The Ravens Top 5 Players Through The First 5 Weeks

The Ravens could easily be unbeaten after five games and the offense has performed well enough to win every game.

Of all their offseason moves, the one that looks the most sage, right now, is hiring 30-year-old Declan Doyle to be a first-time offensive coordinator and play caller. If he doesn’t have straight A’s, it’s close to it. We haven’t seen what we thought we were going to get from a defense that seemed primed to start strong Week 1 and it’s especially surprising on the back end, where rookie head coach Jesse Minter is a particular savant and with a roster that was supposed to be loaded in the secondary.

Alas, not so much.

Instead, we have seen more Derrick Henry through five weeks of a season than ever before – and more carries at this point in the season by an age 32 running back since the 1970 merger – in part to help a makeshift offensive line really struggling in pass protection and in part because two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson has been out with an ankle injury – and also in large part because the defense needs a ball-control offense to help it out, struggling mightily as usual on third down and in the fourth quarter.

With all of that said, there are the Ravens top five players to this point in the season. We are weighing heavily the gravitational force of the player and an ability to impact multiple positions and do things that simply no one else on this roster can pretend to do. We are talking about players who have proved to be irreplaceable thus far and who have in some cases done things they haven’t ever done before to allow the offense or defense to function.

5. Vega Ioane

The rookie guard has been thrust into incredibly -challenging situations and met them all and saved the Ravens backside in the process. When they journeyman and already-injured options at center couldn’t hold up, he moves to the position mid-game in Brazil when the A gap was getting obliterated and a terrible Cowboys run defense was shutting Baltimore down.

He holds down the critical position, then shuts down All-World defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons in his first start at center the following week and holds him off the stat sheet for the second time since the start of the 2025 season. Then he triggers the return of the run game by getting to the second level and mauling people even out on the perimeter against a Falcons defense that was No. 1 vs the run entering that game. Ravens are undefeated since he took over there and he gets better every week and no way would I play Cam Jurgens there Sunday having not practiced fully with the team, but maybe they know better.

4. Nnamdi Madubuike

No one on the defensive line has played more snaps than him since his return from over a year out with a serious neck injury. And it’s not even that close. Him carrying a heavy load means Calais Campbell can really stay on a pitch count and Travis Jones doesn’t have to do too much.

Top edge rusher Trey Hendrickson hasn’t been healthy and/or hasn’t played at all since halftime of Week 1, and Madubuike coming in and leading the team in pressures in his first three games back at a time the overall defense was suspect and the pass rush particularly iffy, is vital. He is getting back to being himself and is as important as any player on the roster not names Lamar Jackson in the second half of the season.

3. Kyle Hamilton

We knew Minter had big plans for him, and we saw what Minter did with hybrid defender Derwin James in LA. Keeping him around the line of scrimmage has been critical; he leads the team with two interceptions and was in a linebacker role on both of them, with the ball not traveling 10 yards downfield in the air when he picked off Tua Tagovailoa to end Sunday’s game (linebackers have all three Ravens picks).

His ability to man so many different spots from play to play has allowed Minter to experiment and try to hide other flaws in this unit, especially in coverage. Hamilton’s pressure rate hasn’t been great but he also hasn’t had the chance to blitz opposite Hendrickson much yet. He is a glue guy and connective tissue on a defense that would be lost without him. Ravens getting picked apart in the slot when he’s not there.

2. Zay Flowers

Imagine what the offense would look like is he wasn’t limited to less than 100 routes run on the season so far? In a brand new offense predicated on hunting explosive plays, he remains the only guy really delivering downfield with even a modicum of consistency and he’s doing it like never before. That pre-season contract extension looks pretty brilliant right now.

Doyle is putting him in motion more than ever before and putting him the slot 50% more than ever before and he’s already shown up more in the redzone than ever before. His chemistry with Jackson is uncanny and he seems primed for the best receiver campaign in franchise history if he can remain remotely healthy.

1.  Lamar Jackson

Looks well on his way to a another MVP-worthy campaign and could it be he wins an MVP in his first full season with an offensive coordinator for the third straight time? As awesome as Doyle’s stuff looks, try executing it without the best player in the NFL and especially when you are winging it at center from week to week.

Every reason to believe he is back in Week 7 from the ankle injury – as we told you all along – and picks up where he left off.

Jackson is leading the NFL with 10.1 yards per attempt, he is leading the NFL in play-action, passer rating (155.8, perfection!), and he is tops in the NFL with a 119.6 passer rating overall. That’s without having anyone really winning downfield except Flowers and despite a hit-or-miss run game and despite the OL issues and despite his legs even really entering the equation as much as they will.

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