Jesse Minter's Big Risk: Ravens Are One Of Two Staffs In NFL With No HC Experience

The Baltimore Ravens went from one of the most established, experienced and expensive coaching staffs in the NFL to precisely the opposite. The dichotomy in construction from John Harbaugh’s final staffs in Baltimore to what has been built around rookie head coach Jesse Minter is quite stark.

Change is inevitable. And change can definitely be good. And it was time for Harbaugh to go.

But the seismic shift in composition, especially for a club with Super Bowl aspirations and a generational quarterback approaching age 30 that is accustomed to a certain level of expertise from his direct bosses, is striking. Assembling a staff for a first-time head coach without anyone with prior NFL head coaching experience on it is certainly not the norm. It did, however, work wonderfully for one franchise a year ago, though the approach has failed miserably elsewhere.

The fact is, the Ravens and Miami Dolphins have the only coaching staffs in the NFL without a full-timer who has been an NFL head coach before.

Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley did have a nice run as Boston College’s head coach, for what it’s worth, but Miami is not exactly an organization one would relish being associated with in matters having anything to do with hiring coaches over the last 25 years or so. A year ago, we would have said the same thing about Jacksonville and coaching searches, and yet the Jags did the very same thing around rookie head coach Liam Coen, then not yet 40, and they ended up being arguably the league’s most pleasant surprise despite not having a former head coach under their employ.

Will it work so splendidly in Baltimore, where Jesse Minter, 42, has brough his father, Rick, a longtime college coach, in that mentor role?

How Much Does Having a Former HC On Staff Matter?

“It’s risky,” said one longtime NFL personnel executive who has been heavily involved in hiring multiple coaches in his career. “In this case, they may have gone a little too far. When I look at that staff, it’s a little weird to me … There isn’t any one right way to do it. But some of what I see there – the offensive coordinator (Declan Doyle), all the college coaches – Minter’s dad. It’s a little out there.”

One NFL GM said: “I think they went overboard.”

A longtime personnel executive from another NFL team who has, frankly, been a part of several head coaching searches that failed, said: “The pendulum swung hard in that building, but we kind of anticipated that, right? (General manager) Eric (DeCosta) and (team president) Sashi (Brown) are in total control with Harbaugh gone, and the composition of this coaching staff tells that story.

“This staff is the embodiment of that dynamic. It certainly feels a little extreme to me, but it’s not like everything I’ve been a part of has worked out, so please take that under consideration … When you look at the most critical positions (on the roster), that’s still very much a veteran team, and I wonder how those players will respond to something so different from what they are used to (in terms of experience).”

What Did The Other Rookie Head Coaches Do?

The other first-time NFL head coaches approached staff building differently this offseason.

In Buffalo, offensive coordinator Joe Brady was elevated to replace Sean McDermott (a highly-competitive team and the situation in the 2026 coaching marketplace most similar to Baltimore), and secured the services of a successful NFL head coach whose area of expertise lied on the other side of the ball (longtime NFL head coach and defensive coordinator John Fox).

That’s far more the norm; think 30-something Sean McVay hiring Wade Phillips to run his defense as rookie, a hire that McVay told me over the years was as critical as any hire he ever made.

Todd Monken is a grizzled offensive coordinator far closer to the end of his career than the beginning who has experience as a college head coach; he still hired Dom Capers … a former NFL head coach and longtime coordinator on the opposite side of the ball from Monken’s area of expertise. Klint Kubiak, rookie head coach in Vegas, hired former head coach Mie McCoy to assist him and has two longtime former coordinators on the defensive side of the ball.

And the Cardinals, who missed out on several of their primary choices before hiring Matt LaFleur late in the cycle, didn’t lean heavily into the experience matters ethos, either, though Nathaniel Hackett is a former NFL head coach (a poor one, at that). Of course, again, being lumped with Arizona in head coaching matters may be a concern in and of itself.

Why Did it Work In Jacksonville?

Coen’s group had the secret sauce a year ago. What helped enable a staff with youth as a dominant trait across the coordinator spots gel so quickly?

“The GM and head coach were a very successful and were winners with their prior teams.” noted one member of the Jags organization. “They understood a team-first culture and the importance of tough competition. They carry a mindset that captured the buy-in from the entire building. They have a high-level of competence across the OC. DC. ST of knowing how to coach scheme and technique.”

Minter’s first staff quite likely will flourish in some of those regards. Perhaps all of them. But there is no real institutional memory to fall back on for the head coach or the offensive coordinator. Many on the staff have won in college, but those coaching offices are hardly overflowing with Lombardi Trophies.

And unlike Coen’s situation a year ago, the bar is set incredibly high in Baltimore, the clock is starting to tick on Jackson’s true prime, and a franchise already unable to shine among the best of the best in the playoffs needs to quickly shed an ugly and messy 2025 campaign.