By the time Lamar Jackson won the NFL Most Valuable Player award in 2019, he had firmly entrenched himself as the face of the Baltimore Ravens. The superstar quarterback has proven more than capable of putting the team on his back and carrying it to dizzying heights.
But while Jackson understandably garners most of the attention in Baltimore, he doesn’t directly impact the performance of the other side of the ball. For decades, the Ravens have cultivated a tough, defensive identity that has served them well. Both of the franchise’s Super Bowl titles featured strong defenses headlined by future Hall of Famers.
Though the analytics revolution has largely debunked the “defense wins championship” mantra — defensive play fluctuates considerably from year to year and the caliber of opposing offenses largely dictates how the unit performs — the Ravens certainly would benefit from improved play from the unit. Jackson can and will lift Baltimore to many wins, but even the best quarterbacks struggle to drag one-dimensional teams to the Super Bowl.
Not that the Ravens defense has sunk to the bottom of the league in 2022. Entering Week 10, the unit ranks 15th in Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric (11th against the pass, 18th against the run). Baltimore also ranks third in defensive turnover percentage, trailing only the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles, respectively the current front-runners for the AFC and NFC top playoff seeds. Moreover, the Ravens defense played an integral role in the team’s close win over the Cleveland Browns and nearly led to an upset over that AFC-leading Buffalo squad.
But that doesn’t mean the unit couldn’t and shouldn’t improve. Already, the Ravens have made significant moves to accomplish just that, trading a second-round pick to the Chicago Bears for linebacker Roquan Smith. Meanwhile, the team also activated veteran pass rusher Tyus Bowser from the physically unable to perform list and rookie edge defender David Ojabo from the non-football injury list. Those additions, Baltimore hopes, will add some juice to the defensive front.
However, though personnel can make or break any defense, the approach from the coaching staff has to put those players in positions to succeed. That process hasn’t gone as smoothly this season under new defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald. The 35-year-old assistant coach returned to Baltimore after a one-year stint running the defense for the Michigan Wolverines. That short but highly successful run put Macdonald on the radar for multiple bigger opportunities.
And while Macdonald has the potential to grow into a fine NFL defensive coordinator, he hasn’t quite hit the mark so far. Part of the reason for the slower-than-expected start stems from the unit he inherited. While far from untalented, the Ravens’ defensive personnel still looks like a group better equipped to play the blitz-happy, man-coverage-heavy defense of Macdonald’s predecessor, Don “Wink” Martindale.
Macdonald, whether by his choice or that of head coach John Harbaugh, has called a noticeably different style of defense. This year, the Ravens have blitzed on 21.7% of snaps, the 22nd highest rate out of the 32 teams. That figure marks a stark departure from Martindale’s final season in Baltimore when the unit finished 6th overall in blitz rate (31.1%). As a direct result, Baltimore generated more pressure during Martindale’s final year than it has so far under Macdonald, 23% versus 18.8%.
And those 2021 numbers probably don’t paint an accurate picture of how Martindale operated the defense. With more teams moving toward two-high looks and zone coverages to, in coaching parlance, “put a roof on the passing game,” Harbaugh appeared to pressure his defensive coordinator into making compromises. Martindale didn’t stray too far from his roots, but he did dial down the blitzes by his standards.
Rewind back further and Martindale’s defenses wrecked opponents with blitzes and pressure. In 2020, his unit topped the league in blitz rate (44.1%) and had the fourth highest pressure rate (26.8%) to show for it. Martindale leaned even more heavily on blitzes in 2019, dialing them up on an insane 54.9% of plays — more than 10 percentage points higher than the next closest team — and boasted a 23.4% pressure rate. The Ravens did allow some big plays, but the reward far outweighed the risk.
Returning to Macdonald and the current iteration of the Ravens defense, a greater dose of blitzes could well make a difference. Yes, the league has changed and throwing the kitchen sink at an offense at or around half the time no longer seems viable, but Baltimore has stirred too far in the other direction. While Baltimore has the ageless Calais Campbell and Justin Houston along with promising second-year pro Odafe Oweh, the team lacks truly field-tilting pass rushers. Za’Darius Smith and Matt Judon left years ago, and their absence appears greater when Macdonald rushes four or fewer defenders.
Turning up the blitzes to even just 25% — still below the league average yet more than three percentage points higher than the Ravens’ current rate — could help account for the difference. Such an approach would also allow Marcus Peters and Marlon Humphrey to play more press coverage, areas in which both cornerbacks have thrived historically. At least on paper, their comfort in man coverage would offset much of the downside of a higher blitz rate.
And such a shift wouldn’t feel totally alien to Macdonald. Before taking the DC job at Michigan, he worked under Martindale as a linebackers coach. He saw firsthand how and when to dial up blitzes and can lean upon that knowledge as he makes adjustments. Good coaches constantly make tweaks to account for their personnel and their opponents, and Macdonald as a fine chance to showcase his capabilities in this area during the second half of 2022.
If Macdonald pulls the right levers, the Ravens could have one of the better defenses during the stretch run. That, of course, would bode well for a team that desperately wants to break through and reach a Super Bowl.
Jason B. Hirschhorn is an award-winning sports journalist and Pro Football Writers of America member. He has bylines at NFL.com, SB Nation, Sports Illustrated, and other outlets.