The Ravens fell short on defense last season—and now they have a former defensive coordinator running the team. Statistically, Baltimore fell outside the top half of the league in most major defensive categories. They ranked 18th in points allowed, and even worse, 24th in yards allowed. They also didn’t turn the ball over the way they wanted to, nor did they produce the desired sack numbers.
That’s not where Jesse Minter wants this Ravens defense to be, it goes without saying. But that’s because saying it doesn’t accomplish anything—it’s the work that makes the difference. “It’s easy to talk about right now, but I go by the way these guys have worked and their willingness to do things maybe a little different”, he said, via the Ravens’ website.
Historically, the Ravens typically have had one of the best defenses in the past 30 years. Their track record grew increasingly inconsistent, however, in John Harbaugh’s later years. It didn’t help that they kept losing defensive coordinators to head coach jobs, the most recent winning the Super Bowl.
Harbaugh was the second-longest-tenured head coach at the time Baltimore fired him, so it was a major change. But Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti felt it necessary, both to get the defense back on track and to get the most out of QB Lamar Jackson. Now it’s up to Jesse Minter to steer the ship.
“Tons of respect and love for the coaches that were here before”, Minter said about the previous Ravens coaching staff on defense. “But again, when you come in and want to run things defensively in a certain way and do things a certain way, they’ve had to buy into that, and they have”.
Though Minter will largely oversee the defense, the Ravens did hire a coordinator in Anthony Weaver. He credited Weaver for serving as a leader on that side of the ball. “I like where their mindset is at. I like the way they go about working, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to put a defense out there that plays at a high level”.
Despite a horrendous start, the Ravens did manage to rank in the top 10 on defense in points and yards allowed by the end of the 2024 season. It took a significant second-half turnaround, but they couldn’t sustain it into 2025. The injury to Nnamdi Madubuike didn’t help, leaving him unavailable for most of the season. He appears to be heading in the right direction now, though, and should be available for 2026.
“You definitely understand what happened and what wasn’t to the standard, but you can’t bring all of last year’s woes with you”, said Roquan Smith, the captain of the Ravens’ defense. “There were good things and there were bad things. You learn from the bad things, but you’re not taking those things into the next year”.
“The opportunity to get out and do what we do and showcase who we are”, he added. “but those are just words. At the end of the day, it’s about going out and showing it with our actions and not just being a sounding board”.
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