When It Comes To Fourth Down, Expect Rookie Head Coach Jesse Minter To Be Old School

We’ve chronicled in many ways the characteristics of some of the mentors to the young coaches on this Ravens staff, for clues into how they will operate.

Particularly on offense, where rookie playcaller Declan Doyle is putting a playbook together for the first time, there are signals that a more aggressive mentality will be at play from his time spent around playcallers like Sean Payton and Ben Johnson, whether it be first down or regarding pace of play.

But, well, when it comes fourth down, we might still be stuck in the past.

John Harbaugh was once at the vanguard of the go-for-it movement, but that waned significantly as Lamar Jackson got deeper into his career and Harbaugh’s staff started to atrophy and he seemed to freeze up on the sidelines. And rookie head coach Jesse Minter is very much a product of the Harbaugh coaching tree.

Minter spent even more time with Jim Harbaugh, in Michigan and with the Los Angeles Chargers, and that Harbaugh has always been decidedly old-school when it comes to game management; those khakis are styled to punt or kick field goals when it comes to fourth down.

Doyle won’t have the deciding voice when it comes to matters at the macro level of overarching in-game decisions like how to handle fourth down, but he would have some input. As much as Payton is famous for a devil-may-care approach to attacking defenses and he is a legend in New Orleans for a successful onside kick in a Super Bowl, Payton has been much more conservative when it comes to fourth down with the Broncos.

Kicking It Old School

Harbaugh went for it on fourth down just 25 times with the Ravens last season; the league average was 28.

Over the past three years, Harbaugh went for it just 54 times, third fewest in the NFL. From 2019-2022, Harbaugh went for it 90 times, 12th most in the NFL. His waning desire to try to use fourth down to his advantage seems to have bled throughout his coaching family tree (which, again, includes Minter).

The other Harbaugh, the one in LA, went for it just 37 times on his two years back in the NFL, tied for second fewest in the NFL. The only coach who did it less? Take a wild guess. Another former Ravens assistant … Yeah, Mike Macdonald (Seattle), who went for it just 31 times.

And as for Doyle, Payton, since returning to the NFL in Denver, has gone for it just 42 times, the 10th fewest times in the NFL in that span.

Perhaps Minter will adopt a different philosophy, but this team is going to be led by its defense, his head coaching mentors have been decidedly conservative in this regard and the young coach Minter would most like to emulate, Macdonald, who just won a Lombardi Trophy in his second year at the helm, is the most conservative of all, despite having an offense that loved to take chances and chuck the ball deep.

The Ravens rookie punter is probably not going to lack for opportunity.

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