‘4 Downs’ with Rich: the Baltimore Ravens’ Biggest Questions Heading into the ‘26 NFL Season

Nothing about the Ravens looks the way it did a year ago. John Harbaugh is coaching the Giants, Todd Monken is running Cleveland, and the entire operation in Baltimore has been handed to a new set of eyes.

First down is the offense, and Declan Doyle is on the clock.

The new coordinator arrives out of the Ben Johnson world, which raises the obvious question of how much of that system travels with him. Does Baltimore open things up? Does Lamar Jackson spend more time under center? After a decade and a half of doing it the Harbaugh way, everything is reimagined at once.

Doyle also inherits a receiver who now carries a price tag. Zay Flowers just got paid, and the job description that comes with that money is taking the top off a defense, particularly when opponents decide they will not let Derrick Henry beat them and start accounting for Lamar's legs.

Second down is simpler to state and harder to fix. Whatever the offense becomes, the defense has to be better.

That reads strangely for this franchise. Since Ray Lewis was drafted, the assumption has been that the Ravens defense leads the way. Last season it did not lead anything.

Thirty sacks. Tied for 30th in the league. The 247.9 yards per game number put them dead last adjacent, with only the Cowboys worse.

Third down is the man hired to repair it, and Rich admitted his bias up front. Jesse Minter is the new head coach, previously the defensive coordinator across the street with the Chargers and before that at Michigan alongside Jim Harbaugh.

"Personally, I think so," Rich said of whether Minter is ready. He has seen the man work as a coordinator and rates him as even keel rather than hysterical, though nobody knows yet how he handles a challenge flag or a fourth down decision.

The uncomfortable comparison is one Minter cannot control. Baltimore once had Mike Macdonald in the building and did pretty well with him, and never faced the question of replacing Harbaugh with him. Macdonald is now on his way to being one of the stars of Hard Knocks.

Fourth down is the quarterback, and it is less about football than about what Lamar is thinking.

Albert Breer laid out the situation on the show, and the framing matters. Lamar has not signed an extension, and it is not because the Ravens are lowballing him or unwilling to pay. He has a no-tag clause in 2028, which gives him a clear path to free agency if he simply stays the course.

Now add a new head coach, a new coordinator and a rebuilt everything, and the question becomes what all that change looks like to a quarterback holding that kind of leverage. Bruce has already floated Miami as a possibility on the going home theory.

The rest of the roster questions stack underneath those four. Trey Hendrickson has to rush the passer as well as he ever has. Calais Campbell is back. They lost Tyler Linderbaum at center, which is not nothing.

The optimistic version runs through the secondary. Kyle Hamilton and Roquan Smith are the faces of this defense, and if Minter does for Baltimore what he did for the Chargers, Hamilton slots into something like the Derwin James role.

That comparison is the one Rich likes most, because Derwin James loved playing for Minter, and Hamilton would be inheriting the same scheme that made it work.

Which leaves the question that decides the season. Where do the explosive plays come from?

The answer is sitting right there. Lamar Jackson healthy, throwing and running. Derrick Henry still being Derrick Henry. Zay Flowers stretching the field.

If the defense tightens and the offense gets more versatile, Rich sees a team that can win the division and the conference. That is a lot of ifs for one August.