Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s about the ball,\u201d Mickens said. \u201cThe more times we can get the ball back for our offense, great things are going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Takeaways become particularly valuable for a team led by Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and an offense capable of turning additional possessions into points. Ending an opponent\u2019s drive also reduces the number of snaps Baltimore\u2019s defense must play. The Ravens, however, cannot create those opportunities by allowing receivers to run freely through the secondary. Eliminating explosive plays requires communication between Kyle Hamilton, Malaki Starks, Nate Wiggins, Marlon Humphrey and every defender involved in coverage.<\/p>\n
Mickens\u2019 teaching places responsibility on players to understand when they can attack. A safety with proper depth can drive on an underneath throw. A cornerback without help must remain disciplined enough to prevent the receiver from getting behind him. Baltimore struggled to consistently close games last season, making situational discipline one of the defense\u2019s priorities under Jesse Minter.<\/p>\n
Mickens is not asking the Ravens to choose between caution and playmaking. He wants a secondary capable of controlling the deep field, challenging every catch and attacking the football when its positioning creates the opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug. 3, 2026, 10:55 p.m. ET Preventing explosive passes and forcing turnovers can seem to require conflicting approaches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[95878,184,117,2282,7,6,169,119281,96963,96964,95882,95898,96715,96705,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":["post-963731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-ravens","tag-accessfree","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-baltimoreravens","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-ravens","tag-sourceravens-wire","tag-sstssportsnflravens","tag-sstsnravens","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbaltimore-ravens","tag-tagderrick-henry","tag-taglamar-jackson","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117035528556567299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963731","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=963731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}