The final quarter will keep getting the headlines after Baltimore’s loss to the New Orleans Saints, and for good reason. The Ravens took a lead into the fourth, then watched New Orleans put up 15 points in the last 15 minutes while Baltimore’s offense went silent and Lamar Jackson’s final throw was picked off.
But Jesse Minter said the game turned before that.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Baltimore’s head coach said the fourth quarter mattered, but he pointed to a sequence late in the second quarter that he believes changed the feel of the game. The Ravens were in control at 14-3, then a blocked field goal, a long Saints kickoff return, and a New Orleans field goal before halftime started shifting the pressure.
"On the block, they got a little bit of penetration. I felt like we were maybe a half second late with our operation.
Unfortunately, they got their hand on it right there. Obviously, [those are] three points you would like to have there later in the game."
Minter was also asked about the special teams breakdowns in that stretch, and he said the kickoff decision was not as simple as it looked from the outside. In his view, there was a tradeoff between giving up field position and trying to drain a few precious seconds.
"[I'm] definitely back and forth, honestly, on the kickoff situation. You kick a touchback, [and] you give them the ball at the minus-35 with three timeouts in 25 seconds.
[They would've had] the ability to work the whole field, and [you] really only need one play nowadays to end up in range, so the idea there is you kick it [and] take five or six seconds off the clock. Obviously, you hope to knock them down inside the 30, and most teams now, when they get under that 20-second range, even with the timeouts - in that area of the field - [it] becomes maybe a kneel-out situation."
That’s where Minter’s view diverges from the broader reaction to the loss. Most of the attention has gone to Baltimore’s failure to close the door in the fourth quarter, and that part is impossible to ignore. But Minter made clear he thinks the Saints were allowed back into the game well before the final period ever began.
"So, again, you weigh all that, [and] that is the way it goes. Then, we came out defensively in the third quarter again [and] let them off the hook on a third down where we really had a chance to get off the field, and then they end up getting three more.
So, it is 14-to-9 before you know it when it was 14-to-3 with a lot of momentum. Those are definitely the types of plays that impact the momentum of the game."
That’s the story Minter is leaning on: not one disaster, but a chain of them. The blocked kick cost points.
The return gave New Orleans a boost. The third-down stop that never came after halftime opened the door again.
Put together, those moments turned a 14-3 lead into a game that no longer felt secure.
The fourth quarter still finished the job for New Orleans, but Baltimore’s head coach made it clear he sees the damage as having started much earlier.
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