Sunday's Ravens 4th Quarter Collapse Was Eerily Similar To Six Years Of Them. Numbers Don't Lie

Since the start of the 2019 season, the first full campaign with two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson at the helm, the Baltimore Ravens have blown 16 leads of 10 points or more, most in the NFL. More than twice the NFL average.

The fact that it occurred again, immediately, in rookie head coach Jesse Minter’s first game on the sidelines at M&T Bank Stadium, is both haunting and jarring. Somewhere, longtime Ravens coach John Harbaugh had to be shaking his head at this 24-17 defeat (the Giants play Monday night), as a disease that infected his final three defensive coordinators at least to some degree – Wink Martindale, Mike Macdonald and Zach Orr – immediately befell Minter. This hire was supposed to buck that culture and galvanize this group into closers, but beware of narratives pushed by an owner who outsourced the hire and a general manager trying to deflect from his systemic failures.

It’s not only that history so immediately repeated – once again losing at home to another unheralded quarterback and heavy underdog opponent (Saints were nearly 10-point dogs) – it’s that it did so in the exact same manner as so many of those prior collapses, with the Ravens succumbing to penalties and forgetting how to tackle and failing on third down despite everyone knowing the other team would do nothing but throw the ball and generally knew exactly who it was going to when it mattered most of the time (Tyler Shough to Chris Olave in this instance).

It reopens old wounds that never even healed, begs immediate questions of longtime general manager Eric DeCosta’s ability to build a competent four-quarter roster and puts immediate pressure on an incredible inexperienced coaching staff in so many ways. It truly makes you wonder about what this franchise has to do to alter their self-destructive DNA. The Ravens spent all week talking about needing to restore a home-field advantage and instead blew their 11th game at home with a double-digit lead since 2019 (no other team has more than six).

“That’s the type of game where we need the rush and coverage to win us the game on the last two drives,” Minter said. “And we didn’t get it done.”

Minter (channeling Harbaugh?) noted “it starts with the coaches,” and pointed to all three phases as paying a role in this. And the offense – with major issues in pass protection yet again, by design – was totally constipated in the second half, while special teams remains suspect. But the arrival of Minter, and signing of $30M pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, playing with a clubbed hand with a broken finger, and throwing heavy resources at that side of the ball was supposed to fix this.

Four total QB hits on 39 dropbacks and a pathetic 79% completion percentage (27/34) was not nearly good enough. The game-ending defensive play never came, and this was as ominous a way to kick off a new regime at home as possible.

Just The Numbers

How bad was it in the final quarter? Well, a 16-play, Saints touchdown drive bad. That's how bad.

Ravens Saints

Plays Run 9 26

Yards 43 137

TOP 2:51 12:09

The Saints were 5-of-7 on third down and fourth down and scored 15 points in the final quarter and overcame long-yardage situations. Routine checkdowns turned into big gains with broken tackles and missed assignments, including a third-and-13 that turned into a 25-yard gain. Early stats had the Ravens with an anemic 28% pressure rate and Nnamdi Madubuike’s return to form would be vital.

“We let them off the hook on some simple checkdowns,” Minter said, “where we didn’t leverage the ball on a few of those and missed the chance at a few interception-type plays. We weren’t tight and clean the way we need to be on third down … It starts with me.”

Defensive tackle Calais Campbell said: “Way too many missed opportunities out there today. Football is such a momentum game, and we let them get into a rhythm late … They did a good job of making quick throes and getting it to the playmakers … We have to emphasize and do a better job with our tackling.”

Shough completed 12 of 14 passes in the fourth quarter and was 5-for-5 for 54 yards and a touchdown throwing to Olave. And everyone who paid any attention to this game knew mitigating him was crucial.

Die By The Sword

Minter and rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle certainly played no small role in this choke, but the roster was also quite suspect at downfield playmaker and OL, and that got horribly exposed two weeks in when injuries struck.

Minter loves flooding the field with dime coverage and getting as many defensive backs on the field as possible and it served him well last week, though Colts quarterback Daniel Jones and deep threat Alex Pierce were clearly hobbled. Sunday, he got gutted in dime coverage in particular, where we pointed out last week Shough has been elite (127 QB rating with six defensive backs on the field, and roughly half as good when not).

Minter started to dial back some of the dime tendencies late, but this was abysmal from a secondary that is supposed to be getting $19.5M of production out of Marlon Humphrey (a DeCosta favorite and the 10th-hiighest paid corner in the NFL) and is loaded with first round picks.

Shough vs Dime: 14/17 for 180 yards, 110.8 rating

Shough 3rd/4th Down vs Dime: 8/9 for 142 yards, 118. 8 rating

The Saints racked up 200 yards against Minter’s dime package on 21 total plays.

History Repeating

Through three quarters of games from 2020-2025 the Ravens were second in the NFL with a +609 point differential; they ranked fourth in points scored in that span and ranked first, yes first(!) in points allowed through three quarters in that span of 101 games.

But they entered this season, since the start of 2020, with these ranks fourth-quarter defense:

29th – 5.4 yards/play 28th – Points allowed (742) 28th – INT/ATT (1.9%)

29th – 1st downs/qtr (6.0) 30th – Total Defense EPA 30th – D Penalty EPA

Campbell knows all about it, because he lived through it in his first stint here. Minter knows all about it too, from his days as a young assistant here before going to Michigan and the Chargers, paying close attention to his buddies back in Baltimore all the while. This festers, even a little bit, and it can infect a season.

“Adversity is a truth teller,” Campbell, 40 and as sage as they come, said. “And how we respond is going to be crucial to who we are as a team … We can’t let games like this slip away.”

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