It’s fair to wonder at this point if the Baltimore Ravens historic proclivity for choking away double-digit leads will change until general manager Eric DeCosta is fired.
The only clear-eyed move for detached owner Steve Bisciotti (“I don’t spend as much time around here as I did,” he crowed in January) to have made when he fired John Harbaugh just shy of 20 years on the job was to also fire Decosta – who had arguably more to do with the team’s malaise than anyone. An invested owner would have started fresh with outside evaluators who didn’t play favorites and try to prop up preexisting bloated and bad contracts and play politics like DeCosta has perfected. It was time to bring in someone else leading personnel whose brand wasn’t building the worst fourth-quarter rosters in the NFL and failing to maximize Lamar Jackson’s talents in his 20s; someone who could actually get Jackson signed to a contract extension that DeCosta and team president Sashi Brown whiffed on all of 2025.
But that’s not what Ravens fans got.
Bisciotti opted to outsource this decision to DeCosta and Brown, with former GM Ozzie Newsome still involved. So as the Ravens sit at 4-3, getting outscored 35-0 in the second half at home by the Bengals, having Decosta-ed now 17 games since 2019 (losing despite a double-digit lead) and with their hand-picked novice head coach Jesse Minter (who was always getting this job as I began reporting back in November on air in Baltimore) an overmatched mess, DeCosta needs to be on notice. As Harbaugh and former Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken make the case as NFL Coach Of The Year at the midpoint, and Minter gets run over every Sunday (better get him some help, DeCosta!), let’s point the finger right where it belongs.
Here’s Bisciotti telling you exactly how the hiring process would work, why he wouldn’t be sitting in on every Zoom with every candidate and why he was perfectly comfortable letting the real work unfold without him while he chilled on his yacht:
“I want very much this person to be picked by Eric and Oz and Sash, more than me. When I come in, when they call me in for these five (finalists), I'm going to already know why they love them. I'm going to come back, and I'm going to give just them my honest opinions, my reservations – if there are any – on individuals that may be a red flag that they didn't see.
“So, I would hope that when I spend a lot of time with these people, that I might unearth some things; which I think I'm really good at unearthing some details that maybe others missed. I think that I'd like to feed that into them, and if it changes their top five, then great. And if it doesn't, I want these guys to be partners.”
He’d better start getting a shortlist together of potential new “partners” for Minter. Bisciotti’s franchise is becoming a joke after a guy who created generational wealth by starting a staffing company in his basement thought it was in his season-ticket holder’s best interest to allow a self-serving GM to the run show to replace a coach who might be headed to Canton.
Blame Where It Belongs
This mess belongs to DeCosta and Brown.
Baltimore has blown four leads of 10-or more points, it’s long-pathetic fourth-quarter defense is worse than ever, $30M pass rusher Trey Hendrickson (signed after DeCosta reneged on a Maxx Crosby trade) has done nothing in the second half of games and a roster that is supposed to have the best secondary in the NFL – loaded with DeCosta’s highest paid guys and overhyped first-round picks – does not have an interception in all season (none for corners or safeties) despite being thrown on more than anyone and mostly by bad quarterbacks.
Minter is apparently so bad at being a head coach that he suddenly can’t call plays worth a damn anymore, either. The players looked to be quiet quitting on him Sunday, it’s clear he had a far better roster with the Chargers and the lack of accountability is glaring. Kyle Hamilton shouldn’t be the person calling out this joke defense all season – that’s what a real head coach would do.
(I publicly championed Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores or Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to get this job when it opened; of course DeCosta wouldn’t ask for an audience with either, because they wouldn’t put up with his BS. When Sean McDermott was fired by Buffalo, any serious front office would have altered their search – that was jerry-rigged for Minter all along – to get him in front of their owner ASAP. But this was about power and job security, not about truly trying to win in 2026.)
DeCosta (employed by the Ravens his entire adult life; GM since January 2019) is running a $370M payroll, highest of Bisciotti’s tenure, and somehow has exactly one playmaker on defense, again (Hamilton) thus far. Minter’s inability to adjust anything at halftime, and the insistence on playing copious amounts of dime defense (nearly twice as much as any other AFC team) while getting shredded on the back end and offering zero impactful pass rush at the same time is quite a combination. He won’t blitz. He’s lost.
When former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald – the one that got away – built a staff that would win a Super Bowl in Year Two in Seattle, one of his first hires was former successful NFL head coach Leslie Farzier. We got Rick Minter, the coach’s daddy, in that role and twice-failed offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi to try to prop up rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle.
That’s how you get a -70 second half scoring differential that keeps getting worse. Devoid of meaningful corrective measures, and players who fear no consequences because many of the biggest culprits are made-men by the joke of a GM.
Absolute Power Corrupts
Instead of a break from the past, Ravens fans get all the worst parts of the end of the Harbaugh regime, only amplified.
You get DeCosta and Brown (3-7 in their last 10 home games) with virtually full autonomy over the building getting to handpick a novice (cheap and young!) coaching staff loaded with rookies who wouldn’t rock the boat or pushback on all of his aging and overpaid veterans clogging up the ability to win in the clutch on offense and defense. (Letting Isaiah Likely, a top three NFL tight end, walk in his prime so DeCosta could try to shame him by giving his contract offer to broken down Mark Andrews? More fake tough guy stuff from an egomaniacal GM who likes to stalk the sidelines and pretend he’s a coach on game day – without any of the accountability).
You get zero pushback on Brown – who went 0-16 as Browns GM, you can look it up – making data their beacon and losing sight of scouting principles and the checks and balances that made them great under Newsome. You get stuck with a failing GM from Newsome’s ugly personnel family tree (it is to GMs what Bill Belichick’s is to head coaches – it’s just a fact).
You get one of only two NFL coaching staffs that entered the season with no former NFL head coaches on staff (tanking Miami is the other). You get an unserious organization led by over-empowered charlatans, co-signed by a half-interested owner who should have sold the team by now. Makes you wonder if any reasonable standards still apply in Owings Mills.
“If we fail, then I'll assess his contribution to that failure,” Bisciotti said of his next coach before hiring Minter. “Because like I said, this is an 'all-hands on deck.' When we fail, we fail together.
"And so, yes, it's Eric’s job to mentor him and guide him in our culture, hope he understands it and can add to that culture. What we do on the field, it will play a role, but I certainly hope to get back to the playoffs, and I certainly hope to overachieve.”
Good luck with that, brother. You run a sham process; you get sham results.
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