Mike Macdonald wants Ravens defense to “create…

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The Ravens have a new defensive coordinator, but they were able to maintain continuity through the move from Wink Martindale to Mike Macdonald.

Macdonald joined the Ravens as an intern in 2014 and moved up the ladder to spend three seasons as the team’s linebackers coach before jumping to Michigan as the defensive coordinator last year. Macdonald returned after a successful year in Ann Arbor and he held his first press conference since coming back to Baltimore on Wednesday.

That press conference touched on the continuity that Macdonald brings with him to his new job, but he also noted that he isn’t necessarily going to follow the same path as Martindale, who was known as favoring the blitz during his tenure in Baltimore.

“The aggressiveness — absolutely — is going to carry over, but I think you’ve got to look through the lens [of], ‘What does aggressiveness actually mean?,’” Macdonald said, via the team’s website. “It’s about keeping the offense off-balance and where they’re not really believing what they’re seeing on a down-to-down basis. So, a lot of times, that will come with the schemed-up pressure – that’ll happen. A lot of times it could be a fake pressure, it could look like this coverage and play like another one. You’re changing the stress points of the zones and things like that and just trying to create doubt at all times. You want to be the one pushing the envelope, rather than the other way around.”

The Ravens slumped to 19th in points allowed and 25th in yards allowed while finishing 8-9 and out of the playoffs. Injuries contributed to some of their difficuties, but tweaking the scheme is to be expected after those kinds of results.