Ravens Must Consider Benching Roquan Smith In Dime Coverage To Improve Pass Defense

Roquan Smith’s impact and productivity dipped to new lows in 2025, when the middle linebacker and central nervous system of a failing defense came through with fewer big plays and momentum-changing hits. Smith also faded into the background as an outward voice of the defense and he continued to be a liability in obvious passing situations.

While never championed as a pass rusher, he offered less than ever behind the line of scrimmage, teams once again attacked Baltimore’s defense in the middle of the field in shallow and intermediate quadrants with abandon, yet Smith remained a fixture in their nickel and dime looks that got picked apart far too often. Given all the draft capital dealt for him and his $20M salary and prohibitive cap number, and the fact that former coordinator Zach Orr was a former linebacker who was not yet ready for that job, one could argue too much deference has already been shown to the player.

Rookie head coach Jesse Minter has to figure out how to get Smith back to being a winning football player. A healthy Nnamdi Maduibike in front of him would be huge. Adding Calais Campbell to an undermanned defensive line is a big deal. A sounder scheme and better play-calling should aid the cause. But if Smith remains a perpetual target in coverage, it’s fair to ask if less is more with him limited to running downs, and running sub-packages with a single linebacker on the field (and not Smith) to improve coverage.

Minter’s Chargers defense – and Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks (in case you were wondering) – were much like Orr’s defense here in that two linebackers were fixtures in the nickel and dime looks, and those three defenses ranked all in the top five in opposing dropbacks faced in dime coverage with two linebackers on the field. But the Chargers and Seahawks both allowed 6.5 yards/attempt or less out of those looks, while the Ravens allowed 8.0/attempt (a yard above the NFL average).

Baltimore also allowed eight passing TDs out of those looks, tied for most in the NFL. Baltimore allowed a passer rating of 84.3 out of dime, 11th-worst; the Chargers (72.0) amnd Seahawks (64.3) fared much better.

How Did The Opposition Attack Smith?

When you drill down on how teams attacked the Ravens with running backs and tight ends throwing at their dime looks, it’s particularly bleak.

They completed 45/58 targets to them (78%) with a QB rating of 110.1, fourth worst among all dime defenses with two LBs on the field. Kyle Hamiliton is already playing weak side linebacker for the most part in these situations and giving Teddye Buchanon a look – or even getting creative without an true inside linebacker on the field - might be worth exploring (the Browns last year under Jim Schwartz, for instance, only ran five plays out of dime last season with two LBs and 119 with none or one). Oh, and the Ravens allowed 27 completions of 15 yards or more out of dime last season, most in the NFL.

(Maybe to prepare for such instances the Ravens begin having Hamilton wear the green dot in his helmet? Just food for thought).

Overall, between 2024-205, the Ravens were the fourth-most thrown on defense between the hashmarks, where Smith was once an intimidating presence with quarterbacks posting a 111.6 rating on those throws per TruMedia (24th in the NFL) and racking up 1230 passing yards (second-most). Yuck.

In nickel the Ravens ranked 22nd allowing a 93.3 rating (again, two LBs always on the field), yielding 14 TD passes to just three picks (third-worst ratio in the NFL). Teams completed 78% of their passes to running backs and tight ends vs nickel with a rating of 96.4 (below average). The Ravens allowed 34 completions of 15 air yards or more in nickel (bottom 25%) while Minter’s Chargers allowed just 11 (best in NFL).

Minter will have some of the answers, but personnel matters and performance should matter more than salary. Smith is bound to this franchise for another year per his outsized contract extension, but planning should be well under way for his replacement.

His 10.8% pressure rate was lowest in his career, he failed to register a sack for the first time, he posted a career low in percentage of snaps resulting in a tackle, he had his fewest solo tackles since 2019. From 2020-2022 Smith posted double-digit season in tackles for loss, but the last three years he has five, four and five.

And he’s being allowed to be shredded in coverage far too often. Quarterbacks had a rating of 76.9 throwing on him in Chicago and that’s ballooned to 99.2 in Baltimore. In his age 29 season, after years of rolling up nearly 1000 snaps or so, don’t expect that to improve.

Minter must know that. It will be telling to see how willing he is to limit his role to prevent a further erosion.

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