Ravens Coaching Staff Confidence Poll: Which Should Be Trusted The Most?

The Ravens are going to learn, arguably, even more about their coaches this season than their players.

The franchise has never had a staff this young, with such a decidedly college bent, before. And it’s coming at a seismic moment for the organization, with quarterback Lamar Jackson entering what could be a lame-duck year, and owner Steve Biscotti on the record about selling the team at some point (sooner rather than later), and the Ravens needing significant improvement in all three aspects of play.

There isn’t much time for learning curves and adapting.

The expectations among the sportsbooks and the media are sky-high again, for whatever that’s worth, and with mini camp in a few weeks and training camp right around the corner, it’s a good time to take stock of this entire staff.

Which coaches am I most confident in? Which are clearly cast in roles they have already mastered here, or displayed they could master elsewhere? These are the standouts, the ones who inspire the greatest immediate confidence on a staff that has so much to prove as a collective:

Jesse Minter*

Hey, Jason, did you make another typo? What’s up with that asterisk next to the head coach’s name?

Thanks for noticing! It’s because I am putting him here as an uber-defensive coordinator of sorts. I know Anthony Weaver carries that title (more on him in a second), but this is Minter’s defense, his hands are all over it, he’ll be calling it. He is one of the elite defensive minds in football – college and pro – and he is beyond credentialled for this part of his job.

Now, how does he juggle this and all the responsibilities that come with being a rookie head coach that are brand new to him? And has he built a sufficiently strong and experienced staff overall? That will probably tell the tale on this season, but I fully believe he is fixing this defense.

Randy Brown

The Ravens employ one of the most respected kicking minds on the planet. Maybe the most respected kicking mind. His professional life has been dedicated to trying to perfect form and development and evaluation of a particular skillset that the rest of the industry seems to largely overlook, making him standout even more.

Wouldn’t really matter to me what his title is (Senior Special Teams Coach) and if he can take second-year kicker as far as kicking guru/kicking coach Nick Novak told me on “The Daily Flock” (All Pro) it will go a long way to aiding Minter’s first season at the helm.

Weaver

He checks so many boxes as someone who played the game at a truly rare level – you need some of those guys on any successful staff – and rose through the ranks here and also worked under other strong defensive coaches in other locales and ran his own defenses elsewhere. For him to be the shoulder for Minter to lean on makes a ton of sense to me.

I love it.

It feels kind of opposite, frankly, what’s going on with the other side of the ball, and that’s kind of shocking given that defense is Minter’s forte, but, hey, we’re accentuating the positive here.

The Run Game Coaches

We are doing a combo platter here. I’ve heard nothing but people gushing about Dwayne Ledford since he joined this staff and the combination of him as OL coach/run-game guru and with Eddie Faulkner as running backs coach provides an essential backbone to Doyle. They will allow him to focus on fixing a passing game that needs a lot of help.

Derrick Henry is clearly bought in with this duo and both have an NFL pedigree and aren’t being asked to potentially overreach beyond their skillset or project. Faulkner understands some of the nuance – and brawn – of AFC North football.

Mike Mickens

The team’s secondary coach and pass-game coordinator on defense is so interwoven into how Minter sees football and coaches football, with their rooting going back to their formative days in college coaching. They seem to be extensions of one another, and Mickens was already on a fast track as a potential NFL defensive coordinator himself for his work at Notre Dame.

Unlike the others on this list, he doesn’t boast NFL chops, but he has them. Within the construct of this staff, on that side of the ball, I fully expect Ravens corners and safeties to be making gains. Frankly, I suspect the question around here becomes, after not too long at all, how long the Ravens are able to keep him, because the Minter/Mike Macdonald defense is all the rage, and others will quite likely want him to install and operate it for them in the coming years.

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