Ravens Don’t Need a Premier Pass Rusher to Put Fear in Opposing QBs

Ravens fans have been clamoring for a real, true, number one super duper pass rusher for a long time now.  The narrative is the team has “no real pass rush.”  This was even the case in 2023, when a man by the name of Mike Macdonald was the defensive coordinator.  It was his second season in the position after taking over from Don Martindale.  The Ravens didn’t have a superstar pass rusher, yet they led the league in sacks with 60.  How did they do it?

Robert Griffin III talked about facing Macdonald’s defense during practice in an interview with Colin Cowherd.

“…even if you don’t have a bad offensive line, they found ways to get pressure, and it’s because, at the line of scrimmage, they allow their safeties and their linebackers and their outside edge rushers to determine who was blitzing based off the turn of the center and based off the call point.  How do I know this?  Well, my job was to break down protections in Baltimore.  My job was to make sure that we were directed the right way.  What’s the best way to pick up this blitz?  That was my responsibility as a veteran QB helping the young guy in Lamar Jackson, you know, be prepared for every single week.  So when we go into practice and I’m going against Mike Macdonald all training camp, all off-season, I’m making the MIKE points and they’re changing them at the line of scrimmage, and they’re not verbal changes… they just do it automatically, and that’s what makes this defense so difficult to defend.”

The Ravens did have a double-digit sack man that season – Nnamdi Madubuike with 13.  He earned Second-Team All Pro and ninth place in DPOY voting.  Beyond that, they had Jadeveon Clowney with 9.5 sacks, Kyle Van Noy with 9, Odafe Oweh with 5, Patrick Queen with 3.5, Kyle Hamilton with 3, and Brent Urban with 3.  All told, sixteen players had at least one sack that season.  It was all about who opened up on a particular play.  It was the defensive equivalent to throwing to the open receiver, even if that receiver was down the depth chart.

The Ravens did only manage two sacks in two playoff games that year, both against Kansas City.  Despite that, look at the results:

Houston: 10 points, all in the first half, 213 total yards, 175 passing yards, 5.3 YPA passing

Kansas City: 17 points, all in the first half, 319 total yards, 230 passing yards, 5.8 YPA passing

For the most part the defense did its job.  They shut out their opponents in the second half, and gave the Ravens offense opportunity to pull away against Houston and to stage a comeback against the Chiefs.

What about this iteration in Seattle?  Well, in the regular season they finished first in points and sixth in yards, which were the exact same finishing spots as Baltimore in 2023.  They were second in yards per pass attempt (5.1), much like the Ravens who were first (4.7). The significant difference was actually in run defense; the 2025 Seahawks were first in the league (3.7 YPR) while the 2023 Ravens were 25^th (4.5 YPR).  Their pressure-as-a-team dynamic was even more evident, with no player netting more than seven sacks, yet there were three such players (Byron Murphy, Leonard Williams, Uchenna Nwosu).  Again there was pressure from the inside with Murphy and Williams.  Again pressure came from everywhere – seventeen different players logged at least half a sack.  They ultimately finished with 47 team sacks, good for seventh in the league.

In hindsight, the Ravens should have kept Mike Macdonald over John Harbaugh after their loss to the Chiefs, but if you bet based on probabilities, firing a head coach that just made a conference championship game for a brand new coach is a bad idea.  I don’t blame the Ravens for making that choice.  Now that it’s time to move on, they hired the closest guy you can find to Macdonald in his successor at the University of Michigan, Jesse Minter.  If anybody can replicate what Macdonald just did, it’s him.  So I choose not to be bitter.  I enjoyed Seattle’s dismantling of New England in the Super Bowl.  I’m happy for coach Mike Mac and I’m happy for a lot of players on Seattle that deserve a ring.  I feel pretty good about the Ravens defense next season, even if they don’t trade for Maxx Crosby or sign Trey Hendrickson, and it’s because of a coach that is cut from that same cloth as the man who just hoisted the Lombardi Trophy as a defensive play caller.

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