5 things we learned: Ravens’ new regime passes first test

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The Ravens won coach Jesse Minter’s debut Sunday, 41-23 over the Indianapolis Colts, flashing offensive brilliance early, then holding on in the face of injuries to wide receivers Zay Flowers and Ja’Kobi Lane. Here are five things we learned from the game.

The Ravens turned the page with 30 minutes of brilliance, then 30 minutes of toughness.

Recall that, a year ago, the Ravens rolled to a 40-25 lead with 11:42 to go in their season opener against the Buffalo Bills. At that moment, you could have convinced many people they were the best team in the NFL. Their inability to hold the 15-point advantage told us all too much about how the 2025 season was going to go —.out of the playoffs and out of Baltimore for longtime coach John Harbaugh.

Almost from the moment he arrived to succeed Harbaugh, Minter told us his Ravens would be all about playing “our best when our best is needed.” In other words, no more of the blown leads that had undermined Harbaugh’s late-stage powerhouses.

Wouldn’t you know Minter’s vow would be put to the test in his first game.

His team set the NFL commentariat ablaze Sunday with a first-half symphony of big-play brilliance. Wunderkind offensive coordinator Declan Doyle unveiled plays he’d spent a lifetime dreaming up. Lamar Jackson danced and fired like a man reborn. Flowers could not be checked. The Ravens scored 28 points unanswered, and it felt like that could have been 35 or 42.

Minter’s debut, against a Colts team with its own playoff ambitions, looked like a laugher.

It was not destined to be that simple. When Flowers got up rubbing his hamstring late in the second quarter, the Baltimore offense transformed from extraordinary to ordinary. Lane’s exit because of a wrist injury exacerbated the sudden shortage of playmakers. With Indianapolis’ brilliant running back, Jonathan Taylor, slashing at the middle of their defense, the Ravens would have to muster some of that late-game toughness Mnter had promised.

They did.

Minter’s defense put enough pressure on Colts quarterback Daniel Jones to get Indianapolis off the field on two of its last three drives. Jackson connected with Chris Moore, elevated from the practice squad to play special teams more than catch passes, on a gorgeous 53-yard bomb to set up a backbreaking touchdown. Tyler Loop, dogged by a fan base convinced he would fail, split the uprights on 57- and 45-yard field goals.

No, the Ravens could not sustain their early dynamism for four quarters, but maybe what they achieved was something better than a blowout. We saw how promising they might be at their best, and we saw them not fold when fortune turned against them, as it inevitably will at times this season.

The Ravens’ offseason marketing had wooed fans with the promise of a new dawn after 18 years of Harbaugh. The pitch largely worked, with the loudest voices in the team’s flock buying in to Minter and his new staff. But we know how fleeting that goodwill would have been had the Ravens been undone by their difficulties in Indianapolis. Instead, Minter’s team began its new chapter by answering some of the very questions that haunted its previous one.

We saw just how thrilling a Declan Doyle offense might be, if he can clean it up.

The Doyle era could not have started more promisingly. On the first play the 30-year-old coordinator ever called, Jackson faked a handoff to Derrick Henry, rolled left and had all the time in the world to find Flowers in stride for a 49-yard gain. So much talk about explosive plays all summer, and here one manifested right out of the chute. Two plays later, Doyle shifted left tackle Ronnie Stanley to the right side of the line, then had Jackson run untouched around the edge Stanley had just abandoned. Nifty.

“Declan came out of the gate on fire,” Minter said.

On drive No. 2, we were reminded that blinding talent sometimes eclipses scheme as Jackson somehow apparated underneath a pair of Indianapolis rushers and galloped free to convert on third-and-16.

If we wanted a glimpse of the creative genius players have described, Doyle delivered it on drive No. 3. Jackson faked a handoff to Henry, then to Flowers on the end around, only to flip a screen pass to Henry for 19 yards. The Ravens failed to convert in the red zone, set back by a holding call on new center Jovaughn Gwyn and a drop by tight end Mark Andrews.

It’s frightening for the rest of the NFL to think that as well as the first half went for this offense — 9.1 yards per play, 31 points — it could have been more devastating if not for six penalties and a Jackson fumble deep in his own territory.

We knew Jackson was hurt most of last season, playing behind an offensive line that could not keep him safe and for a coordinator, Todd Monken, whose message had started to lose its luster despite their soaring successes together. Sunday’s performance reminded us that, when Jackson is right physically and engaged with a new coach’s vision, there’s not a more potent regular-season winner in the league.

And what if Doyle is not just another good coach but the league’s next offensive visionary, following on the heels of his former boss, Ben Johnson? How high might Jackson climb with a guy like that?

Given the dazzling designs and the 506 total yards from a coach who had never done this on any stage, it feels churlish to complain about everything that didn’t go right against the Colts. But Doyle insists on accountability for every last detail, so it’s fair to meet him on those terms. He surely will not be happy with the penalties that wiped out chunk plays and continually forced Jackson to operate in third-and-long.

The two least experienced offensive linemen, Gwyn and first-round pick Vega Ioane, were the worst violators, but this wasn’t a wildly encouraging day overall for a unit that needs to improve on its 2025 performance.

We talked all summer about the lack of playmaking depth behind Flowers and Henry, and we saw that against the Colts as those two and Jackson accounted for all five of the team’s touchdowns. Wide receiver Rashod Bateman’s stat line — one target, no catches — was particularly troubling. The Ravens will need much more from him if they’re without Flowers and Lane for the short term (Minter didn’t offer concrete updates on either after the game).

Sunday’s offensive highs were breathtaking. If the Ravens are to reach them more regularly, especially against better competition, they’ll need considerable fine-tuning.

Minter’s defense was overshadowed, but we saw the bones of what he’s trying to accomplish.

Jones sliced and diced the Ravens on the game’s first drive as a revamped Baltimore front four, featuring Trey Hendrickson and Calais Campbell, failed to invade his pocket in an unwanted callback to 2025.

Minter acknowledged afterward that he didn’t do a good job of countering Colts coach Shane Steichen during that opening movement.

From there, however, Minter unleashed many of the trademarks that made him effective working with so-so personnel as Jim Harbaugh’s defensive coordinator in Los Angeles.

We saw simulated pressure and delayed cornerback blitzes. We saw Kyle Hamilton, liberated by the presence of an excellent third safety in Jaylinn Hawkins, operating as queen on the chessboard. We saw Minter trusting he could pressure with a light box — Hendrickson didn’t get a sack in his Ravens debut but finished with five hurries — while muddying the downfield picture with five or six defensive backs.

It wasn’t a smothering defensive beatdown, but the Colts managed just one lengthy scoring drive after that opening march, and the Ravens never felt in danger of losing their grip on the game in the fourth quarter.

Minter confirmed most of our guesses about how his Ravens defense would look. Five defensive backs — Hamilton, Hawkins, safety Malaki Starks and cornerbacks Nate Wiggins and Marlon Humphrey — will play almost every snap, along with linebacker Roquan Smith.

Linebacker Trenton Simpson and nickel back Keyon Martin will split snaps in a rotating seventh spot. Hendrickson and Tavius Robinson will be the workhorses up front, with Minter managing workloads for Campbell and defensive tackle Travis Jones while he waits for Nnamdi Madubuike to return. The younger pass rushers, Mike Green and Zion Young, will have to earn more work.

Asked for a grade, Hamilton gave the new defense a C+, noting correctly that a pair of takeaways covered for its sins.

That said, there was a clear vision at play, more promising than any we saw last season, when the Ravens stumbled out of the gate with a less talented front that never did come together.

Jackson makes this offense work; Flowers makes it sizzle.

After the Ravens signed Flowers to a four-year, $140 million extension early last month, Doyle could hardly contain his enthusiasm describing how integral his top wide receiver would be.

“You can kind of move him all over the place,” he said. “ He embodies a lot of the things that we are looking for, in a lot of different ways. When we talk about building the receiver room, we are trying to build a basketball team, [and] it just so happens that he can play multiple positions on that basketball team. So it allows you to be flexible. It allows you to try to put him in different situations where he might have an advantage on a schematic matchup or a defensive structure.”

No, Flowers, 5 feet, 9 inches and 183 pounds, does not fit our image of a classic No. 1 wide receiver. But different doesn’t mean worse, especially if you pair a rare talent with imaginative coaches.

Doyle clearly gets it with Flowers. He lined him up in the slot, out wide, in the backfield. He sent him in motion as a killer decoy. The Colts couldn’t guess where No. 4 was coming from and couldn’t keep pace when they found him. He seemed headed for the first 200-yard game of his career, the loudest possible rejoinder to all those analysts who said the Ravens overpaid.

The only cloud in Flowers’ sky came with the flare-up of a hamstring injury that has bothered him the last few weeks. Though the Ravens did not immediately rule him out, he spent most of the second half on the sideline, wearing a baseball cap instead of a helmet. Doyle’s offense had to move in smaller chunks, robbed of dimensions and relying on Henry to take it home.

So Flowers’ first game as the $35 million man was a double-edged sword. We saw how this might be a classic offense with him as the favorite toy. We also saw how much was taken off the table when the Ravens had to dig past him (and Lane) on their depth chart.

Jackson is the indispensable man on this team. Hamilton is probably No. 2. But, given what we’ve seen from Doyle’s offense, it’s not at all crazy to say Flowers ranks No. 3 on the most irreplaceable list.

For all the talk of new blood, old dogs led the defensive hunt.

Two former All-Pros, Humphrey and Smith, took sharp criticism for their roles in the Ravens’ defensive decline last season. Both have acknowledged not playing to their standards in 2025 (though, to be fair, Smith still made the Pro Bowl).

In touting the Ravens’ defensive upside this year, some fans talk about Humphrey and Smith almost as if they’re weaknesses to be overcome.

That was far from the case Sunday, when the 30-year-old cornerback and the 29-year-old linebacker were arguably the two best defenders on the field. Coming off that rough initial drive, Smith quickly put the defense back on track by baiting Jones into an interception deep in Indianapolis territory.

In the second quarter, it was Humphrey’s turn, as he ripped the ball from Taylor’s arms to set up a short-field touchdown drive and then broke up a deep shot to Indianapolis’ top big-play threat, Alec Pierce.

As Hamilton noted, Smith and Humphrey’s takeaways led directly to the three-score advantage the Ravens would protect in the second half, and both continued to play well in coverage as Jones tried to rally his Colts.

“Those two guys, as veterans, for them to make tone-setting plays for us, it’s really what I expected out of those guys,” Minter said. “And they delivered.”

Humphrey and Smith have said they welcome Minter’s hard coaching, with Humphrey in particular saying he wants his new head coach to grade him unsparingly at the end of each practice.

It’s natural to look at shiny objects — Hendrickson, the young pass rushers, a returning Madubuike — when assessing how the Ravens might improve from 2025. But a big part of what Minter did well for the Chargers was put established players in the best positions to succeed. Is it possible that, by the end of this season, we’ll be lauding him for helping Humphrey and Smith find new life in NFL years 10 and nine, respectively? The opener was a great step in that direction.