The Ravens entered the 2026 NFL season with something close to a standard of proof. In a preview of all 32 teams, The Athletic Football Show said Baltimore should at worst reach the divisional round, and the case for that expectation started with the roster on both sides of the ball.
Robert Mays said he was eager to see what Jesse Minter could do with the Ravens' defensive talent, pointing to the kind of name recognition that makes the group hard to ignore: Kyle Hamilton, Nate Wiggins, Nnamdi Madubuike, Malaki Starks and Trey Hendrickson. His point was less about a single star than the amount of investment spread across the defense, which is why he thought the unit could move back toward the style Baltimore used when Mike Macdonald was there.
That is the kind of framing that sends readers back to the Ravens score line of thinking before a season even starts: how high can a team go when the defense looks stocked and the offense still has Lamar Jackson? The answer from the preview was not just that Baltimore is good, but that it should be good enough to win in January, with the divisional round treated as the floor rather than the ceiling.
Dave Helman helped explain why the offense still feels like a work in progress. He said Zay Flowers' production last year flew under the radar for him and many others, a notable nod to a player whose value may be rising faster than the public conversation. But Helman also sounded less certain about the rest of the pass-catching picture, calling Mark Andrews the third target on the Ravens roster and noting that he finished 46th among tight ends in yards per route run in 2025 after ranking seventh in 2024 and third the year before that.
That drop matters because it changes the shape of Baltimore's passing game. Andrews has been part of the answer for years, but a receiver group that leans heavily on Flowers and a tight end coming off a statistical slide is not the same as a fully reliable aerial attack. Helman also said Durham Smythe is going to have a role in what the Ravens want to do, which suggests the new offensive setup under Declan Doyle is not just about naming a coordinator and expecting the same machine to hum louder.
And that is where the preview leaves the clearest open question. Baltimore is being treated like a contender, and not a soft one, but the offense is still being measured against how much Doyle changes it and whether the passing game can become more than pretty OK around Jackson and Flowers. Derrik Klassen set the bar bluntly: he said the Ravens should at worst get to the divisional round and could be even better than that. For a team with this much talent, that is no longer a bold take. It is the minimum standard they now have to live up to when the season begins.
