Jesse Minter moved across the country and took his first head coaching job at any level this winter. Yet this summer, when he stepped on the field, he must have had déjà vu.
After coaching Chargers star defensive back Derwin James Jr. for two years as a defensive coordinator, Minter inherited another do-it-all stud on the back end in Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton.
Hamilton, entering his fifth year with three All-Pro seasons to his credit, is the standard for his position. He can play anywhere and in any role, as evidenced by his usage last season. In 2025, Hamilton played 355 snaps in the box, 298 as a slot corner, 162 at free safety and 164 on the defensive front.
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Now, entering a new defense with myriad responsibilities to master, Hamilton is trying to absorb everything before Week 1 arrives.
“I’ve talked to Derwin a lot, and have much respect for Derwin’s game,” Hamilton said Wednesday. “I think he’ll be a Hall of Famer one day. All the respect for everything he does and has done and will continue to do, and I’m trying to be the same. The same in the characteristics sense, but be my own player at the same time, and I think Jesse’s done a good job of saying, ‘Hey, here’s what we did that we can carry over, and here’s what we’ll do differently.’”
With the Chargers, while playing under Minter, James posted consecutive second-team All-Pro seasons, amassing 14 passes defensed, 7.5 sacks and four interceptions while also filling a variety of roles. Last year, James played box safety (309 snaps), slot corner (369), free safety (128) and along the line (132), similar to how Hamilton has been used as the ultimate chess piece.
For Hamilton, the anticipation for working with Minter and within his scheme began almost immediately. Minter was officially hired on Jan. 22, replacing John Harbaugh, who had been at his post for 18 seasons and won a Super Bowl in 2012. Less than two weeks later, while in San Francisco, Hamilton started his crash course on Minter through James’s eyes.
“I was at the Pro Bowl with him, and he was speaking so highly, so vibrantly about Jesse and the whole staff, and his philosophy,” Hamilton said. “It got me juiced up to get to work with Jesse, and he’s been everything as advertised, and more. I appreciate Derwin for setting the landscape for me. He’s telling the truth.”
This summer, the process toward building a cohesive unit began in earnest. While the coach and scheme are new, many of the faces are not. Outside of free-agent signings Trey Hendrickson and Calais Campbell, the rest of the starters are primarily intact from a year ago, including now healthy defensive tackle Nnamdi Madibuike, linebacker Roquan Smith, corner Nate Wiggins, slot man Marlon Humphrey and Hamilton, among others.
Still, under new coordinator Anthony Weaver and Minter, the Ravens are preaching complexity and flexibility to confound opponents while giving themselves more options to solve problems. In that regard, training camp has been a slow race to reach a comfortable spot sooner than in previous years.
Last season, Baltimore’s defense struggled in the early going. The unit permitted at least 37 points in four of its first five games before eventually ranking 24th in yards and 18th in points allowed. The previous year showed a similar pattern. Over its first 10 games, the defense gave up 25.3 points per game before rallying over the last seven contests, allowing only 15.4 PPG.
“I think it’s just repetition, and this is something that you can’t just look at on a board and everybody be on the same page,” Hamilton said. “You’ve got to go through the growing pains of practice, messing stuff up, and then getting it right and solidifying it in that sense. And then you kind of just become one big conglomerate of just one brain. We all think alike, and all play alike, and the mentality’s the same. You get that defense to gel like that, it’s hard to beat.”
For Baltimore, the pressure remains to win it all. Since Lamar Jackson became the starting quarterback as a rookie midway through the 2018 season, the Ravens have been perennial contenders only to fall short. In Jackson’s eight-year career, Baltimore has only reached one AFC title game, losing in 2023 at home to the Chiefs in a 17–10 slugfest.
Still, Hamilton insists the pressure isn’t mounting, even if he can feel it. Perhaps that’s an easier place to reach with a new coach in place, as Minter doesn’t carry the scars of past postseason defeats. At the same time, honeymoons are short in the NFL, something Minter will discover if Baltimore gets off to a poor start or falls short come January.
“We have a philosophy now, on both sides of the ball, to kind of just not feel the pressure as much,” Hamilton said. “I think it’s very forward in terms of you’re going to give up plays, you’re going to make a ton of plays. We’re going to make more plays than we give up. But if something does happen, just reset, refocus and attack the next play.”
Look for Hamilton to attack plenty, all while giving Minter flashbacks of another safety who erased one problem after another while causing plenty of them for the opposition.
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MATT VERDERAME
Matt Verderame is a national NFL staff writer for Sports Illustrated, writing features, columns and more. Before joining Sports Illustrated in March 2023, Verderame wrote for FanSided and SB Nation. He’s a proud husband to Stephanie and father of two girls, Maisy and Genevieve. In his spare time, Verderame is an avid collector of vintage baseball cards.
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