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The Ravens have reached a deal to hire Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter as their next head coach, the team announced on social media, trusting a former Ravens assistant and rising-star play-caller to deliver on the franchise’s Super Bowl ambitions.

Minter, 42, will replace John Harbaugh, who hired him to his Ravens defensive staff almost a decade ago and was fired Jan. 6, after 18 seasons in Baltimore.

“I am truly honored to serve as the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens,” Minter said in a statement. “This is an organization whose values, culture and tradition of excellence reflect everything I believe about the game of football and how it should be played.”

Minter, who coached in Baltimore from 2017 to 2020, oversaw a dramatic turnaround in his two years in Los Angeles. The Chargers rose from 26th in overall defensive efficiency in 2023, according to FTN’s opponent-adjusted metrics, to ninth in 2024 and finished 10th this past season. They also ranked first in the NFL in scoring defense last year and fifth in total yards allowed this year.

Minter’s visit Wednesday in Owings Mills with Ravens officials, including owner Steve Bisciotti, capped an extensive two-week search to find the fourth head coach in franchise history.

“Jesse was impressive throughout our incredibly thorough interview process,” Bisciotti said in a statement. “He clearly understands the values, high expectations and history of the Ravens, and he has great vision for the future. Jesse’s football acumen is outstanding, and that’s been proven by the impact he’s made throughout his entire coaching career. He’s also a leader who will authentically connect with our players and inspire them to championship levels.”

The Ravens interviewed at least 16 candidates, a mix of head coaching retreads, up-and-coming coordinators and hot-shot assistant coaches, before moving on to their finalists this week.

“Jesse is a strong leader who possesses a brilliant football mind and a spirit that will resonate with our players and fanbase alike,” general manager Eric DeCosta said in a statement. “Jesse comes from a football family, with success at every level of the sport, and we are confident that he is the right coach to lead the Ravens forward.”

Minter was one of the NFL’s most popular head coaching candidates. He reportedly received interview requests from nine of the 10 teams with vacancies — only the Buffalo Bills, as of Wednesday, had not shown any interest — and was a finalist for the Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns’ jobs.

Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh said earlier this month that Minter, whose top-ranked Michigan defense powered their College Football Playoff national title run in 2023, checks “every box.”

“Tremendous knowledge of the game,” Harbaugh told local reporters. “Great teammate. … The general manager-head coach relationship is going to be tremendous with him. That’s really important. His ability to motivate. Just all aspects. Teacher — it’s always about the team. There’s no ego there. … If you got a box to check, you check it with Jesse.”

In Baltimore, Minter will inherit a team expected to contend for a third Lombardi Trophy, a star quarterback seeking renewal and a defense needing an overhaul. The Ravens entered last season as Super Bowl favorites but ended the year as the NFL’s biggest disappointment. They finished 8-9, denied a third straight AFC North title and fourth straight playoff appearance after a last-second loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

A string of injuries to Lamar Jackson and an underwhelming line slowed the offense, but the defense’s regression under second-year coordinator Zach Orr cost the Ravens in a handful of shootout losses. The unit finished 17th in overall efficiency, according to FTN, down from sixth in 2024. Hamstrung by a weak pass rush and disappointing cornerback play, the Ravens allowed 247.9 passing yards per game, third most in the league.

Minter has deep connections to the Ravens defensive system spreading around the sport. He worked under former defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale, who helped streamline a more modular approach to tying pressures, fronts and coverages together. He worked alongside Mike Macdonald on the Ravens’ defensive staff and succeeded him at Michigan, iterating on the two-high defensive structures that Macdonald favored as a means of limiting explosive plays.

The hope in Baltimore is that Minter can now transform the Ravens as thoroughly as Macdonald has the Seattle Seahawks. His Chargers revamping offered proof of concept. Their 2025 secondary, which finished fifth in the NFL in drop-back success rate, according to analytics site RBSDM.com, featured just one star, safety Derwin James. Their four other regular starters were cornerbacks Donte Jackson, a Pittsburgh Steelers castoff, and Tarheeb Still, a 2024 fifth-round pick out of Maryland, and safeties Elijah Molden, a former Day 2 selection whom the Tennessee Titans traded away for a seventh-round pick in 2024, and Tony Jefferson, who in 2023, at age 31, had retired to join the Ravens as a scout.

Minter, the son of former longtime college coach Rick Minter (who had John Harbaugh on his staff at Cincinnati), has two decades of coaching experience. He started as a defensive intern at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly before moving on to Cincinnati, Indiana State, Georgia State and then Baltimore. In Jesse Minter’s two seasons as the Ravens’ assistant defensive backs coach (2019) and defensive backs coach (2020), they ranked third and ninth, respectively, in pass defensive efficiency.

As Minter moved from Vanderbilt to Michigan to Los Angeles, he built his defense on what became five pillars: communication, efforts and angles, tackling, ball disruption and block destruction. He taught concepts so that every member of the defense could understand where they were strongest and weakest. He calibrated the complexity of his play calls for the levels his defense could execute at.

“A lot of coaches have crazy egos, and I think there’s a difference in being confident in yourself and sure of yourself, and then having an ego,” Minter told The Athletic last year. “I’ve always tried really, really hard to not have an ego, to really try to build a situation where everybody feels like they have value, where everybody feels like they’re part of the success.”

Minter’s first year as a head coach will be pressure packed; the Ravens’ 86 wins since 2018, the third most in that span, could not save Harbaugh’s job. A historic AFC North three-peat would not have been enough, either, Bisciotti said. He’d grown tired of the Ravens falling short of expectations in the postseason.

With Minter’s arrival, an offseason of massive turnover looms. His most important hire will be at offensive coordinator; Todd Monken, after three record-breaking seasons in Baltimore, is expected to move on and possibly reunite with John Harbaugh on the New York Giants’ staff, along with several other Ravens coaches. If Minter is not the defensive play-caller in Baltimore, as Macdonald is in Seattle, his choice of defensive coordinator would also take on added importance.

Minter’s relationship with Jackson, whose input the Ravens solicited during the coaching search and whom Minter got to know during his first stint in Baltimore, will be heavily scrutinized. The Ravens will need buy-in from Jackson this offseason, not only as they install a new offense during organized team activities but also as DeCosta devises his offseason budget.

Jackson, who is under contract through 2027, has a salary cap hit of $74.5 million next season. An extension — or, if necessary, a contract restructure — could give the Ravens the financial flexibility they need to re-sign key pending free agents like center Tyler Linderbaum, tight end Charlie Kolar and outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones. Punter Jordan Stout and fullback Patrick Ricard, both Pro Bowl selections along with Linderbaum, are among the 21 other Ravens set to reach free agency in March.

Minter and DeCosta must also determine the next step with two high-priced veterans, inside linebacker Roquan Smith ($32.7 million cap hit) and cornerback Marlon Humphrey ($26.3 million cap hit), and two high-importance position groups, offensive line and outside linebacker. Jackson was sacked on a career-high 10.7% of his drop-backs this season (36 sacks overall in 13 games), while the Ravens finished with just 30 sacks themselves, tied for third fewest in the NFL. Minter’s Chargers defenses rarely blitzed, relying instead on their four-man pass rush to get home.

After the first waves of free agency and April’s NFL draft pass, Minter will get to work on establishing the team’s culture. Of the 46 players under contract through the 2026 season, 42 have never played for a head coach in the league besides Harbaugh. None have ever played in a Super Bowl, either.

“They want to have a voice, but you also have to encourage the feedback and encourage the voice and work and set expectations and hold people accountable every single day,” DeCosta said last week. “That’s what the most successful organizations do on a consistent basis, whether that’s with your star quarterback or your third-string inside linebacker; you have to set expectations, hold players accountable, foster a relationship where they love this place and love this culture, and football’s the most important thing in their lives.”