Some of the best rallying cries are created in a locker room after a dramatic win, but there are other ways to move a roster's needle. Sometimes, inspiration shows up before the season at a summer practice. There's no cookie-cutter way to do this. Every once in a while, things are rattled off, and they stick. The Baltimore Ravens
may have something, and it was tucked intoa recent post-game message from head coach Jesse Minter.Keep punching... Yeah, it sounds a lot like the Carolina Panthers' 'Keep Pounding' mantra at first, but Minter's a fresh voice in Baltimore. If you haven't noticed, his approval rating is also soaring. He was trying to get his troops ready for a fight. Then, another layer was added by the suddenly popular Chris Moore.
After
Sunday's 41-23 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, Moore said Minter showed the team a boxing match before the season opener. His message was to keep going, keep punching, and trust that the big knockout was inevitable. It isn't a hashtag on social media or a five-second reel on a TikTok feed, but it works. It sounds like something that could stick with the Ravens well beyond Week 1.
Jesse Minter's message already has meaning.
Football is too unpredictable for any team to expect everything to go according to plan. Some games will start with Baltimore taking the first punch, others will require them to absorb one, and some will leave the outcome in doubt until the final minutes.
Minter's message gives the Ravens a simple response for each scenario. 'Keep punching.' The timing of Minter's analogy couldn't have been better. The Colts landed the first blow Sunday, moving the ball on their opening drive and exposing some communication problems in Baltimore's new defense. Indianapolis struck early with an opening-drive touchdown, but they missed the extra point.
Roquan Smith acknowledged afterwardthat the Ravens had to settle down and remind themselves that the performance wasn't representative of who they were. Then, Baltimore started punching back.
The Ravens forced turnovers, their offense kept producing explosive plays, and the game eventually turned into the kind of comfortable victory that could have made the opening adversity easy to forget. But that first response is exactly why Minter's message could have staying power.
The Ravens don't need to be perfect to be successful. They need to be resilient enough to keep playing their style when something goes wrong. Smith said Baltimore cannot afford to start games the way it did against Indianapolis, but he also made clear what happens when the defense gets everyone on the same page.
"That's what it was about — us all being on the same page. That's something that we harp on — being on the same page — because when we're on the same page, it's hard for anybody to move the ball against us. So, yes, we're all going to take that on the chin. We're all taking that personally, and we know we cannot start games like that in the future. But, we're going to learn from it, grow from it, and get better from it, as well."
That's the part Minter will want to carry forward.
The New Orleans Saints represent the next step in the Ravens' journey.
The New Orleans Saints will provide the first opportunity to see whether Sunday's response was the beginning of a pattern or simply a good recovery in an opener. Baltimore shouldn't need much motivation heading into its home opener. The Ravens are expected to win, and that expectation will only grow if the offense continues to look as explosive as it did against Indianapolis. That creates another opportunity for Minter's message to matter.
The Saintswon'to care that the Ravens scored 41 points in Week 1. They won't care that Baltimore forced turnovers or that the Ravens eventually took control of the Colts game. New Orleans gets a clean slate and a chance to land its own first punch.
The Ravens will have to respond again. And that's why "keep punching" could become more than a nice phrase after Minter showed his team a boxing match before their first game. It gives a new coach a phrase that fits the reality of an NFL season: things will go wrong, momentum will swing, and opponents will land their shots.
The answer can't change. Keep punching... See, it has a ring to it. Suppose Minter's Ravens make that their mentality every Sunday; the knockout may not always come quickly. But they won't stop fighting until it does. We're still getting to know this iteration of the Ravens, but by the looks of things, that isn't how they seem to be wired.
This article originally appeared on Ravens Wire: Jesse Minter uses boxing lesson to shape Ravens' resilient mindset
