{"id":770244,"date":"2026-02-23T02:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/770244\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T02:46:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:46:37","slug":"analyst-reveals-ravens-highest-offseason-priority-and-its-not-lamar-jackson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/770244\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyst reveals Ravens’ highest offseason priority and it’s not Lamar Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Analyst reveals Ravens’ highest offseason priority and it’s not Lamar Jackson<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Ravens<\/a> have a long checklist to work through this offseason, and it is crucial for Jesse Minter that the franchise works through that list.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Yes, Lamar Jackson’s contract, plus the ability to keep key players like Isaiah Likely and Tyler Linderbaum, are top of the wishlist, but there might be something else.<\/p>\n

Given how poor the Ravens’ defense was at times in 2025, maybe overhauling the unit for Minter should be seen as a priority.<\/p>\n

Well, for\u00a0NFL.com’s Matt Okada, he named repairing the defensive front as Baltimore’s highest priority.<\/p>\n

“A couple years ago, Baltimore\u2019s defensive front was a strength, anchoring the top scoring defense in the NFL,” Okada wrote<\/a>. “In 2025, it was a weakness. Perhaps through both free agency and the draft, the Ravens should focus on restoring their defensive front at the start of the Jesse Minter era.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

More:Chiefs’ Andy Reid offers key Patrick Mahomes injury update<\/a><\/p>\n

Lamar’s contract has to be urgent, right?<\/p>\n

Given that the Ravens are staring down the barrel of a $74.5 million cap hit, and the fact that repairing the defensive front will likely mean splashing in free agency, yeah, Baltimore needs more cap space.<\/p>\n

And extending Lamar, or restructuring his contract, will help ease his 2026 cap hit.<\/p>\n

Of course, in an ideal world, the Ravens would sign Lamar to a long-term deal that would allow the franchise to push money into future years, and in turn, give the front office more ammunition to get the defensive players it needs.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

So yes, fixing the defensive front is key, but so too is figuring out how to shrink Lamar’s cap hit for 2026.<\/p>\n

More NFL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Analyst reveals Ravens’ highest offseason priority and it’s not Lamar Jackson originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,20076,6946,7,4698,10097,895,106219,6,499,169,7427],"class_list":{"0":"post-770244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-baltimoreravens","11":"tag-defensive-front","12":"tag-defensive-players","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-isaiah-likely","15":"tag-jesse-minter","16":"tag-lamar-jackson","17":"tag-matt-okada","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-patrick-mahomes","20":"tag-ravens","21":"tag-tyler-linderbaum"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116117660247438360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}