Power Players: Ravens HC Jesse Minter

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2:17Jourdan Rodrigue:Welcome to NFL Daily's Power Players, where we talk to smart people inside the sport about how they do football and peel back the curtain a little further for our listeners. I am, of course, Jordan Rodrigue, and today I am joined by Jesse Minter, the first-year head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. Jesse Minter runs one of the more interesting and modern defensive schemes we see in football right now, developed over many years as a defensive assistant under former Ravens head coach John Harbaugh in Baltimore, then within the college game at Vanderbilt and Michigan, the latter under Jim Harbaugh.

2:51Jourdan Rodrigue:Minter became the defensive coordinator under the Jim Harbaugh-led Chargers in 2024, but it really seemed only a matter of time before he was in consideration for head coaching roles around the league, and it felt fateful in a way that he eventually became the Ravens' new head coach this offseason. Minter, of course, has big shoes to fill in an organization that is used to success. He does not seem afraid of the task or to try to challenge traditions with the idea to modernize and evolve certain processes and schemes. So it's going to be a new defense, a totally new offense in Baltimore, and people around the league are fascinated by what this all will look like as the season begins.

3:29Jourdan Rodrigue:Really excited to get into this one, you guys. Jesse Minter, thank you so much for joining me today on NFL Daily's Power Players, fresh off a walkthrough, I hear. How was the walkthrough today? Really good. You know, it's that it's our last day before the guys have the four day break. So trying to keep the focus high and the intent high and get out of what we want to get out of these last couple hours together and then send them on their way to enjoy a much earned and much deserved break right before we get into week one. It's sort of perfect timing that we're catching you right now. And again, know that it's so busy right now.

4:04Jourdan Rodrigue:So thank you again for your time. but the installations have to be so intentional right now and all through the summer and you guys are doing new things on both sides of the ball in Baltimore. I'm curious, how did you plan for that? What was your process? What did you really want to accomplish and how did you want to design your installation and like the way that you guys practice? Yeah, I think to your point, it's very intentional and knowing that there's going to be a lot of new. And so there's some times where you structure your day to walk through, you know, to get ahead for the next day. And we felt like this year we were a big meet in the morning, have a brief walkthrough right at the beginning of practice, get a chance to run everything.

4:51And then the walkthrough in the afternoon was a chance really for us to double down on our install from that day, not to jump ahead. And so I think the learning has been really good. The guys have picked up on how we've operated. I just feel like every decision you make is just with intent in mind of, is it going to make us retain information? Is it going to allow us to teach? Is it going to allow us to do this in an order that makes sense from a scheme install standpoint? And so hopefully, hopefully it's worked out. I guess we'll find out here soon.

5:23Jourdan Rodrigue:I feel like that would probably reach a lot of different types of learners. I know every team does their install to practice differently as a first-year head coach, but a very experienced head coach, obviously you spent a lot of thought about how you want to do this. For me, I would think that staying same day, being present in the current install, like learning progression and teaching progression, that would really help me maybe upload more information over time. Is that something you're hoping that happens or seeing? Yeah, definitely. And I feel like sometimes when you do so many walkthroughs to get ready for a practice, and then you do the practice, but then the first thing you do is really, you know, you may watch the tape, but then you go to the next thing.

6:07Again, we really wanted to have like the opportunity to walk through corrections and to walk through that second part of an install where it's like, okay, now we've seen all these, whether it's certain routes or runs or, you know, fronts and coverages from the offensive perspective, like you really double down on that day's install. And so that, that was our first, you know, two to three weeks of training camp was kind of sticking with that, with that deal. And, and hopefully it's allowed us to learn, you know, I think when you, when you teaching systems, like you have to really understand the foundation because now that you're in season, now you're, you know, you're pulling from different areas that you installed and you're putting a game plan together.

6:49And when you have a really good foundation, it allows you to to, to move and to make sense and then to adjust in game, if you have to and go back to something maybe from earlier in camp. So hopefully it's worked out well and excited to put it into motion next week.

7:06Jourdan Rodrigue:Yeah. Second quarter, you know, middle of the season, October, November, you're thinking back to like Thursday and August, right? I'm sure. I mean, it definitely happens. It could be the second quarter of the first game, you know, and, and especially in an opener, you know, you've kind of, you kind of, I don't think you ever assume in an opener, you know, It's not like, hey, this is what they've done. They've spent just the same amount of time that we have studying ourselves that they spend. And so you go into it with a little bit of knowing that it's going to be adjustments that may win the game.

7:42And so to have that foundation from training camp is really important.

7:45Jourdan Rodrigue:I think that when you talk about giving multiple answers to scenarios, just like you're alluding to here, to me, that's a part of building clarity within a team, within each phase of what you're trying to do. And obviously that starts in meetings and then applies into the walkthrough. But where does emphasizing that type of clarity and that type of flexibility, where does that help when you're building an overall culture? Yeah, I think it's so important. You know, culture is like this word that everybody talks about. it gets thrown around a lot but in reality it's it's your standards and sort of what's acceptable what the players begin to accept from each other what the coaches accept from the players you know like actions and and and vision of what you wanted what you how you want to operate what you want it to look like and to me just the more clear the better when you leave it up for debate and you leave it up for gray, oftentimes it can go a few different ways.

8:48I think when you're clear and concise, they understand sort of what the standard is, what the expectation is, then it certainly helps in those things. And they really just, you know, I think guys really want to know, like, hey, it's a Friday practice tempo. What do you want this to look like? It's a Wednesday practice. What do you want this to look like? It's a walkthrough. what do you want this to look like? And so I think we've tried to be really crystal clear in what we want to get out of all those things and then also taking feedback from the guys and making sure that we all see it the same way and that we're all on the same page.

9:25Jourdan Rodrigue:I think it's probably so fun once things start to click or the big picture is it becomes more clear as the pieces of it are put together. You know, we at NFL Daily and at Power Players, we love your defense. Like we've studied it. We appreciate it and that it has its rules, of course, but it changes. It's evolved over time. You've really taken things that you've learned or the way the game has changed and applied it to what you do now. I have to feel that as a player, that would probably be very exciting to be a part of. What about your scheme? I'm going to make you talk about yourself a little bit here now, but what about your scheme or your system in general?

10:04Jourdan Rodrigue:Do you think best attacks what we're seeing from modern offenses right now? Yeah, a couple of things. I think number one, like it's about the players that you have. And, you know, so the last couple of years had a great group there with the Chargers. And you try to build around who you think can impact the game. You know, so with Derwin James, Khalil Mack, Tooley, Dayan, I mean, so many great players, Tarheep Still, just like you can go on and on about the guys that we had there. and and then I think you look at just like numbers and metrics of what really impacts winning and you know you know 10 years ago like it was always about the turnover margin and I still think that that's super important and we want to try to attack the ball we want to play coverages that allow you to get interceptions that can tilt the turnover margin but it's really the explosive play rate and so I would say that almost everything is built from a sense of like how can we keep the ball inside and in front, not let these guys throw the ball over our head.

11:10There's so many great receivers. There's so many great quarterbacks. There's so many great weapons. And so those guys' ability to score quickly in a one - or two-play deal can really put a dagger into your winning percentages. And so that's the main thing. And then I think as those metrics and numbers change over time, like your scheme evolves and adapts. And so now more and more people are getting a little bit bigger. They're going to more of a run game. So you've got to have answers for that while not completely going away from, you know, you kind of your overarching theme and philosophy of how you want to play.

11:45So I think in a general sense, like we want to attack what offenses do. We want to have a flexible enough system that we can match up against any type of offense. We can try to take away what they do best. We can try to make them execute things that maybe they're not as good at that the numbers would say. But then we also just sort of, you know, you respect and know that, you know, there's a bunch of great play callers. There's a bunch of great players. it's going to come down to how you play, you know, and your play style and how physical you play and what you emphasize in that regard. And then it's going to come down to being able to adjust.

12:20You're never going to go into a game with a perfect game plan. There's not a perfect call. And so being able to adapt and adjust as the game is going on in real time, I think we have a system built to hopefully be able to do that.

12:33Jourdan Rodrigue:And you said it perfectly yourself. You know, one of the things that I think has been interesting to watch and was when you were with Los Angeles for the past couple of years, a defensive coordinator was your front structures were so aggressive. They could be so aggressive, but at times they could also maybe bait the offense into doing something that you really wanted them to do, essentially, that would help you stick to your A-plus plan. And then behind that, and you have a lot of versatile players in Baltimore, too, and behind that, really cloudy, really kind of trying to win the mathematical game and make the quarterbacks hesitate and all of that.

13:10Jourdan Rodrigue:how the players being as versatile as they are, I imagine it's a double-edged sword because a, what a great thing, right? For, for a coach to have and the wide world is open to you, but now you got to go do it, right? You got to go plan for it. What is that process like between you and your players and you and your assistants as well? You know, it's really fun. Sometimes it's as simple as, you know, switching two guys in a particular call the first time you run it and then switching their positions the next time you run it. And to your guys, it's the same defense and it's everybody doing the same thing.

13:47To the offense, it may be a different picture. It may get identified differently because bodies being in different places. And so again, trying to create a system where when you first install this thing in the spring that they understand they could be in a bunch of different spots within these coverages and these pressures and these calls. And then, you know, I think going into games like with with enough with the ability to make some of those small, subtle switches where you're not having to reinvent the wheel every week. I think I think over time there's a lot of there's a lot of guys you can draw up a lot of great pressures and a lot of great schemes.

14:25But if it's every week that things are brand new, I feel like you kind of lose like the system and you lose the ability to adjust. And so we try to keep everything within the framework of how we operate and what we call things and how we want it to go. But I think we have enough, you know, to be able to move different guys around and create these these you said it like to create cloudy pictures when the ball snapped. I mean, that's the whole goal, I think, of any defense with the great quarterbacks that are out there. So it's fun to get to the point, you know, and we got a bunch of smart guys, versatile guys here.

14:59so it's fun to be at the point where we can talk about this and talk about this thing and oftentimes it's these guys saying like hey me and you could just switch spots right here and it becomes really cool when it and uh you know you kind of turn it over into their hands as well and

15:14Jourdan Rodrigue:do this thing together yeah I think players are smarter and smarter every year they see more football more film is available to them coaches too and I I'm kind of jealous honestly because it feels like you and this Ravens offense and Declan Doyle and especially, you know, Lamar and and some of the things that the looks that they must throw at you guys, it must be really fun and maybe some frustrating moments, too, but but probably really competitive and functionally competitive. And before I let you go, Jesse, I'm curious what that intentionality is like building functionally competitive practices where you're getting all of the looks that, you know, you'll see from a number of offenses, but that's also people will probably be trying to copy from your own offense as the season progresses.

15:57Yeah, I think when, especially as a head coach, like for the first time putting together, you know, your philosophy in all three phases, they got to be interlocked and interlocked means different things. Like it doesn't just mean, you know, we want to be complimentary. We want to run the, like, we want to have an extremely versatile offense that presents all the different things that are kind of trending throughout the league to us in practice. And defensively, we want to do the same thing. We want to kind of have tools in our toolbox of all the different ways that people play so that in training camp and in the off season, you know, we're seeing all these different things.

16:34And again, it's like when we can show our offense a lot of the different looks and they can show us a lot of the different looks and it makes it really fun. It makes it competitive. You sort of see like the counter punches each day from one side versus the other. And I think it makes the coaches better. the play caller is better, the player is better versus, you know, you line up and have like a really maybe, maybe a system that's unique and doesn't, doesn't show around the league. Sometimes that can, that can create challenges when you get to the weeks where you're playing kind of like the in vogue offenses.

17:13And so that was intentional of just trying to find that with Declan and, and he does a great job, really, really good job running a lot of the different things that are, that are, popular right now, but also having his own flair and his own flavor and his own tricks up his sleeve. So I'm excited to see how that looks.

17:31Jourdan Rodrigue:And I am so excited to watch you guys this year. Jesse, thank you so much. Really appreciate again, taking the time right before your kickoff. Very, very much appreciate you joining me on power players today. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. That was Jesse Minter, the Baltimore Ravens head coach. This of course was another episode of NFL dailies power players. I really appreciate conversations like that. where somebody is not just telling you what results they hope to achieve or what goals they have, but how they're trying to go about actually doing it. One of my favorite parts of that conversation was Jesse Minter talking about the walkthrough and how he wants to install and upload information and be able to call back to it and what that process meticulously has to look like over the course of many, many days in the summer that you're calling back to in November.

18:19Jourdan Rodrigue:coming up in your feed this week on NFL Daily. We've got game previews. We've got real live regular season football. It is week one, baby. Football is back.

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20:45Jourdan Rodrigue:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.