Baltimore Ravens Offseason Preview

This is the latest in an ongoing series of NFL offseason previews.

2025 Season in a Nutshell

• Weeks 1-6: All of our stars are injured. We stink.
• Weeks 8-12: Our stars are back and the schedule just got squishy. We’re gonna be the Team No One Wants to Face in the Playoffs™ !
• Weeks 13-18: Upon further review, none of our touchdowns counted. We missed the playoffs on a last-minute defensive collapse and a shanked field goal. This sort of thing always happens to us. We are so very, very tired.

Coaching Situation

Jesse Minter was Jim Harbaugh’s Mike Macdonald, so the Ravens are hoping that he can be their Mike Vrabel.

You may need a flowchart to follow NFL coaching dream logic, so allow me to elaborate.

Macdonald was John Harbaugh’s hotshot defensive coordinator who made the most of second-tier talent before going on to win the Super Bowl with the Seahawks. Minter was Jim’s hotshot coordinator who made the most of second-tier talent with Michigan and the Chargers. But before that, Minter was on John’s Ravens staff. So, like Vrabel replacing Bill Belichick, Minter can bring back a version of the Ravens “culture” that hasn’t grown moldy and stale.

Does it make sense now? Not in the slightest. But trust me: this is precisely the thought process, subconscious or otherwise, that led both to Minter returning to the Ravens and to everyone generally being excited about it.

Anthony Weaver, another John Harbaugh lieutenant from not-too-long ago, returns as defensive coordinator. Declan Doyle …

… arrives with both Ben Johnson and Sean Payton street cred to run the offense.

Quarterback Situation

Lamar Jackson is either an MVP candidate or a rumored malcontent/malingerer who cannot be counted upon in clutch situations and should be traded, depending on whether he suffered a recent injury, someone’s shoelace landed out-of-bounds on what appeared to be a fourth-quarter touchdown catch, and who the person talking about him voted for in 2024.

State of the Roster

It’s rather a mess.

The Ravens employ several old guys in key roles who are either fading or playing on borrowed time: Ronnie Stanley, Marlon Humphrey, Mark Andrews and (yes) Derrick Henry.

Zay Flowers, Safety Kyle Hamilton and center Tyler Linderbaum are great, but lots of other recent high draft picks have maxed out somewhere on the spectrum from “just good enough” (Nate Wiggins) to “oh, he’s still here?” (Rashod Bateman). Nnamdi Madubuike’s status after a September neck injury remains cloudy; without him, the defensive front is weak, which is really off-brand for the Ravens.

This roster needs a thorough overhaul, which helps explain the coaching change: It was time to reset expectations.

Cap and Draft Stuff

The Ravens have $22 million in paper cap space. They can clear more by restructuring or renegotiating Jackson’s contract; it sounds like they are leaning toward the latter. The Henry, Andrews and Stanley contracts are distressingly over-leveraged right now; the Ravens are paying the price for a Super Bowl run that never fully manifested.

The Ravens need all the extra space they can get, because their in-house free-agent list includes Linderbaum, Isaiah Likely, Daniel Faalele, DeAndre Hopkins, punter Jordan Stout, and a slew of defensive role players.

Linderbaum could be franchise-tagged, Likely extended, Stout retained at punter prices, Hopkins shipped off to the Texans Ring of Honor and Faalele and most of the defenders allowed to leave. Whatever the Ravens do, it will cost a lot of money to retain a few of these major contributors and replace some of the guys they lose.

The Ravens pick 14th, 45th and 80th in the first three rounds of the 2026 draft. The days of stockpiling compensatory picks are long gone.

One Thing the Ravens Should Do

Fix the pass rush. Thirty sacks? That should be a month for the Ravens, not a season. Putting more pressure on opposing quarterbacks would take pressure off both Jackson and the secondary.

In Summary

The Ravens and Bills both entered pit row at the same time. Both teams hired new head coaches with strong organizational ties. Both face tough questions about aging veterans who may have gotten a little too used to losing big games. Jackson and Josh Allen are each now dragging over a half-decade of baggage as their teams try to change the tires around them as quickly as possible; that baggage weighs a little heavier upon Jackson.

The bellwether of the Ravens offseason will be Linderbaum. If the Ravens tag or re-sign him, then they are positioning themselves for a quick turnaround. If Linderbaum ends up leaving to play for one of the Harbaugh brothers in 2026, it means that the Ravens are buckling up for a longer rebuilding cycle. Considering how duct-taped together some parts of the roster are, that might be a wise-if-unpopular move.