
Ian Hartitz reviews the three key team needs for the Baltimore Ravens, who are operating under new HC Jesse Minter.

The Ravens were a 44-yard field goal away from capturing their third consecutive AFC North title, but instead Tyler Loop missed, and now Baltimore will have a head coach not named John Harbaugh for the first time since 2007. That new HC is Jesse Minter, who guided the Chargers’ defense the past two seasons. He’s inheriting a squad which last season was hardly the best group that Lamar Jackson has led in recent years.
Better injury luck and improved scheme from the new coaching staff should help matters, but there are also several position groups that could use some new-and-improved faces.
The gravity of Lamar Jackson has helped the Ravens generally work as one of the league's better offenses when it comes to racking up rushing yards before contact and limiting sacks—things that typically go hand-in-hand with great offensive lines. Still, Jackson's career-worst 10.7% sack rate in 2025 reflects the reality that the 29-year-old QB could use some additional help in avoiding finely tuned athletic machines on opposing defensive lines.
So, yeah: Something close to high-end investment up front sounds like a nice change of pace for a group that has become one of the league's cheapest units in recent years.
Both RG Daniel Faalele and C Tyler Linderbaum are unrestricted free agents. The latter is the only offensive lineman the Ravens have used top-50 draft capital on during their last nine drafts combined. It might be time to update things across the interior.
Sticking on the line of scrimmage: The Ravens have a myriad of free agents across their defensive front, as contributors like Dre'Mont Jones, Kyle Van Noy, David Ojabo, John Jenkins, Brent Urban and Taven Bryan are all hitting the open market. Add it all together, and nobody has a cheaper group of EDGE defenders when it comes to 2026 money at the position.
And yet, simply re-signing the usual suspects might not be enough considering the lack of oomf this pass rush demonstrated in 2025.
The team's run defense was also inconsistent and never fully clicked until a midseason decision was made to keep star S Kyle Hamilton in the box more often. It'd make sense if 2025 second-rounder Mike Green makes a bigger impact in Year 2, but either way: More playmakers on the line of scrimmage, please.
While Zay Flowers has had his fair share of inopportune ball-security issues over the years, the human joystick remains one of the league's twitchier playmakers and was one of just six WRs to rack up 1,200-plus receiving yards in 2025.
But elsewhere? There's work to do. Mark Andrews just received a three-year, $39.3 million extension … but is coming off the worst season of his career by virtually any metric. A similar story unfortunately unfolded for Rashod Bateman. Complementary tight ends Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar join No. 3 WR DeAndre Hopkins as free agents.
Add it all together, and Baltimore boasts the league's seventh cheapest group of wide receivers and tight ends ahead of 2026. Simply hoping for bounceback seasons from Bateman and Andrews isn't enough—some level of additional investment is needed to help a passing attack that ranked third in EPA per dropback across the 2023-2024 seasons before stumbling to their 22nd-place finish in 2025.
The defense took a big step forward during the second half of 2025, but still struggled to slow down passing attacks from the Patriots, Packers and Steelers in key matchup games to end the year. Starting safety Alohi Gilman and cornerback Chidobe Awuzie are free agents—at a minimum more depth is needed on the back end.
I'd do everything in my power to get this offensive line back to being a strength. PFF ranked this group as a top-5 unit at the end of both 2022 and 2023, but they have slipped to 9th and 16th over the past two seasons. Whether it's splurging in free agency, or using picks No. 14 or No. 45 on the group, the time is now to help fortify a front responsible for facing off against Myles Garrett and TJ Watt four times per year.
