Ravens: How Will Coaching Changes Impact Lamar Jackson?
Thanks largely to hamstring and back injuries that caused him to miss four games, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson put together an underwhelming season by his own lofty standards in 2025. Across 13 games, the 29-year-old threw for 2,549 yards and 21 touchdowns while rushing for 349 yards and two scores. After a QB1 finish in 2024, Jackson fell to QB16 in per-game scoring last season.
The bigger story entering 2026 isn’t just a new play-caller; it’s an entirely new coaching regime. Baltimore hired Jesse Minter as head coach this offseason, ending John Harbaugh’s long tenure leading the franchise.
Jesse Minter comes to Baltimore with essentially no offensive coaching background; his entire career has been built on defense. Minter spent two seasons (2024-2025) as the Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive coordinator under Jim Harbaugh, leading a unit that ranked among the league’s best in scoring defense and pass defense. Before that, he was Michigan’s defensive coordinator in 2022-2023, during which his defense anchored a 15-0 national championship season in 2023, finishing atop the country in both total and scoring defense.
Minter brought in Declan Doyle, previously the Chicago Bears’ offensive coordinator under Ben Johnson, to run Baltimore’s offense. Doyle, 30, is the same age as Jackson and has already drawn praise from his new quarterback for his creativity and attention to detail during offseason workouts.
Doyle’s system is expected to bring more play-action passing, a wrinkle influenced by his time around both Johnson and Sean Payton. Jackson averaged a league-best 13.1 yards per attempt on play-action throws in 2025 despite limited volume, and Doyle’s scheme figures to lean into that strength more heavily. The Ravens have also signaled they’ll deploy more three- and four-receiver sets under the new staff, a departure from Baltimore’s traditionally run-heavy identity.
That shift in personnel usage lines up with a revamped receiver room. The Ravens used back-to-back draft picks on Ja’Kobi Lane and Elijah Sarratt, two big-bodied targets who have already begun building rapport with Jackson during offseason practices. Both rookies give Doyle more big-target options in the passing game, and early reports suggest a genuine competition for early-season snaps between the two.
After a year in which lower-body injuries clearly limited him, Baltimore may look to scale back Jackson’s rushing workload somewhat to help keep him available. Even so, when healthy, Jackson remains the most dangerous dual-threat quarterback in fantasy football, and a full season under a coaching staff built around creativity and explosiveness gives him a clear path back to elite form.
Between a healthier Jackson, a more aggressive scheme, and added receiving talent, the pieces are in place for Baltimore’s offense to look significantly different in 2026. For fantasy managers, Jackson remains an easy call as a top dynasty asset, and the head coaching change, not just the new coordinator, is the real story behind that optimism.
