot about music about Nirvana and the whole Seattle Grunge thing and he was, I love the guy. I just, you know, I feel terrible that drugs took him from us. You know, the last five years I've talked with people in the organization and the last five years were a disaster. You know, and that's, that's when he decided to fire Frank Reich and he brought in Jeff Saturday and he insisted on benching who was the Matt Ryan. You know, a lot of really bizarre reckless decisions, which I have to think were the product of an adult mind quite honestly. And you think this is a good, his daughter run in the team and where it's been the stability. Listen, dude, I'm reading Belsen's book right now on the NFL. Okay.

20:27And he had a quote in there and I got, I don't have the book in front of me and I said this when I had him on, I couldn't even find it. But there was a quote about like a Jets general manager 30 years ago said something about the next guys always worse. In regard, I think it was Dan Snyder coming into the league at the time. So that's how far back we go where it's like the next guys always worse dude. I waited for Angelo's to perish, sell, time out, whatever he needed to happen. And these new guys, they're not better. And they might be worse because they're out of town billionaire hedge fund creeps who do the papal wave and write the check and want no responsibility. Think no responsibility. I don't think the earth say family despite what you would hear in Baltimore about they haven't operated that way in 50 years in Indianapolis, right?

21:28No, I mean, they're, I think with Carly, they're in a very good place because you got somebody who's involved who's, you know, doesn't have the same demons that her father had. I think she's making, you know, they caught a lot of crap for trading two first rounders for sauce gardener. I still think that's going to end up being a good trade for them. I really do. And I, I applauded Chris Ballard last year when they were eight and two and they decided to go for it. I mean, we've been like him, don't you? You said, say, yeah, I mean, you've seen a lot of GM's there back to Poli and whatever. You think, you think Ballard's done a good job or no? No, no, no, no, no. I just, I thought that was a good trade. Okay. I thought that was a good trade. No, I mean, he's 70, 79 and one in his nine years here. They haven't won a division title. So no, he has not done a good job. And this is it for him.

22:29They've got to make the playoffs and I think they need to make some noise in the playoffs if Chris Ballard wants to keep his job. It is amazing to me how long he has lasted with this lack of success. He goes back to Baganna, right? Like almost, right? Yeah, yeah. Wow. It's been a while. He came in and they got rid of Gricks and that's why I'm saying I don't like the idea of keeping a coach with a new GM coming in. Because Ballard came in and he was stuck with Baganna. They had a terrible season. Baganna was a lame duck and it was clear by middle of the season that Chuck was knocking the last. And so yeah, that's kind of where that is. Not praviches here. You can follow Indianapolis and Indiana sports with him. He is at et bob cravichs.com, long time columnist and long time writer television. He done it all and in semi-retire, but still knows a lot about the culture, which is why he's my first call. And I'm going to chapel too, but for you with the state of your state and sports.

23:33And when I think of Indianapolis, I think of tourism, I think of the final fours. I think of getting, I think of the 500. I think of all of that. The football side of the university, the NIL thing being something that is probably embraced in your part of the world far more than it can be in college park. Where it's just not going to work. They're going to get their heads beaten, especially football. I'm probably a basketball too now for a while until they figure out the new Wild Wild West. But the cults being this anchor, the WNBA thing being sort of the heart of the league is where you are at this point. And all of the drama around it, which I don't watch it. I'm not going to get into it. I hate the drama. I hate the black white. I hate the hair pulling. I hate the sport of women's basketball. But whatever this league is, it's like WWF trashed to me. So I'm not into it. But I had shining on last week. The first thing he talked about was the mystics. And I feel like I'm missing out on something.

24:33But I feel like, nah, I'm just seeing Rush reunite. I'm good. I got my things. But in your place to fall into that, where covering women's pro basketball is now a thing, college football is become a real thing there. Not that Purdue wasn't. But where are the cults lying all of this in Pacerland in getting money from people? It's not a growing community. It is what it's Indian apples. It is what it is. But where do the cults sit in all of that? They're the sleeping giant in this city. When the cults are good, they completely dominate. The airways, they dominate the words on a page. They are the darlings around here. They haven't been for 10 years. But it's like I tell people, Indiana University won a national title in football. But if they ever win one in basketball, look the hell out.

25:33Because that's the first love of Indiana University followers is basketball. I mean, the football thing was great. But basketball has the town's heartbeat. And I'd say that about the cults. I mean, the Pacers got to the finals. IU won the national title. The fever are probably going to make a run here in the playoffs in a couple of weeks. But when the cults are right and the cults are winning, there's no bigger franchise in town. It rained too last year. Bob Kravich will be covering the game on Sunday. Luke will be covering all things. Raven's all week long. If there's any breaking news, you'll get it first on the WNST Tech Service. That's old school, 20th anniversary. All the proctubiers are cold, roofing, and gordian energy taken care of the solar needs. Bob, it's so good to catch up with you, man. I'm sorry, I'm not traveling and coming out. I told my friend Morgan, who runs the tourism there, I said, man, I don't come out for combine anymore.

26:37I don't complain about that. Just a little St. Elmo's. Just make my nose run in my eyes, run a little bit with that cocktail. I could use not a week, but a weekend in Indianapolis. I'd be fine with a weekend in Indianapolis. There's a lot to do and a lot of good places to eat and drink and be merry. Send me some collaches. Appreciate you, man. I just take care of yourself. Bob Kravitz joining us here. Find them at bobkravitz.com. It is football season here. I swear, even though this baseball team is going to run as ragged as well. I am Nester, we are WNST, AM 1570, Towson Baltimore. We're Baltimore positive. We'll see it costs us on Friday on the Maryland Krav Cake Tour.