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The Ravens are trying to get past the rest of the AFC for the first time in over a decade. Here are three Secret Superstars who could help them get there.
Both John and Him Harbaugh are fond of asking the question-as-credo, “
Who’s got it better than us?” It’s part of an overall philosophy they got from their father Jack, and in the case of the John Harbaugh-led Baltimore Ravens, the answer is, “Very few NFL teams.”
At least when it comes to the regular season.
Since Harbaugh became Baltimore’s head coach in 2008, the Ravens have had exactly two losing seasons, and their 172-104 regular-season record, and .623 winning percentage, are bested by only the New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers, and Pittsburgh Steelers. This has long been known as one of the most consistent franchises in sports, and unlike some franchises in that boat, the Ravens don’t use that consistency as something to hold onto when they should be reaching for more.
Which is where the postseasons of late become so frustrating.
It could easily be argued that Lamar Jackson was the NFL’s best quarterback in 2024, but those old postseason ghosts came calling once again. And the 27-25 Divisional Round loss to the Buffalo Bills was particularly heartbreaking in that things could have gone differently with one play here or one play there. I don’t need to go into excruciating details here; Ravens fans know the deal. The good news is that everybody in the organization, starting with Jackson, has more on their minds.
“I don’t think I get over any loss, to be honest,” Jackson said on June 18. “I’ve got losses from youth football that still haunt me. I never get over a loss, I don’t care how small it might be to someone else or how great it might be, it’s always the same for me.
“Before, it was like, ‘Oh, he can’t win a playoff game,’ and then we won a playoff game. We got to the AFC Championship two years ago. We just fell short. We fell two games short this past year. We’re going to bounce back, and when we come back, I feel like we are going to have vengeance on our minds.”
Easy to say, harder to do. But in the Ravens’ case, there’s everything on point for better results. There isn’t a serious hole anywhere on the roster as long as health isn’t an issue (obviously), and the personnel staff made some great gets in the offseason to add even more on-field credibility to a roster that is [
bangs head in Judas Priest fashion] Screaming for Vengeance.
A secondary that was already very good now has first-round safety Malaki Starks, and free-agent gold-rush signing Jaire Alexander.
And though there are off-field questions about second-round edge-rusher Mike Green, I believed Green to be the best overall pass-rusher in the 2025 draft class.
Marshall's Mike Green will come to the NFL with a packed toolbox of pass rush moves. Dip-and-rip, inside counter, multi-gap shots, maybe the best spin move in this draft class, and he knows how to use his hands -- he's not just running by people.
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— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar)
March 31, 2025
Still, the AFC looks to be a gauntlet from the seventh level of hell once again, so if the Ravens are to finally transcend past postseason issues in all the right ways, it’ll take everybody rowing in the same proverbial direction.
In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent signing, and one underrated draft pick — three players who could well exceed their under-the-radar statuses.
Maybe 2025 is the season in which nobody has it better than the Baltimore Ravens.
Underrated Veteran: DI Travis Jones
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Obviously, if you don’t blitz a lot, your defensive linemen had better be very much on point when it comes to beating offensive linemen from snap to whistle. The 2024 Ravens had this in the bag; their blitz rate of 20.3% was the NFL’s seventh-lowest, but only the Denver Broncos (63) had more sacks than Baltimore’s 54, and the Ravens’ pressure rate exceeded their blitz rate, which is always a good sign.
We all know the names of the stars — Nnamdi Madubuike, Kyle Van Noy, and Odafe Oweh. But the guy who has held that defensive line together, against both the run and the pass, has been Travis Jones, the 6’4, 338-pound force multiplier who was selected in the third round of the 2022 draft out of Connecticut, and has become more of a presence every season since. In 2024, Jones totaled one sack, 35 total pressures, 28 solo tackles, 20 stops, and four tackles for loss. Jones did his thing everywhere from head-over nose tackle to occasional edge snaps, but he was at his best when he was either head over or off to the center’s shoulder, and either the center or one of the guards was about to be in big trouble.
Jones did all of that in just 675 snaps last season; ankle issues got in the way to a point as the season went along, but the tape was still pretty serious when he was on the field. Jones has developed a full array of moves to get to the ballcarrier in a big hurry, and with evil intent.
On/off splits aren’t 100% indicative of player value, but when Jones was on the field last season, the Ravens had a pressure rate of 39.0%. Without him, it dropped to 30.9%. With Jones, Baltimore’s sack rate was 8.1%; without him, it was 7.0%. Especially with a team that doesn’t blitz often, that value does become more apparent. Another reason for this is that Jones can soak up double-teams without losing his disruptive effect; 14 of his pressures last season came when he was doubled.
Travis Jones of the
@Ravens (No. 98) is one of those defensive linemen who doesn't get a lot of national praise, but everyone in the building knows what's up, and the pass rush is a completely different animal when Jones is in there. He's also a real problem against the run.
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— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar)
July 1, 2025
“Travis Jones is fantastic,” Ravens pass rush coach Chuck Smith said in mid-June. “Travis Jones is a pass rusher that I’ll put out there one-on-one with 95% of the offensive guards in the league, and they can’t block him. Last year, when he was healthy, he was one of the best interior rushers in the game. The film doesn’t lie, nor does the respect he has from the other teams. Travis Jones is skilled-up. One of the things, when I first got here, we talked about some of the people that were here, we talked about [how] we want everybody to have a skill. Whether you’re big, you’re small, you’re a cornerback, a linebacker, we want everybody to have a skill.
“Travis Jones has multiple moves. He does a chop drive. He can do a hump [move], he can do long arms, he can do everything. If things go the way I see it for Travis Jones, and the way I think the overview of our team goes, Travis Jones has a chance to be a Pro Bowler. He’s as good as any defensive lineman [or] nose guard in the National Football League, and I think this year – when he stays healthy the entire season – I think he’ll prove it and put it on tape.”
2025 marks the final year of Jones’ rookie contract, and while there have been talks about a new deal, it may have been to Jones’ advantage to wait it out. As Coach Smith said, a fully healthy Travis Jones could be a major force, and the money would obviously reflect that down the road.
Underrated Free-Agent Signing: WR DeAndre Hopkins
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The last time the Ravens won a Super Bowl, it was at the end of the 2012 season, and one of the prominent veterans who helped everyone (especially Joe Flacco) out was receiver Anquan Boldin. At age 32, Boldin was no longer one of the NFL’s best receivers as he had been at his peak with the Arizona Cardinals, but he still had one alpha skill that he was more than happy to feature: If you threw the ball Boldin’s way, and Boldin was covered, he really wasn’t covered. Boldin would use his acumen for the position, and his 6’1, 220-pound frame to just Godzilla any cornerback who had to deal with him.
Perhaps the addition of another receiver on a similar career track could provide equivalent dividends. That’s what the Ravens are hoping with the one-year, $5 million contract given to DeAndre Hopkins.
Like Boldin, the 6’1, 212-pound Hopkins was once one of the best in the business. And like Boldin, Hopkins (who turned 33 on June 6) still can beat the daylights out of anybody covering him with his smarts and skills, and his sheer desire to be physical enough to prevent enveloping coverage as a consistent conceit.
‘That guy is dope,” Lamar Jackson said of Hopkins after a minicamp practice on June 17. “He is different. I threw him a shallow [cross] today, [and] he caught the ball so smoothly and got up [easily]. I don’t even think he put his other hand on the ground to get up; he just caught the ball and just started [running]. That’s some veteran type of stuff, like some super vet type of stuff. It’s just dope to have him [here], and I am looking forward to throwing a lot of touchdowns to him this year.”
Yes, Hopkins can come into any system and pick it up quickly. That theory was tested last season. Hopkins started off his year with the Tennessee Titans; he was then traded to the Kansas City Chiefs and their island of misfit receivers on Oct. 24. In his second game with the Chiefs, he caught eight passes on nine targets for 86 yards and two touchdowns in a 30-24 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
This is not a guy who needs months to get the hang of a new playbook — he’s seen the entire elephant. And it’s good that Hopkins doesn’t need to be the primary target as he once was in Houston and Arizona. Now, he can be the ideal complementary piece in an offense that just keeps growing.
Last time the
@Ravens won a Super Bowl, they had Anquan Boldin beating up on enemy cornerbacks as the contested-catch wizard well into his thirties.
Maybe DeAndre Hopkins can provide a similar effect.
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— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar)
July 1, 2025
Underrated Draft Pick: LB Teddye Buchanan
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I don’t need to tell any Ravens fan that Kyle Van Noy is one of the most unique players of his era. At 6’3 and 250 pounds, the 11-year veteran has excelled everywhere from off-ball linebacker to blitzer to pure edge-rusher, and the 14 sacks and 56 total pressures in the 2024 season show that the old guy’s still got it.
Not that the selection of Cal linebacker Teddye Buchanan with the 129th overall pick in the fourth round of the draft is meant to be a like-as-like replacement over time, but when I watched Buchanan’s tape this spring, I got kind of a Van Noy hit in both Buchanan’s versatility, and his overall effectiveness.
The 2024 season was Buchanan’s first with the Golden Bears; he spent four seasons before that at UC Davis. The transition to a major program from the Big Sky conference proved to be no problem at all. In 2024, Buchanan totaled six sacks, 25 total pressures, 75 solo tackles, 48 stops, and he allowed 18 catches on 32 targets for 231 yards, 121 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, no interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 79.0. He also forced three fumbles.
Basically, whatever Buchanan was asked to do with his new team, he aced it. While he did spend 23% of his snaps on the left edge, all of his sacks came either as an off-ball linebacker or as a spy at the line of scrimmage. But like Van Noy, Buchanan also shows some really nice speed off the edge when he’s there. He’s still under development to a degree, but given what he showed last season, I’m fascinated to see how the Ravens work to make the most of his abilities.
I might want Cal LB Teddye Buchanan (10) on my depth chart just for his ability to defend screens and force fumbles, but the blitzing is pretty nice, too.
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— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar)
April 24, 2025
“Teddye plays like a Raven,” defensive coordinator Zach Orr said on June 5. “[On] his college film, he flies around, and he seeks contact. He can play in space, and he’s a smart player. Talk about a guy who came from a smaller school, dominated that, then made a one-year jump. [He] got there during the middle of the summer, and dominated in the ACC at a big school, so I’m excited about Teddye.
“We’re throwing a lot on his plate. He’s playing [three] positions for us – Mike [linebacker], Will [linebacker] and dime – and he’s done a good job going out there so far.”
That’s where it begins, but don’t be surprised if Buchanan’s palette gains more colors over time.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions).
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