ESPN<\/a> projected every team’s starting lineup, with analysts Mike Clay, Aaron Schatz, and Seth Walder each ranking them from best to worst. Their ballots were combined to form an overall ranking.<\/p>\nThe Ravens landed at No. 5, one spot behind the Buffalo Bills, who were the AFC’s top-ranked team. The top three teams were the NFC’s Los Angeles Rams at No. 1, followed by the Philadelphia Eagles and defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n
The rankings were in lockstep with the oddsmakers, who have the Ravens as the team to beat in the AFC North. The Cincinnati Bengals (No. 15) were the second-highest-ranked team in the division, followed by the Pittsburgh Steelers (No. 19) and Cleveland Browns (No. 31).<\/p>\n
Here are some excerpts from the analysts’ assessment of the Ravens:<\/p>\n
Biggest strength: “Safety. Kyle Hamilton is one of the league’s best defenders and is entering only his age-25 season. He led all NFL safeties in pass-rush attempts last season and finished in the top 10 at the position in tackles, passes defensed and tackles for loss. He is joined by 2025 first-round pick Malaki Starks, who was solid as a rookie. Newcomer Jaylinn Hawkins was an every-down player for the Patriots last season, and all three players played at least 950 snaps in 2025.” — Clay<\/p>\n
X factors for 2026: “WRs Devontez Walker, Ja’Kobi Lane and Elijah Sarratt. \u2026 If Baltimore could get a breakout from one of these three — the latter two are rookies — it would go a long way toward rounding out the offense beyond Lamar Jackson.” \u2013 Walder<\/p>\n
Nonstarter to know: “DT Broderick Washington Jr. Washington missed most of 2025 after an Achilles injury, but he’ll play an important role for the Ravens as a 5-technique end if Nnamdi Madubuike doesn’t return from his neck injury or Calais Campbell finally plays to his age. Washington will need to step up, as his pressure rate of 2.9% in 2024 was near the bottom of the league for interior linemen.” — Schatz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ravens Crack Top 5 in ESPN’s Starting Lineup Rankings Despite more roster turnover than usual this offseason, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,781,891,20472,6780,888,6,169],"class_list":["post-939874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-football","tag-general","tag-homepage-latest-headlines","tag-inline-news","tag-john-simpson","tag-late-for-work","tag-nfl","tag-ravens"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116883652847767082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939874","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=939874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}