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In September, the Ravens started the season as Super Bowl favorites. In October, they entered their Week 7 bye as one of the NFL’s most disappointing teams.

Now, here in early November, they will start the second half of their season somewhere in between: safely removed from the NFL’s basement, and still nowhere near the league’s elite.

Ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline, the Ravens (3-5) had the salary cap space and draft capital to take a big swing. General manager Eric DeCosta chose not to. He let the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys move the needle instead. The Ravens prioritized their short-term prospects and long-term goals, sending away cornerback Jaire Alexander for late-round draft capital and acquiring outside linebacker Dre’Mont Jones for a Day 3 pick.

The Ravens have enough talent to make a run at a third straight AFC North title, but did they do enough at the deadline? Here are four takeaways from the team’s latest iteration.

Enough of an upgrade?

After signing edge rusher Carl Lawson to the practice squad last month — he’s expected to be elevated for Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings — and trading for Jones, the Ravens’ disappointing pass rush is better off in so many ways.

It’s more talented. Lawson has had at least five sacks in three of the past four seasons. Jones has finished with at least four sacks in each of his past five seasons, and with 4.5 sacks through nine games, he’s on pace for a career high.

The pass rush is deeper. After trading away Odafe Oweh and losing Tavius Robinson to a foot injury, the Ravens dressed just three outside linebackers each of the past two games. One of them, David Ojabo, played a combined 37 pass rush snaps and recorded just one pressure, according to Pro Football Focus. With Robinson and Adisa Isaac (elbow) expected to return by the end of the season, more depth is on the way.

And the pass rush is more flexible. Jones played primarily on the edge for Tennessee, but he has experience as an interior rusher. In his two seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, including last year under former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, he had 188 pass rush snaps lined up anywhere from the three-technique (aligned over a guard’s outside shoulder) to the zero-tech (aligned directly over the center), according to Sports Info Solutions.

Jones finished with just 10 pressures and 1.5 sacks in his reps there, but his versatility should allow the Ravens to mix and match with their four best pass rushers on obvious passing downs: most likely an edge spot for rookie outside linebacker Mike Green, an inside spot for defensive lineman Travis Jones and dynamic roles for outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy and Dre’Mont Jones.

“I think his skill set lends to trying to play a little matchup ball with him or setting another guy up,” Macdonald said of Dre’Mont Jones before last season. “He can do a lot of things. We’ve talked about it, but we’re really excited about Dre’Mont.”

Still, even with safety Kyle Hamilton adding to the pass rush, the Ravens lack a game-wrecking presence up front. Defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike was their best hope, but a neck injury ended his season after Week 2 and has perhaps imperiled his career.

The Ravens might have enough juice to get to the playoffs, but recent history suggests their ceiling is capped. Almost every Super Bowl champion over the past decade has had a pass rusher who commanded a double team, whether they played on the inside (the Kansas City Chiefs’ Chris Jones) or on the edge (the Denver Broncos’ and Los Angeles Rams’ Von Miller). The Ravens’ defensive personnel don’t inspire the same kind of fear. So coordinator Zach Orr’s pass rush stratagems will have to.

Lining up a turnaround

The Ravens didn’t make a move to bolster their struggling offensive line, but there wasn’t much of a market to find help. Only one lineman was traded, and it was New Orleans Saints left guard Trevor Penning, a struggling, injury-prone starter. He cost the Los Angeles Chargers, who have one of the NFL’s worst offensive lines, a 2027 sixth-round pick.

Even if the Ravens did search high and low for help, it’s hard to imagine they found many sellers. Contenders aren’t inclined to break up their starting offensive line or sell off depth pieces as they push for a playoff spot. And rebuilding teams, many of them starting young, inexperienced quarterbacks, aren’t inclined to throw their franchise’s most important player to the wolves behind a rejiggered offensive line.

The best hope for the Ravens is that history repeats itself up front. Over their first 13 games last season, right guard Daniel Faalele graded out on PFF as one of the NFL’s worst interior starters. After a Week 14 bye, however, he was rated a top-10 guard by PFF’s grading. Right tackle Roger Rosengarten had a similar, if less dramatic, late-season improvement. Left guard Andrew Vorhees, meanwhile, who struggled over his first three starts last season before being sidelined by an ankle injury and losing his starting job, had his best performance of his year in a Week 18 appearance.

There’s hope behind them, too, with the return of third-round pick Emery Jones Jr. But he will need to be ramped up quickly. Rookie offensive linemen struggle to hold their own physically and mentally. The challenge is even stiffer for rookies who have practiced for only about a month since the draft.

“It’s hard for a rookie to miss all of training camp, the beginning of the season, to come in in-season and truly get grounded in what we’re doing,” offensive line coach George Warhop said last month. “Even though you love everything about his upside, his toughness, how he’s going about it in practice, that’s a hard deal.”

On the horizon

The Ravens’ biggest ally during their postseason push could be an accommodating second-half schedule. According to ESPN, their nine remaining games make up the NFL’s seventh-easiest slate. (The Steelers? Pittsburgh’s schedule ranks sixth hardest.)

Perhaps just as important, the Ravens’ future opponents did little to improve their personnel before the deadline:

• Vikings (Week 10): No moves.
• Cleveland Browns (Week 11): Traded reserve defensive end Joe Tryon-Shoyinka.
• New York Jets (Week 12): Traded star defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, star cornerback Sauce Gardner and starting cornerback Michael Carter II. Acquired reserve cornerback Ja’Sir Taylor, second-year wide receiver AD Mitchell, reserve wide receiver John Metchie and mercurial defensive tackle Mazi Smith.
• Cincinnati Bengals (Week 13 and Week 15): Traded reserve linebacker Logan Wilson, but didn’t trade defensive end Trey Hendrickson.
• Steelers (Week 14 and Week 18): Traded for starting safety Kyle Dugger and signed wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling to the practice squad.
• New England Patriots (Week 16): Traded starting safety Kyle Dugger and reserve defensive end Keion White.
• Green Bay Packers (Week 17): No moves.

Picking the pieces

After parting with a fifth-round pick that could become a fourth-rounder if Jones adds two more sacks and the Ravens make the playoffs, DeCosta is projected to have double-digit picks in next year’s draft.

The Ravens have their original selections in the first five rounds, along with a fifth-rounder from the Los Angeles Chargers and a sixth-rounder from the Philadelphia Eagles, acquired in the deals for Oweh and Alexander, respectively. The Ravens are expected to be awarded compensatory fifth-round picks for losing guard Patrick Mekari and cornerback Brandon Stephens last offseason, too, along with potential compensatory seventh-rounders for the departure of offensive lineman Josh Jones and cornerback Tre’Davious White.

With the release Tuesday of safety Sanoussi Kane, however, came another reminder of the importance of finding cheap, young help while the Ravens spend lavishly to retain their stars. Kane was a seventh-round pick in 2024 and one of several reserve safeties the team has cycled through this year. Had the Ravens unearthed a reliable contributor on defense from a group that also included undrafted signings Beau Brade and Reuben Lowery, or had injured safety Ar’Darius Washington remained in good health this season, their front office could’ve conceivably kept Oweh or dealt him for help at a position of need besides safety.

However this season ends, the Ravens will need to continue to draft and develop. Cornerback Nate Wiggins is, for now, the only difference-making starter from their past two draft classes. With over 20 pending free agents on the Ravens’ books and most of their salary cap space earmarked for in-house extensions, a wave of roster turnover is likely this offseason. The Ravens will have to fill in the gaps with contributors from Day 3 of the draft and beyond.