A Few Schematic Tweaks Can Help Repair Ravens Broken Third-Down Defense

The Ravens were a broken defense on third down in 2025.

Let’s be real, they were pretty damn broken on pretty much any down – first through fourth – for pretty much all of 2024 and 2025. It was pathetically below this franchise’s standards and below almost all of the NFL in money situations.

Rookie head coach Jesse Minter will have spent considerable time studying their failures to get off the field when it matters much, and these issues run much deeper than not having anyone off the edge who could really run the quarterback. The addition of big-money free agent Trey Hendrickson will help some, certainly, and a healthy Nnamdi Madubuike anchoring the middle of the defensive line would be huge, too.

But Minter, as we’ve been telling you in breaking down Kye Hamilton’s evolving role and some of his tendencies in nickel and dime packages, loves to play a ton of Cover-4 (quarters coverage) and he’s not going to blitz a ton, but he will do it from different locales and launch spots to keep quarterbacks guessing. And we've already documented some changes he must consider with his dime packages (which he plays quite a bit).

And, we’re going to go out on a limb here, and say he won’t be messing around with all out blitzes and man coverage on third down the way his predecessor, overmatched Zach Orr, leaned in Cover-0 and Cover-1 in third-down situations.

The Numbers Are Not Kind

Let’s begin with a review of Baltimore’s third-down woes last year.

They ranked 20th in yards/play allowed (5.5), and 21st in net yards per pass attempt (6.6) and 29th in sack percentage (7.6%), while yielding 1041 passing (29th). Ugh. They actually held opposing quarterbacks to a low passer rating (73.2), despite generating almost no pressure, but absolutely stunk preventing the big play.

(And, yeah, playing a bunch of Cover-0 and Cover-1 without getting home will do that to you).

This biggest issue? The Ravens allowed 18 completions of 20 yards or more on third down (tied for last in the NFL) and 14 passes of 25 yards or more (tied for last).

Believe it or not, Tavius Robinson led the Ravens in third down sacks last season with … two. Dre’Mont Jones and Mike Green (1.5 each) were the only Ravens with more than one sack on third down.

So, yeah, Hendrickson will help a lot. But it runs deeper than that.

What’s Scheme Got To Do With It?

Orr employed Cover-0 on third down 14% of the time last season, per TruMedia, second most in the NFL. If he thought he was scheming up pressure, he was wrong, but he certainly was leaving a struggling secondary exposed. The only coordinator in the league who called more Cover-0 on third down was Minnesota’s Brian Flores, arguably the best in the game at doing so and the heaviest blitzing play caller in the NFL.

Orr also called Cover-1 30.4% of the time on third down (so nearly half the time they were in one of these two looks on third down), while Minter called this defense 17% of the time on third down (28th in usage). Hmmm.

The Ravens allowed 14.32 yards/completion on third down when in Cover-0 or Cover-1 (26th in NFL), they registered just a 27.7% pressure rate in those looks on third down (31st), and opposing quarterbacks had 2.95 seconds to throw when they did (26th), while ranking 22nd in sack rate (5.1%). Only four Ravens registered sacks on third down out of Cover-1 or Ccover-0 on third down all season, and they each had one.

Minter has a lot to transform with this defense, and some fixes will be more difficult than others, but expect far heavier zone looks in these situations; he will streamline and simplify some of these responsibilities while also freeing up individuals to make more plays on the ball.

Subscribe On YouTube For The Best Ravens Coverage:

Add us as a preferred source on Google