‘Sometimes Ravens fans can be a little spoiled’ — Kyle Hamilton’s defense of coaches misses the point of the criticisms Baltimore is facing all together
Kyle Hamilton’s defense of his coach, Zach Orr, is well intended. But it misses the point — the standard is the standard.
Times are tough right now for the Baltimore Ravens defense. The unit has struggled through the course of the first three weeks of the 2025 season. Baltimore was ran over in primetime against the Detroit Lions in Week 3 and faltered late against the Buffalo Bills in the team’s season-opening loss.
The team ranks 31st in scoring defense and 32nd in yards allowed. And, to be fair to Baltimore, there’s a lot of layers here that complicate the issues. They’ve played two of the best offenses in football. They’re about as banged up as any team in football as of Week 3. Kyle Van Noy, Nnamdi Madubuike, and Jaire Alexander all missed the game against Detroit.
Nevertheless, this unit needs to play better. The youngsters, like Mike Green and Malaki Starks, need to grow up in a hurry. And in the meantime, Ravens fans are letting their displeasure known. Baltimore is hearing the noise — and on Thursday star safety Kyle Hamilton stood up for his coaches amid the noise from the fans. In the process? Well, he sort of threw it back into the fans’ faces.
Kyle Hamilton defends his coach at the expense of Ravens fans — but it misses the point
“I feel like, sometimes, Ravens fans can be a little bit spoiled, with just the amount of success that this franchise has had. We lose five games, and the world is about to end. I think with (defensive coordinator Zach Orr), it’s unfair to put all the blame on him when there’s 11 guys there on the field that are playing their hearts out, and he’s put us in the right positions,” said Hamilton.
“It’s just a matter of us doing the right stuff, and that’s where I feel like the critiques of Zach or whatever (other) coaches are unfair, because he can’t go out there and play for us. As much as he wants to, he can’t. So, it’s up to us to go out and get the job done. So, it’s not a Zach thing. It’s not a coaching thing on the defensive side of the ball. It’s just that players have to get the stuff right.”
It is easy to appreciate the sentiment here from Hamilton — he’s right to ensure the players are falling on the sword for their coaches, just as the coaches would fall on the sword for their players. In the same series of press availabilities yesterday, Orr indeed said the coaches have to look at how to put their players in better positions.
But the spoiled nature of fans bit misses the mark. Nobody wants to hear the fans being criticized while the defense simply is not producing — and that’s absolutely the case for Hamilton and company. Even if there’s truth to what he’s saying and even if it’s true that there’s easy excuses to lean on in the form of injuries, Hamilton himself acknowledged earlier in his media session that the team has to prove themselves each and every week in the NFL. It would have been just as easy to skip that piece of the answer.
The Ravens have a higher standard than a lot of teams. That’s absolutely true.
But the standard is the standard — and fans expecting to see that standard to that may be intense, but it certainly isn’t misplaced. Heavy is the crown, as the saying goes. And with more success comes more expectations. Given how few franchises have been more successful than Baltimore over the John Harbaugh era, the skepticism is far from out of bounds.
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