Baltimore Ravens head coach Jesse Minter met reporters after a 33-10 home loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday Night Football, Baltimore’s fourth straight defeat and the third in a row by 20 or more points. He opened by giving the visitors credit and closing the door on injury excuses. “I give credit to the Jags. They came in here and did what they needed to do,” Minter said. “Obviously, it’s a tough situation for our guys, but I just told them; there’s no excuses, there’s no whatever, ‘We don’t have this guy; we don’t have that guy.’ We’ve got to make a decision over this break. We’ve got a little bit of a break for the guys to kind of mentally reset and come back and seek improvement really in all three phases — that’s what we’ll be after. But again, I give credit to the Jags. They’re a good football team. I give credit to our guys for fighting, but that’s obviously a bare minimum.”
The Ravens are 4-5. Their next game is Monday, Nov. 16, at home against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday Night Football, which is 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo.
“Broke the game open”
Asked how he keeps morale up after a third straight loss by 20-plus, Minter said the week of work was fine and pointed to one play that tilted the night. “I thought the guys had a good week. We were in a tough spot. Everybody kind of realized where we were at with the quarterback situation. I thought the team was ready to play from a competitive standpoint,” he said. “I really think the explosive play before the half really kind of broke the game open.” That was Trevor Lawrence’s 50-yard touchdown to Parker Washington with under a minute left in the second quarter, which made it 17-3. Minter said he had been aggressive there because of where the offense sat: “You almost felt like — with the offensive situation — a score there puts it in a tough spot. We’re not really maybe built in tonight’s game to be able to chuck the ball and throw it all over the yard and come back.”
He also flagged the early 52-yard completion to Jacksonville blocking tight end Nate Boerkircher. “Early on, we let them get behind us to one of their, I would call him more of a blocking tight end, which is unfortunate,” Minter said. “I take a lot of pride in the secondary, and … we haven’t gotten the results that we’re after, so we just have to go back to work.”
Pre-snap penalties “unacceptable”
Baltimore finished with four false starts and leads the league in that category. Minter did not soften it. “It’s very frustrating, and again, it’s just ownership. It’s ownership of players and coaches when it keeps happening but it’s a ninth game, so there’s no, ‘We haven’t done this; we haven’t done that,’” he said. “We’ve got a new guy in there [at quarterback]. He’s been here all season, been here all training camp. So, the pre-snap penalties are unacceptable.” On whether the same mistakes can still be fixed, he said, “There’s a definition of insanity — if you keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results. To me, it’s finding solutions to keep it from happening … different approaches, different cadences and different things like that.”
Fagnano, Hamilton and a path forward
On Joe Fagnano’s first start after three days of short-week prep, Minter said, “I have tons of respect for Joe and how he operated and how he played. I mean the guy had three days of preparation on a short week, playing through something with his own injuries and did a really good job.” Asked about Kyle Hamilton leaving the game, he said, “Anytime somebody leaves the game, you’re concerned. I don’t know much about it yet … and see where that’s at.” Looking at the rest of the year, he still sees a path: “I do. I believe in our guys. … There is a real inconsistency, I would say, at all three levels, all three phases. … If we can find a consistency level and find a formula for this particular team where it’s at right now, I do think there’s a good opportunity for this team.”
No published comments yet. Start the conversation.