Jesse Minter’s new office at the Ravens’ headquarters in Owings Mills is just down the hall from the old one he occupied not that long ago.
From 2017 to 2020, Minter was a defensive assistant coach under John Harbaugh, sharing a cramped room with three colleagues as they broke down film, prepared for practices, and handled the unglamorous task of evaluating late-round draft prospects.
“He started at the bottom,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said Thursday, “and now he’s here.” (Drake approves this message.)
Now, Minter is the Ravens’ new head coach, with a much bigger office down the hall and the responsibility and spotlight that comes with it.
On Wednesday night, as the team welcomed him back to Baltimore, Minter tossed passes to two of his three children as they dove on the couch in his new space, pretending to catch touchdowns. On Thursday, in a crowded auditorium at the Castle, the Ravens formally introduced the 42-year-old as only the fourth head coach in the franchise’s 30-year history, and its first new hire in the position since Harbaugh arrived 18 years ago.
“I’m truly honored and humbled to be here as the head football coach of the Baltimore Ravens,” Minter said to begin. He added later, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
It is a homecoming of sorts for Minter, a Midwest native who spent the past two seasons as the Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive coordinator. The hire is also steeped in continuity. Minter is deeply connected to the Ravens’ existing identity, and, interestingly, to the Harbaugh coaching tree.
For the past four years, Minter worked under John Harbaugh’s older brother, Jim, with the Chargers and at the University of Michigan, where Minter was defensive coordinator for the Wolverines’ 2023 national championship team. His father, Rick Minter, a longtime college coach, once hired a young John Harbaugh as an assistant at the University of Cincinnati in the 1990s.
Apples, meet ground, near tree.
“When this job opened, this became the one for me,” Minter said. “Knowing the tradition, knowing the spine of the organization, what it’s built on, there was no better place.”
The Ravens’ organizational structure will remain familiar, as well. Minter will report directly to owner Steve Bisciotti, the same setup that has existed under DeCosta, former general manager Ozzie Newsome, Harbaugh, and previous head coaches Brian Billick and Ted Marchibroda.
“We won two Super Bowls that way,” DeCosta said Thursday, as Bisciotti, Newsome, and former team president Dick Cass watched from the front row. “We’ve won a lot of games that way, and we believe in that system—working together, fighting together, and figuring things out together.”
In many ways, nothing about Minter’s introduction suggested a dramatic shift in how the Ravens operate or what they value. He referenced the team’s longtime mantra, “Play Like a Raven,” as a reflection of the identity he wants to maintain: “Physical, tough, relentless, and together.”
Depending on your view, that message may land differently. If you put more weight in the franchise’s Super Bowl victories at the end of the 2000 and 2012 seasons, continuity is reassuring. But if you lament the more recent history—and Lamar Jackson’s 3-5 playoff record over eight seasons—perhaps you wonder what, exactly, will be different now.
Minter’s 30-minute introductory press conference was heavy on the clichés and rehearsed answers, leaving no room for criticism or judgments. The real answers will come much later when the games begin again in the fall—and the Ravens play the Steelers.
Minter is regarded as an innovative defensive mind, willing to adjust schemes and deploy top players creatively, much like former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, now coaching the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl next week.
What’s clear is Minter is undoubtedly his own person. He is a younger voice who will now set the daily tone for players and staff. His role on game day will look different, too. Unlike Harbaugh, who operated as a CEO-style head coach after arriving from the Philadelphia Eagles as a special teams coordinator, Minter will call plays on defense.
“That’s a strength of mine,” Minter said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m sitting here.”
He is regarded as an innovative defensive mind, willing to adjust schemes and deploy top players creatively, much like former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, now coaching the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl next week. Macdonald left Baltimore to take that desirable new gig two years ago. Minter is of the same mold. As an assistant, he quickly became a head-coaching candidate, except he is returning to Baltimore.
“When this job opened, this became the one for me,” he said. “Knowing the tradition, knowing the spine of the organization, what it’s built on, there was no better place.”
Here are a few more takeaways from his introduction:
It’s about the “We”
After starting by thanking Ravens officials, current and former players, his former colleagues in Los Angeles, and his family, Minter outlined a serious, focused approach.
“We get to go to work,” he said. “The ‘we’ is important. It takes everybody to be successful.”
That mentality extends to the postseason, where the Ravens have struggled to meet expectations in recent years. “Our plan will be built on being at our best late in the season and into the playoffs,” Minter said. “We will be at our best when our best is needed.”
In the meantime, he promised players would “feel my competitiveness and mentality every day.”
"Take the foundation in place... and put my own spin on it." pic.twitter.com/wILOCbGWQf — Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 30, 2026
He intends to get the most out of Lamar Jackson
Though Minter is a defensive coach, he understands that much of the Ravens’ success hinges on their quarterback. Jackson has won two MVP awards in 2019 and 2023 under different offensive coordinators, but injuries and difficult postseason exits have defined recent seasons.
Harbaugh’s departure has been linked to reported frustration from Jackson, a significant factor as the Ravens look to restructure the quarterback’s contract and create roster flexibility. Minter just signed a five-year deal and his hiring, with Jackson involved in the interview process, offers the potential for a restart for the now 29-year-old QB still seeking his first Super Bowl appearance.
“With Lamar, I just look forward to connecting with him,” Minter said, “helping him become the best version of himself, creating a team identity that allows him to thrive. He’s already proven to be the best player in the National Football League.”
He added that he wants to, “put a team around him that allows him to reach that ultimate goal of bringing a Super Bowl back to Baltimore.”
The offensive coordinator hire will be critical. “I’m looking for a connector and an innovator and a scheme-builder around the best player in the world,” Minter said in an interview on the Pat McAfee Show after his press conference.
He’s different than the last time he was here
In addition to the gray in his beard, Minter now has three kids, more responsibility, and more experience under his belt.
After graduating from Mount St. Joseph University in 2005, where he was a wide receiver for its Division III football team, Minter was turned down nearly 100 times while seeking an entry-level coaching job. His father, then Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator, eventually brought him on as an intern. From there, Minter worked his way through a graduate assistant role at Cincinnati and coordinator stops at Indiana State and Georgia State before joining the Ravens. He then went on to Vanderbilt for his first major coordinator job (“It was a shoot-your-shot moment for myself,” he said), followed by Michigan and the Chargers.
Along the way, he changed. “My confidence has grown,” Minter said. “Your own style begins to come out. But it’s really about trying to get better every day.”
The Chargers’ defense ranked first in points allowed per game in 2024, giving up only 17.7 on average, and was fifth best in total defense this season. The team held opponents to 20 points or less in 10 of Los Angeles’ final 11 games.
He saved those early job application rejection letters as a reminder of where he started, but he puts less stock in them now. “My mindset has shifted in the last five or six years from proving people wrong and more to proving people right,” he says, about the people who hired him.
When Minter said on stage Thursday that he’s prepared for this job, I sensed that he really is. He was most compelling when talking about his on-field vision for the team and appeared most excited when talking about players, like safety Kyle Hamilton, whom he said is a “positionless defensive player that I would classify as a weapon. As much as you can do to get a guy like Kyle near the point of attack, that is what you try to do as a designer and play-caller.”
DeCosta admitted when he thought of Minter as a potential head coaching candidate about a year ago, he had to adjust his perception.
“My experience with Jesse was primarily in the draft years ago, when he was [evaluating] all the bottom guys on the draft board in the secondary,” DeCosta said. “But watching [the Chargers] last year and that defense, I’m like, ‘This is a really good defense and Jesse’s doing a hell of a job.’”
Minter was among at least 20 candidates the Ravens interviewed, DeCosta said, and one of only a handful called back for in-person interviews. “While he was with me in my office, I started to imagine Jesse as our head coach and what that might look like,” DeCosta said. Even before formal interviews, former Ravens safeties Eric Weddle and Tony Jefferson, who played for Minter, shared their support for Minter with DeCosta.
Minter even had John Harbaugh’s endorsement. “I think they should hire you,” Minter says Harbaugh texted him as the interview process was unfolding over the past two weeks.
“I appreciated that,” Minter said. “[I want to] take the foundation in place and build on it, make it better, put my own spin on it. Not try to be John Harbaugh, not try to be Jim Harbaugh, just be myself, connect with everybody, and make it about all of us.”