The Ravens are only a month into the 2026 season, but the resemblance to 2025 is already hard to ignore. And for a team that triggered a major coaching overhaul after last year’s mess, that’s the kind of problem that can’t be shrugged off.
What was supposed to be a reset has started to look alarmingly familiar: fourth-quarter breakdowns, shaky line play, a defense still searching for answers, and a roster that seems to be leaning too heavily on a few familiar names. The schedule has a chance to soften things this week against the winless Titans, but if Baltimore doesn’t start looking like a different team soon, the early warning signs could turn into something much uglier.
Kyle Hamilton didn’t sugarcoat the performance after the near debacle in Brazil, calling it “unacceptable” and putting the blame “on the players”. That kind of public message is one thing.
What happens inside the building is another. And Jesse Minter, who was brought in to steady a defense that had sputtered under Zach Orr, now has to make sure the tone changes behind closed doors as well.
“There are a lot of things that we will chase, that we need to improve,” Minter said Monday. “I think everybody would tell you that. But again, I think we have the guys to do it, and I appreciate the players feeling that way - but it is all of us."
The problem is that the fix hasn’t shown up yet. Minter’s arrival was supposed to clean up the late-game failures, sharpen the second-half adjustments, revive the pass rush and get more out of the players Baltimore paid to be difference-makers. Instead, the same issues keep surfacing, and in some cases they look worse.
The numbers tell the story. In the fourth quarter, Baltimore ranks 27th in pressure rate, 24th in sack rate and 28th in yards per play allowed at 6.3.
The Ravens have also given up 99 passing yards in that stretch and blown two leads of 11 points. On the season, the pass rush has produced a 35.6% pressure rate, good for 18th, and a 5.4% sack rate, which is 23rd.
Trey Hendrickson has just one sack in 80 pass-rushing snaps. Against the pass, the Ravens are allowing a 67.6% completion rate, 26th in the league, with an interception rate of 1.0%, 25th.
And now there’s a new problem on the checklist: stopping the run. Baltimore managed to do it against the Colts by building a big lead and taking Jonathan Taylor out of the equation, but that edge hasn’t carried over against the Saints and Cowboys, who couldn’t run the ball anyway.
The Ravens still want to showcase their first-round picks in the secondary and the recent draft finds DeCosta has been talking up, but opponents are making them pay when it matters. Minter is leaning on nickel and dime looks on 90% of snaps, and the results have not been pretty.
Run defense has become a real concern. Baltimore is sitting at -2.12 EPA, which is 30th, has allowed five rushing touchdowns, tied for 29th, and owns a 56.5% success rate against the run, 25th.
Getting Nnamdi Madubuike back has to help. It has to. But at this point, that’s not progress - and if this were Zach Orr’s defense, he’d be getting crushed for it.
The offense has its own mess to sort through. The interior line that Eric DeCosta built was already shaky, and now it looks like one of the worst groups in football.
Baltimore is preparing to send a guard in his fourth NFL game against Jeffery Simmons, who might be the best defensive tackle in the league right now. The goal-line and short-yardage film has been rough enough to make 2025 look clever by comparison, and Lamar Jackson is taking more heat than he did a year ago even though he hasn’t exactly been facing a defense that’s been tested yet.
The penalties are piling up too. Baltimore is the most penalized offense in the NFL, something that was always going to be a risk without a true starting center after letting Tyler Linderbaum walk to the Raiders, and with a 30-year-old first-time play caller installing an offense for the first time.
Pass protection has been shaky, with a 44.3% pressure rate, which ranks 30th. The Ravens have also been blitzed on 37.5% of snaps, sixth in the league, and they already have seven false starts, tied for third-most. In the run game, Baltimore ranks 15th in yards before contact at 1.18 on RB runs, 18th at 2.5 yards per carry against an eight-man box, 20th with 5.1% explosive runs, and tied for 30th with a 0% conversion rate on third- and fourth-and-1.
At least one thing has been consistent: Zay Flowers is still the clear lead target. Flowers has 234 receiving yards, compared with 125 for Rashod Bateman. Flowers also has 117 yards after the catch, while Henry has 57, and Flowers has nine catches of 12-plus yards to Bateman’s four.
Baltimore’s next three games - home against the Titans, then trips to Atlanta and Cleveland - offer a chance to settle things down before the schedule tightens again in the middle of the season. But another stumble or two, and the path gets a lot narrower if the Ravens are still talking about multiple home games in the playoffs.
At some point, early-season concern turns into something more urgent. In the upper deck, that line may already be moving. In Owings Mills, it’s the question hanging over everything.
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Jackson revisited the subject in a later press conference, stressing why the message was important to him and to the room. For Ravens fans, the bigger question is whether the shift in leadership can finally translate into cleaner finishes when the margin gets tight in the fourth quarter. The words were encouraging, but Baltimore still has to prove the habit has changed. [Read more 🡒]
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The schedule is about to tell a lot more of the story. Tennessee and Atlanta are next, followed by a stretch that includes Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo and Jacksonville, and those games should quickly show whether Baltimore can turn a modest opening into real momentum or keep living with the same questions that have already followed them through the first month. [Read more 🡒]