Richard Sherman Says He Will Not Believe in the Ravens Until the Defense Changes
Baltimore was outscored 15-0 in the fourth quarter of a home loss. One former All-Pro says the defense disqualifies them; three writers at The Athletic each name a different flaw and still expect the Ravens to contend.
Jesse Minter's second game as Baltimore's head coach ended with his team being outscored fifteen to nothing in the fourth quarter at home. The Ravens led, and then did not, and the shape of it was familiar enough that the argument it started was never really about New Orleans. It was about whether a new coaching staff has inherited a problem or is producing one. Richard Sherman, who played eleven seasons at cornerback and won a Super Bowl doing it, has taken the harder of the two positions and made clear it is not a reaction to a single afternoon.
Useful next steps
He concluded separately that "until I see that change, I'm just not going to believe in the Baltimore Ravens." What makes the verdict useful rather than merely loud is that he dated it himself. He was not persuaded before the season started, and he said so in those terms, which means the loss is confirmation of a prior rather than evidence that changed his mind. That is a weaker argumentative position than it first appears — but it is also a standing, falsifiable claim, and every Baltimore game for the next month is a test of it.
The reason I wasn't as high on the Baltimore Ravens is because of their defense. Their defense just over the last few years has not been great. Ever since Mike Macdonald has left the Baltimore Ravens, they just have not been the same defensively.— Richard Sherman, former NFL cornerback and Super Bowl champion, as quoted by Pro Football Network
The counter-case is not that the defense played well, because it did not. It is that the defense is the wrong place to look. Writing at The Athletic, Dan Pompei put the sloppiness in a category most teams occupy in September and then named the number that actually worries him: "The Ravens have committed 17 penalties in two weeks. That cannot continue if the Ravens are going to be contenders." His colleague Mike Jones made the construction argument explicitly, pointing out that "Baltimore has a 30-year-old rookie offensive coordinator in Declan Doyle, and that the unit wasn't at full force with two of Lamar Jackson's top wide receivers injured." A discipline problem and a first-year coordinator are both things a staff can fix. A personnel group that cannot defend is not.
The verdict and the rebuttals
"Until I see that change, I'm just not going to believe in the Baltimore Ravens."
Points at discipline: 17 penalties in two weeks, which "cannot continue."
Points at construction: a 30-year-old rookie offensive coordinator and two injured receivers.
The hardest line: the collapse was "reminiscent of issues with blown leads under the previous regime."
On the disputed call: "It is what it is."
41 points in Week 1. 17 in Week 2, with 14 of them in the first half, and a 15-0 fourth quarter against them.
The sharpest line for Minter came from a third writer at the same outlet. Jeff Howe observed that the collapse was "reminiscent of issues with blown leads under the previous regime, ceding control of a winnable game while falling out of sorts in the second half" - which is precisely the charge a new coach is hired to make impossible. Howe's own conclusion, though, is not a burial: he expects Baltimore to be "in the playoff conversation throughout the season", and both his colleagues end up in the same place. That is the version of Sherman's argument that should worry Baltimore, because it does not depend on believing the roster is untalented. It only requires that the same thing keeps happening to different coaches, which is a far more troubling diagnosis than a bad unit. Minter, for his part, declined to litigate a disputed touchdown afterwards: "I am not going to sleep better if they come back and say, well, we shouldn't have called that a touchdown. So, it is what it is." The scoring pattern underneath all of it is stark enough on its own. Baltimore scored forty-one points in Week 1 against Indianapolis and seventeen in Week 2, fourteen of them before halftime.
Sherman's claim is not that Baltimore is bad. It is that one specific unit has to look different before the rest of it means anything, and that is a claim the next month can actually answer.
The Referendum, Framed
A fourth-quarter collapse at home is the specific failure the previous staff was defined by, and it has now happened under a new one.
He was not persuaded before the season began, by his own account, which makes this confirmation rather than evidence.
Fourth quarters, specifically. Not whether Baltimore wins, but whether it stops surrendering leads in the final fifteen minutes.
Around the site
Sources: Pro Football Network — Sherman delivers verdict on the Ravens, BaltimoreRavens.com — Late for Work: pundits debate the Ravens' start, Pro-Football-Reference — Richard Sherman career statistics