Baltimore's failure to trade for a pass rusher should sting
There is one way that Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Jared Goff and, yes, even Patrick Mahomes can't possibly hurt the Baltimore Ravens' scuffling defense.
If they wind up lying on the ground before they throw the ball.
A good pass rush keeps opposing passers on edge, forces coaches to adjust with more protection and instills a fearsome mental edge. A big reason the Ravens defense has taken a step back is because their pass rush, literally the best in the NFL last year (with a league-best 60 sacks), has slid to mediocrity.
Letting the trade deadline slip by without adding a pass rusher feels like a huge missed opportunity to bolster the hopes of raising another Lombardi Trophy.
The front office did add at the deadline, as they had every imperative to do with an offense that, through nine weeks, can be reasonably compared to the best of all time and a quarterback who, if the season ended today, might be a three-time MVP. None of the moves, however, scream of game-changing potential.
Diontae Johnson could help a thin wideout group. Tre'Davious White could be depth for a secondary that has already seen defensive backs in and out with injury.
But in Baltimore's losses this year, a lack of quarterback pressure has been a theme . With half the season left to go, it's hard to see where that pressure will come from.
The Ravens are coming off a four-sack week against rookie quarterback Bo Nix, but the season-long picture is grim. According to TruMedia, Baltimore has fallen from eighth in overall pressure rate (39.3%) to 25th (29.9%). Opponents are converting 38% of third-and-longs this season after allowing just 22.3%.
The stats reflect the deeper truth of what your eyes already tell you. Quarterbacks are able to get comfortable against the Ravens, making tight-window throws against a secondary that hasn't been good , but still has better overall pieces than the defensive line. Add in injuries to Michael Pierce and Brent Urban — not good pass rushers, but the guys who give a breather to the players who do rack up the sacks.
After an early deluge, Kyle Van Noy has one sack in his past five games. Nnamdi Madubuike, last year's sack leader (13), has two as he sees more double-teams. Odafe Oweh and Tavius Robinson have shown flashes, but Oweh especially has struggled to finish after winning against his blocker. One added reliable rusher could force defenses into making tougher decisions about how to protect against multiple threats.
I made a similar critique last year , when the Ravens were 13th in ESPN's pass rush win rate. This year, they're 22nd. Five of the last six teams to make the Super Bowl finished in the top half of pass rush rate, including two No. 1s in the 2021 Rams and 2022 Eagles.
Only Eric DeCosta and his staff can know for sure what deals were on the table and which names were discussed. Maybe no one truly needle-moving was on the table, or maybe the Ravens struggled to bring in a difference-maker they thought would be worth it with their tight salary cap.
But it's worth wondering if Za'Darius Smith could have been had for better than the 2025 fifth-round pick and 2026 sixth-round pick that Detroit paid for him (the Browns probably weren't enthusiastic about making a trade in the AFC North). It's worth wondering how much it might have cost to bring back Jadeveon Clowney from Carolina, or how much to pry Azeez Ojulari from the Giants.
They might not have been studs for the Ravens, but they would have helped more this year than the stash of draft capital that Baltimore is sitting on, including seven picks for 2025 and four more projected compensatory picks.
The front office's attachment to this stash is bordering on unreasonable, and the Ravens are set to have an impractical number of rookies in 2025. The only rookies playing significant snaps for this team are Nate Wiggins and Roger Rosengarten. How many of the possible 11 draft picks even make next year's roster out of camp?
Meanwhile, Lamar Jackson has never played better football. Derrick Henry is playing as well as his Offensive Player of the Year season. Todd Monken has to be rising as a head coaching candidate, in line to be the next star coordinator nabbed out of town.
Realistically, the future is now. This is the kind of team you unload the powder for. Packaging and dealing some of these picks would have been a great chance to add, even incrementally, to the Ravens' Super Bowl LIX odds.
Again, the Ravens did make moves. But it's a bit worrisome to look at trades that other contenders made and just how targeted they were.
Kansas City addressed its biggest weakness, nabbing DeAndre Hopkins and getting immediate returns in a win over Tampa Bay. The Lions won out for Smith, addressing their biggest injury loss. The Steelers, who look like Baltimore's top competition in the division, added depth at receiver and defensive line, the latter of which is already a strength.
The NFL trade deadline isn't quite as tense as in other sports leagues. In-season trades are less frequent and usually less consequential. As Trenton Simpon and Robinson showed this weekend , there's room for internal development, and that's pretty much the only thing the Ravens were thinking about in the locker room, anyway.
"I think it's kind of church and state — upstairs and downstairs," Kyle Hamilton said. "They're doing their thing, and we play football. [We] let them take care of whatever personnel stuff, and who's here is here, and who's not is not."
It makes life easier that such clear divisions exist in the football hierarchy, but for fans, those lines are a little more blurry. If teams continue to throw the ball with impunity against this Ravens defense, it will be impossible to miss where the team's weakness lies — and impossible to forget that Baltimore didn't make a trade to fix it.
