The Ravens led the AFC North in sacks in both 2023 and 2024 and won back-to-back division titles.<\/p>\n
That changed in 2025, when the Ravens tied for 30th in the NFL with just 30 sacks and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2021.<\/p>\n
This offseason, the Ravens signed Trey Hendrickson and Calais Campbell, drafted Zion Young, and hired Head Coach Jesse Minter who has a history of helping defenders flourish. With Mike Green, Tavius Robinson and others also in the mix, Baltimore’s pass rush should improve with Minter calling the shots. If Nnamdi Madubuike returns from neck surgery and becomes part of the picture, the potential for a potent pass rush becomes even higher.<\/p>\n
Many factors contributed to Baltimore’s demise last season up front, but the lack of a consistent pass rush was a major problem, as Travis Jones led the team with 5.0 sacks. The plan to harass opposing quarterbacks more frequently is part of the Ravens’ quest to reestablish a “dawg” mentality on defense.<\/p>\n
“There’s a history we’re kind of chasing defensively in this place, and I think everybody, to a man, knows we fell short of that a year ago, and we want to make that right,” Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver said.<\/p>\n
When the Ravens reached the AFC Championship game in 2023 after a 13-4 regular season, they led the NFL in sacks with 60. If the Ravens’ pass rush wreaks havoc again, I believe they’ll return to being top dogs in the division and will be Super Bowl contenders.<\/p>\n
Here are other thoughts on the Ravens as they get ready for next week’s mandatory minicamp, all in 50 words or less:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ravens led the AFC North in sacks in both 2023 and 2024 and won back-to-back division titles.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[19683,19686,257,11179,17263,349,99],"class_list":["post-688703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-50-words-or-less","tag-clifton-brown","tag-general","tag-homepage-centerpiece","tag-inline-news","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}