What we learned (and didn’t) from the Ravens’ offseason

Join the huddle. Sign up here for Ravens updates in your inbox.

The Ravens have begun summer vacation after they completed their offseason program with minicamp practices Tuesday and Wednesday. The Jesse Minter era has begun in earnest, with a roster designed to chase a Super Bowl despite lingering flaws. There will be plenty left to determine when training camp opens in late July, from the depth chart at a few key positions to the potential need for further acquisitions. But here are five things we’ve learned from the offseason.

Lamar Jackson is sending the signals the Ravens need from their most important player

When the franchise’s alpha and omega was absent from the first organized team activities session open to the media, Ravens fandom lapsed into an all-too-familiar, frankly tedious, debate over his dedication to the cause.

With a new head coach, a new offensive coordinator and a new playbook to master, Jackson couldn’t be bothered to show up?

Minter smartly refused to engage with this tempest in a teapot, noting that Jackson had in fact been a presence around the team’s facility and would be back soon.

That proved to be the case. Jackson was an engaged, buoyant centerpiece of the next two open OTAs and of both days of mandatory minicamp. When he spoke to reporters, he agreed his participation was important.

“Because we have a new system,” he said. “I have to get the terminology down. Knowing where guys are, watching film, getting out on the field with my guys, knowing where guys are going to be with certain routes and certain plays, and hearing [offensive coordinator Declan Doyle] call plays. Everything is new, so I had to be here.”

In other words, the exact message Ravens fans have called for from their franchise quarterback.

Do May and June workouts tell us much about the coming season? They do not. Everybody is optimistic about everything, even around the NFL’s lowliest franchises. Truth is hard to come by until autumn.

But there is power, both practical and symbolic, in Jackson demonstrating his buy-in to a new regime. If he’s going to take the final step from Most Valuable Player to Super Bowl winner, symbiosis with the coaching staff is a must.

Minter and Doyle could not force that process. It had to start with Jackson, a proudly independent athlete who, by dint of his greatness, holds unmatched sway in the locker room.

He could not win the Ravens a Super Bowl by showing up for offseason workouts, but he sure could have set an uneasy tone by not appearing and not affirming his belief in the new staff. Jackson called the sweeping change “a breath of fresh air because everything is just new.”

Minter reciprocated after the final minicamp practice: “There’s nobody I’d rather have as the quarterback of this team, this franchise. The way that he operates, how infectious he is, how much joy he brings to the preparation and the practice field — yes, he’s been everything. You come in and you kind of know him, but you don’t know him super well. Relationships, like I talked about at the beginning, take time, and I think we’ve built up a good trust and communication and a good relationship.”

What isn’t new is the uncertainty around Jackson’s next contract, a problem the Ravens kicked down the road by restructuring his deal ahead of free agency. But even on that front he has set an optimistic tone, saying he “absolutely” envisions being in Baltimore long term.

We’ll see if that tune sounds so cheerful in six months. For now, Jackson is playing his part exactly as the team’s brain trust must have hoped for in the wake of last season’s crushing disappointments.

The Ravens will need meaningful production from at least one of their rookie wide receivers

As Jackson’s bomb descended toward Elijah Sarratt, the rookie receiver might as well have been trapped in a magician’s box for all the room he had to maneuver against cornerback Marquise Robinson.

But anyone who watched Sarratt at Indiana knows his gift is not streaking away from coverage. It’s outfighting his man for a clutch grab. Sarratt did exactly that against Robinson, creating one of the highlights of minicamp with his contested, 45-yard catch.

The play stood out all the more because the Ravens’ offense, down its top two receivers in Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman, spent most of the day moving in small bites. The lack of playmaking talent on the field reminded us this is not a roster overflowing with seasoned pass catchers.

There’s Flowers and tight end Mark Andrews, who’s aiming to bounce back as the last man standing from his 2025 position group. Bateman might have his cleanest ramp ever to a peak season, but his absence from OTA and minicamp workouts evoked the unreliability that has been an unwanted theme of his six-year career. Devontez Walker has flashed as a red-zone threat in a limited role, but we don’t know if he can do it with two or three times as many targets.

As of now, there is no DeAndre Hopkins, no Odell Beckham Jr. — Hall of Fame talents soaking up attention as they sought one more season in the sun.

Which leaves us with the rookies, Sarratt and Ja’Kobi Lane. We saw glimpses of each young receiver’s athletic upside during these early workouts, from Lane casually whipping off a celebratory backflip to Sarratt boxing out Robinson for that deep ball. Other times, we saw them struggle to separate from defenders or fail to complete routine plays.

No surprise in any of that, but the Ravens’ track record of finding productive receivers in the middle rounds is uneven at best. They will go into this season needing to hit on at least one of two, an uneasy proposition.

“In a perfect world, both develop and play really well,” Minter said of Lane and Sarratt. “I do think there will be major opportunities for at least one of them when you look at the number of guys that we have. They’ve both done a really good job this spring of just learning a completely new offense from what they were used to from their respective colleges. They’re both really competitive. They’re both really athletic. They both catch the ball really well.”

The Ravens passed on addressing other needs, most notably center, to use consecutive picks on Lane and Sarratt. It was the surprise twist of their draft, and six weeks later it feels like one of the most pivotal choices of their offseason.

The Ravens are no closer to addressing their most pressing problem

Let’s start with the caveat that it’s impossible to evaluate offensive line play during OTAs and minicamp, with no real contact to simulate in-season action.

So it would be premature to critique the men competing to start at center for the Ravens.

The coaches have said nice enough things about Danny Pinter, Jovaughn Gwyn and Corey Bullock. “The whole idea of the offseason is to put yourself in position to compete for the job in training camp, and I think all three of those guys are doing that,” Minter said.

But the controlling facts remain the same. Tyler Linderbaum left a gaping wound in the middle of the offensive line when he signed with the Las Vegas Raiders in March, and the Ravens did nothing to patch it in free agency or the draft.

They’re counting on novices and journeymen, none of them proven as NFL starters, to fill the shoes of a perennial Pro Bowl selection. And they’re again exposing Jackson to the peril of playing behind an unreliable interior wall.

Yes, guards Vega Ioane and John Simpson could significantly outperform Daniel Faalele and Andrew Vorhees, but if the center doesn’t hold, will it matter?

General manager Eric DeCosta has hinted at plans for other solutions. “I think we have a couple guys here that will compete for that position,” he said after the draft. “But, as the Hall of Fame general manager [Ozzie Newsome] once said, ‘You don’t play games until September.’ And I think we’ll have a great offensive line at that point. We have a plan.”

But it’s much easier to say the Ravens’ starting center isn’t on the team yet than to pinpoint a trade target. There’s a reason Linderbaum commanded such a premium; there are fewer quality centers than teams that need one.

For now, the Ravens are headed toward training camp with Pinter, and his 10 career starts, seemingly at the top of the depth chart (though Minter called it a balanced competition). If nothing changes, that would mean going into another season with a serious question about the unit charged with protecting Jackson.

Staying all in on Tyler Loop is a prudent gamble

The moment felt fraught with anxiety you don’t typically encounter during minicamp. No, the season wasn’t on the line, and, no, there weren’t 68,000 Steelers fans bellowing abuse from above. But, as Loop lined up from 40 yards, he did carry his teammates’ hopes on his strong right leg. As they watched the ball sail safely between the uprights, they whooped and hollered over the cancellation of post-practice meetings. The second-year kicker had earned everyone an early start to summer vacation.

Minter wanted Loop to have a moment like that, successfully performing under pressure in front of a crowd. It’s part of his and kicking coach Randy Brown’s plan for bringing the 24-year-old back from the devastating miss that ended the Ravens’ 2025 season.

In the immediate aftermath, plenty of fans and analysts argued the Ravens had to sign a veteran kicker to compete with Loop this offseason, that they could not simply assume he would repair his confidence. The team famously found one of the greatest kickers of all time, Justin Tucker, because it opted not to cede the job to veteran Billy Cundiff after his AFC championship game miss in 2011.

This is not exactly the same situation. Loop is a gifted young player, presumably still on the rise a year after Brown handpicked him as Tucker’s successor. He passed most of the tests thrown his way last year until he failed the biggest one. Now the Ravens are trying to salvage a talent they still believe in.

One way to demonstrate their confidence in Loop is by not making him fight for the job he won decisively at this time last year.

Minter has not ruled out bringing in another kicker for training camp. The Ravens will have wiggle room with the last few spots on their roster. For example, they probably won’t need five quarterbacks.

“I think, again, you play in September. I think there are ongoing talks and conversations about every position [about] whether you have what you feel you need to be successful,” the first-time head coach said.

But the Ravens have given every indication they expect Loop to be their kicker. Standing behind him fully is both a reasonable bet and one for which they’ll be massacred if he misses another clutch kick.

Teammates want the best for Loop. At the same time, they won’t coddle or patronize him.

“You play this game long enough, you’re going to have some down moments,” All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton said. “We’re all grown men, and I don’t want to say we aren’t here to support each other, but at the same time, stuff is going to happen. At the end of the day, it’s up to you — all of us as well, but mainly yourself — to look inward and say, ‘Hey, how can I adjust this?’ I don’t want to say that we are not supporting each other along the way, and [we] want each other to be the best that we can be, but you shouldn’t need ‘attaboys’ to get yourself right.”

Perform or perish. That’s the NFL credo, and no one understands it better than Loop, who spent the early days of his offseason reassuring loved ones that his confidence is undiminished.

He handled himself assuredly in his first encounter with reporters since his shell-shocked postgame session five months ago in Pittsburgh.

“It’s hard to understand from an outside perspective the amount of confidence and the amount of work I have in the process we’ve developed and in my ability to kick a football,” he said. “I think some people can’t quite grasp that until you let them know, ‘I’m good. I’ve been doing this for years, and I feel really comfortable that, if I went out there, I’d make it.’”

It’s what an elite athlete should say, and if Loop’s nerves were permanently frayed when he failed to strike that ball cleanly in Pittsburgh, he’s not showing it. But we won’t know, the Ravens won’t know and, most importantly, he won’t know until he faces a similarly excruciating kick and comes through.

If this really is a new age, we’re a long way from knowing what that means

John Harbaugh’s absence is felt for longtime Ravens practice watchers. Over his 18 years in Baltimore, he had a way of placing himself near the heart of the action, of making comments loud enough to resound over the din of mundane repetitions.

Minter has been a less ostentatious presence, quiet and often difficult to pick out from the crowd in his gray sweatsuit.

That’s not a criticism. It’s just a reminder that the Ravens really did replace one of the giants in franchise history with a rookie head coach who’s still forming and testing his vision for how to do this.

Minter’s most obvious innovation has been his introduction of offense vs. defense Olympics at the end of each session — a fun reminder that the Ravens have to be at their best in the tense, exhausted moments when their best is required.

Does a 100-yard, backward sled race in June harden a team for must-win games in January? Impossible to say, but give Minter credit for saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to addressing what has ailed this team. You can’t remove a wart by pretending it’s not there. The Ravens haven’t been good enough in defining games, and their new leader is attempting a solution.

We also saw pronounced attention to detail in these early workouts, from renewed focus on how the team huddles to the moment when Doyle sidelined Andrews as punishment for a presnap penalty. Even Jackson got cussed out after he mishandled a bootleg during the penultimate workout. He grinningly recounted that exchange to reporters the next day, noting he welcomes hard coaching (contrary to what some critics have surmised in recent years).

Again, these are the anecdotes you want to hear about a team holding itself accountable for a failed season.

In other respects, it’s difficult to pinpoint how much has changed from the Harbaugh era to this one. Players have generally gushed in early reviews of the new staff. Flowers called Doyle a genius. Returning defensive lineman Calais Campbell, as wise an old head as there is in the NFL, said he’s never loved a coach more than defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.

But what else would we expect to hear in this season of unchained optimism?

A new coach is not a magic wand. He can’t cover for a subpar starting lineman or provide a dependable set of hands for Jackson with an AFC North showdown hanging in the balance. The stresses of an NFL season will punish the weak points in a roster, no matter who’s calling the plays. The best coaches help their teams persevere and adapt as problems inevitably arise.

The spring and summer are for building an infrastructure, but they can’t tell you how your house will hold up in a storm.

The early vibes around Minter are righteous. It’s just that the key word in that phrase is “early.”