The Ravens’ offense was supposed to be the messy part of this first month. New coordinator, new voices around the quarterback, a rebuilt interior line, rookies trying to carve out roles, and enough moving parts to expect a few stumbles along the way.
Instead, the offense has been the steady hand.
That’s happening even with Zay Flowers missing about half the season to this point, rookie Ja’Kobi Lane barely getting on the field before landing on IR, Lamar Jackson missing one game and looking iffy for Sunday, and four different players already taking snaps at center through five weeks. For a group that looked like it would need time, the turnaround has been striking.
So credit Declan Doyle, the 30-year-old coordinator, for steering that side of the ball so well. But the bigger surprise - and the more troubling one - is on the other side, where the Ravens’ secondary has not delivered nearly enough.
That’s the head-scratcher. Jesse Minter came in as a proven defensive play caller.
The team poured money and resources into the back end. The system is close to what Mike Macdonald ran here, as Kyle Hamilton put it.
The corners are all back from last season. The only notable new piece in the secondary is a veteran box safety.
And almost everyone has stayed healthy.
Even with all that, the group has been short of impact plays.
Minter’s calling card is coverage, and he’s leaning on dime looks more than almost anyone in the league. Baltimore is second in the NFL at 32% in dime usage, while the league average is 8%.
But the results haven’t matched the setup. The Ravens rank 20th in opponent QB rating and completion percentage out of dime, and some of the late-game third-down breakdowns have come from those same packages.
Hamilton didn’t sugarcoat what happened in Sunday’s comeback win in Atlanta.
“I don't think we played well, for real,” Hamilton said after Sunday’s comeback win in Atlanta. “We still - the third-down stuff was crazy … Third down, we have to do better.
But it obviously feels a lot better fixing those mistakes with a win. I might be a little too cynical or critical, but we can be better."
He’s not wrong. Atlanta quarterback Michael Penix, just back from a third ACL surgery, went 7/12 throwing on third down against Baltimore’s dime looks, including three conversions on third-and-10, one on third-and-11 and another on third-and-15. That kind of damage can’t keep happening.
The bigger season-long concern is even starker in the second half, where opponents are converting 45% of their third downs against the Ravens when they throw the ball. That ranks 27th in the league. A stronger pass rush would help, sure, but this is also a group full of highly paid players and first-round picks playing behind a premier schemer and play caller.
And the ball still isn’t finding Baltimore defenders.
One of the hallmarks of Minter’s work with the Chargers was creating opportunities for his corners to jump routes and make interceptions. In two seasons there, his teams finished third in the NFL in interception percentage. In Baltimore, the corners have combined for zero picks entering mid-October.
The Ravens do have three interceptions overall, but all three came on very shallow throws into the middle of the field and were snagged underneath by linebackers - middle linebacker Roquan Smith and Hamilton in a linebacker role.
The corners, meanwhile, have logged 485 total pass rush reps and still haven’t intercepted a pass.
Baltimore has also spent plenty of time playing with leads, forcing opponents into chase mode and asking suspect quarterbacks to throw. And yet the turnovers still aren’t coming, even against offenses that funneled targets to one main threat - Drake London on Sunday in Atlanta, Carnell Tate with the Titans, Chris Olave with the Saints.
The coverage numbers tell the same story. Opposing quarterbacks are 49-for-74 against the Ravens’ corners for 537 yards, 11 yards per completion, three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 101.0 rating. Add the free safeties into the mix, and it gets worse: 70-for-100, 836 yards, 11.9 yards per completion, five touchdowns, no interceptions and a 111.9 rating.
Those are not the numbers of a back end carrying the defense.
The Ravens caught some breaks early, including Daniel Jones dealing with a wonky Achilles in Week 1 and Alec Pierce never getting right with the ankle problem. Since then, the secondary has been exposed more and more, and the concern is getting harder to ignore.
In Other News...
Aeneas Peebles Is Already Facing A Concerning Ravens Reality
Aeneas Peebles arrived in Baltimore with at least some buzz as a young pass-rush option, but the early going has not given him much room to make a case for more work. Over the past three weeks, he has been inactive and has logged only 18 defensive snaps this season, leaving him on the outside of a defensive line group that already leans heavily on established pieces.
Nnamdi Madubuike and Broderick Washington Jr. are part of the rotation ahead of him, and the pecking order has not moved in Peebles favor. Washington has even been getting more snaps despite a weaker performance grade, which makes the path for Peebles pretty clear and pretty difficult at the same time: he will need an opening, and he has not found one yet. [Read more 🡒]
Calais Campbell Had Bigger Reasons To Shine In Atlanta
Calais Campbell walked into Atlanta carrying far more than a game plan, and Sundays Week 5 matchup with the Falcons gave the Ravens veteran a chance to turn a painful return into something meaningful. The setting alone made the day heavy, since Atlanta was where his mother was tragically killed in June, but Campbell still suited up and helped Baltimore come away with a victory while leaning on the support of his teammates.
For Campbell, the game carried a personal weight that went well beyond the standings, and the Ravens made room for him to handle it his way. He spoke afterward about how much the day meant and how grateful he was for the people around him, a reminder that sometimes the biggest moments in football have little to do with the scoreboard and everything to do with what a player is carrying with him. [Read more 🡒]
Ravens May Have Found An Overtime Formula Other Teams Can't Copy
Baltimores overtime answer against Atlanta was as straightforward as it was suffocating: lean on the run, sprinkle in short throws and keep the ball until the other sideline starts feeling the clock. The Ravens pieced together a long touchdown march that chewed up the extra session and left the Falcons with far fewer options once they finally got the ball back, a method that has already drawn attention as a possible new way to think about NFL overtime.
The wrinkle, of course, is that this kind of formula is hard to duplicate unless a team has the right personnel to sell it. Baltimore has the kind of offense that can keep drives alive, stress defenses with physicality and avoid giving away easy possessions, which is why the approach looked so effective in the moment. Whether it becomes something other clubs can actually copy, though, may depend less on the concept than on having the horses to run it. [Read more 🡒]