Pirates Problems: Bucs, Ravens Looking for Playoff Return
· Yahoo Sports
Both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baltimore Ravens ended last season on a sour note.
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Tampa, of course, lost seven of its last nine, dropping a division in which nobody had a winning record.
Baltimore, playing in the marginally better AFC North, would also have won the division at 9-8, but a missed field goal on the last play of the NFL regular season made the Pittsburgh Steelers the Kings of the North and left John Harbaugh unemployed.
It took less than 10 days for Harbaugh to find a new job, and less than three weeks for the Ravens to hire his replacement in Jesse Minter. Minter, at 43, has already established himself as one of football’s top defensive minds, leading a Los Angeles Chargers unit that finished eighth in the league in scoring defense. Baltimore finished 18th last year, so improvement will be necessary for the Ravens to take back their division. Baltimore took a big step toward improving its defense by signing the league’s top free agent. Florida native Trey Hendrickson had been linked to the Buccaneers, but ended up in Baltimore after a wild series of events led Maxx Crosby to the Ravens, and then back to the Las Vegas Raiders.
Injuries limited him to just seven games last year, but before that, Hendrickson established himself as one of the league’s top pass rushers.
He made the Pro Bowl every year from 2021 to 2024, and in 2024, he was elite, ending the year with a league-best 17.5 sacks and making first-team All-Pro (he also had 17.5 sacks in 2023, but was behind Pittsburgh’s TJ Watt in that department).
Hendrickson was brought to improve a pass rush that, frankly, didn’t do much of anything last year.
Only two teams in the league had fewer sacks than the Ravens, who ended the year with 30 (for context, Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns had 23 by himself). At 31, it’s not a lock that Hendrickson can be the player he was in 2024, but if he can be even close to it, the Ravens pass rush and, thus, the whole defense, could cause problems for Baker Mayfield.
Oh, and the Ravens still have this guy named Lamar Jackson that is pretty good at quarterback.
Jackson already has two league MVPs and three first-team All-Pro selections, and at 29, he has a lot more to give.Bucs-Ravens is scheduled to begin at 1 on FOX Dec. 13.