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The Ravens are more than seven months away from their next meaningful game. But with Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter set to take over as the fourth head coach in franchise history, it’s tempting to look ahead.

The best clues for what the 2026 Ravens’ defense might look like are not hard to find. Just look at the tape of the 2025 Chargers, who posted their second straight top 10 defense under Minter’s guidance.

“Jesse’s football acumen is outstanding,” Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said in a statement Thursday, “and that’s been proven by the impact he’s made throughout his entire coaching career.”

From pressure plans to run fits to in-game adjustments, here are five Chargers plays from last season that serve as hallmarks of Minter’s defense. All stats are courtesy of Sports Info Solutions and FTN unless otherwise noted.

Pressure cookers

Over the first three months of this past season, Minter’s Chargers defense showed a lot. But Cover 0 calls — pressure packages intended to get an unblocked pass rusher by deploying no safeties in zone coverage — were rarely on the menu. From Week 1 to Week 11, the Chargers brought just four Cover 0 blitzes.

That changed after their Week 12 bye. In their first game back, Minter did not hold back against Geno Smith. The Las Vegas Raiders quarterback got three Cover 0 looks in a 31-14 loss to the Chargers. He finished 18-for-23 overall for 165 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

This sack, on third-and-9 late in the first quarter, should look familiar to Ravens fans.

The Chargers lined up with four pass rush threats on the weak side of the Raiders’ formation, to Smith’s right, and three on the strong side. At the snap, the Raiders seemed comfortable with their protection roles. The line slid to the Chargers’ loaded-up side, while running back Ashton Jeanty stepped in to handle blitzing inside linebacker Daiyan Henley, coming up the middle.

But with outside linebacker Tuli Tuipulotu and defensive lineman Da’Shawn Hand dropping into shallow zones to keep Smith from throwing “hot” over the middle, there was nowhere to go. Henley blew up Jeanty. Safety Derwin James, the Chargers’ unblocked pass rusher, was on Smith in a flash. Along with Henley, James tossed him to the ground for a sack.

Over the Chargers’ final six weeks of the regular season, Minter called 13 Cover 0 blitzes. Opposing quarterbacks went just 3-for-10 for 23 yards and an interception, were sacked twice and were pressured seven times. Not bad for a tendency breaker.

Creative chaos

This should also look familiar to Ravens fans.

Late in the second quarter of a Week 8 game in Minnesota, the Vikings faced this third-and-2. Their presnap alignment in the shotgun, however, with running back Aaron Jones positioned as a blocker, not a run threat, seemed to give away that a drop-back was imminent.

As quarterback Carson Wentz gestured to wide receiver Adam Thielen, who ran a “short” motion designed to mess with the Chargers’ route distribution, Minter’s simulated pressure came together like clockwork.

Thielen’s motion triggered slot cornerback Tarheeb Still to move off his receiver and closer to the box. Minnesota, which had faced a six-man blitz look before the snap, kept six players in to block. But Tuipulotu, Henley and inside linebacker Troy Dye dropped into coverage at the snap, leaving the Vikings to block just three pass rushers whom they’d accounted for.

But Still was unaccounted for. The best simulated pressures and “creepers” — both four-man pass rush packages that rely on outsmarting protection schemes — can overwhelm offenses prepared to handle even heavy blitzes. And here, Minnesota was overwhelmed. Wentz tried to throw hot, but Still got his hands up for a deflected pass, forcing a punt in an eventual 37-10 win.

The Chargers did not blitz often last season, finishing with the fifth-lowest rate of five or more pass rushers (23%). But they did not need to send much extra help, either. After trading for Ravens outside linebacker Odafe Oweh in Week 6, they were ninth in sack rate (7.8%) and 14th in pressure rate (39.8%).

It helped to have a dangerous edge rush trio in outside linebackers Tuipulotu (13 sacks), Oweh (7.5 sacks) and Khalil Mack (5.5 sacks). But Minter created chaos with movement as well. The Chargers ran simulated pressures at the NFL’s 10th-highest rate (9.5%), and they ran stunts — pass rush maneuvers along the line of scrimmage that stress offensive lines’ ability to pass off assignments — at the ninth-highest rate (19.8%).

The Ravens, never lacking in creativity, had an even higher simulated-pressure rate (10.6%) this past year. Their execution was just nowhere near as effective.

On-the-go fixes

Like the best Ravens defenses, the Chargers did not major in any one particular coverage in 2025. They mixed and matched with one-high and two-high structures; their four most common coverages, according to FTN, were Cover 3 (31.1%), Cover 2 (25%), Cover 1 (13.1%) and Cover 4 (11.7%).

Cover 4, a four-deep, three-under zone defense that typically features man-to-man principles and is often referred to as “quarters” coverage, was not a particular strength of the Chargers this past season. They finished just 19th in expected points added per play in Cover 4, partly limited by their outside cornerback play. (The Ravens, meanwhile, finished dead last.)

But from series to series, Minter’s defense proved adaptable. In a Week 17 game against the Houston Texans, quarterback C.J. Stroud pierced the Chargers for two deep-shot touchdowns. Both came against Cover 4 looks — the first on an apparent back-end miscommunication, the second on a well-timed play call.

But only one quarter later, the Chargers had an answer. On second-and-10, with less than a minute before halftime, Stroud saw a Cover 4 presnap alignment. Because Houston had already burned the look thanks to Chargers safeties playing too shallowly against the pass, perhaps Stroud expected them to play more conservatively on this drop-back.

The Chargers’ Elijah Molden did not. He read wide receiver Christian Kirk’s in-breaker, beat him to the spot and, with Stroud throwing in the face of pressure as his eyes moved to the middle of the field, came away with an easy interception.

After allowing 151 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter of an eventual 20-16 loss, the Chargers limited Stroud to just 93 yards and recorded two picks over the final three quarters.

Star-stopping plays

It takes a lot to contain Patrick Mahomes. Even in the Ravens’ 2021 win over the Chiefs in Baltimore, Kansas City scored 35 points. Former defensive coordinators Don “Wink” Martindale and Zach Orr took their shots against the star quarterback; they just couldn’t land many.

Minter has fared far better. In four games against the Chiefs over the past two seasons, the Chargers posted a 38% pressure rate and an 8.2% sack rate and allowed just 6.8 yards per attempt to Mahomes. In his six games against the Ravens since 2019, a stretch that even includes the Ravens’ impressive 2023 AFC championship game effort, Mahomes has been pressured on just 31% of his drop-backs, sacked on 2.6% and averaged 8.9 yards per attempt. Mahomes’ touchdown-to-interception ratio against the Ravens in that span: 16-2. His ratio against Minter: 3-1.

Mahomes, with his elastic arm and uncanny processing ability, has an answer for almost every defensive scheme. But Minter has given him pause at times. Before suffering a season-ending knee injury in a Week 15 loss to the Chargers, Mahomes averaged 2.99 seconds to throw, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, notably slower than his season-long average (2.79 seconds).

One of the Chargers’ third-down stops came with the help of an especially funky personnel grouping. On this third-and-7 early in the second quarter, Minter sent out dime personnel (six defensive backs) to supplement two inside linebackers (Henley and Dye) and three edge rushers (Tuipulotu, Mack and Oweh). There wasn’t a single defensive lineman on the field, a rarity for any scheme.

By threatening a six-man blitz before the snap, the Chargers got the one-on-one matchups they wanted: Mack against right tackle Jaylon Moore, and the versatile Tuipulotu against reserve right guard Mike Caliendo. As Mahomes dropped back, Henley lingered over star center Creed Humphrey to keep an eye on the pocket as a spy and prevent Humphrey from double-teaming Tuipulotu.

Behind them, the Chargers were running 2-Man — man-to-man coverage with their safeties in split-field zones. That left no zone voids for tight end Travis Kelce or wide receiver Rashee Rice to find as potential release valves. After Tuipulotu and Mack got just enough pressure to flush Mahomes out of the pocket, Henley and the two tracked him down. With none of his receivers getting open against the Chargers’ sticky man coverage, Mahomes was sacked for a 2-yard loss.

After a 2024 game against the Chargers, Kelce, who played at Cincinnati while Minter was working as a Bearcats graduate assistant, raved in a “New Heights” podcast episode that Minter “has got shit figured out.”

High-effort run fits

As the Ravens’ defense has evolved over the past decade, one credo has endured: You have to earn the right to rush the passer.

It’s a philosophy Minter seemed to carry with him to Los Angeles. And it’s one he’ll likely carry back with him to Baltimore.

The Ravens, especially in recent years, have asked a lot of their run defenders. With star safety Kyle Hamilton serving as a quasi-linebacker, they lined up in base personnel (four defensive backs) on just 9.4% of their snaps this past season, preferring lighter, quicker groupings. They also used light boxes — six or fewer defenders between the tackles — on 28.3% of their snaps, according to NGS, below the league average but still an imposition for a smaller defense.

Under Minter, the Chargers’ run defense had similar constraints. The group was perhaps put under even more pressure. The Chargers lined up in base personnel on just 18.2% of their snaps, the NFL’s sixth-lowest rate, and used light boxes on 45% of their snaps, the fourth-highest rate.

Minter needed his defensive linemen to absorb double teams, needed his second-level defenders to read their keys quickly and get off blocks, and needed his safeties to step up and execute their run fits. That’s the only way a bend-but-don’t-break run defense like Minter’s can work.

And, more times than not, it did work. The Chargers ranked a respectable 17th in run defense efficiency in 2024 and 18th in 2025. Even more impressive, they allowed just five rushing touchdowns inside their 5-yard line, tied for the fewest in the NFL. They allowed a run conversion rate in short-yardage situations (third- and fourth-and-3 and shorter) of just 65.6%, ninth best in the league.

What the Chargers lacked in raw talent up front, they made up for with toughness. In a Week 3 win over the Denver Broncos, who have one of the NFL’s best offensive lines, the Chargers allowed 118 rushing yards (5.6 per carry) but had the upper hand on a down-to-down basis. Denver finished with just a 28.6% rushing success rate and minus-0.13 EPA per carry, both dreadful figures, in a 23-20 loss.

On this third-quarter run, the Broncos had an advantageous look: six blockers for six defenders in the box. But as running back J.K. Dobbins looked for a hole inside, he found little daylight. Denver All-Pro right guard Quinn Meinerz could not displace rookie defensive lineman Jamaree Caldwell. Tuipulotu kept two Broncos off him. By the time Dobbins bounced to a hole a few gaps over, future Ravens safety Alohi Gilman had arrived to cut him off. Dobbins was stopped for just a 2-yard gain on first-and-10.

“There’s not enough that can be said about coach Minter and that defense and the way they battle and fight and just keep playing,” Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert said after a Week 14 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. “I’m so proud to be able to play for them.”

Now Minter has a new defense, and a new team, to mold.