Michigan football helped make 'Ravens defense' hot commodity. It's spreading elsewhere.

INDIANAPOLIS — A proud expression briefly flashes across John Harbaugh’s face.

Baltimore’s head coach listens as a reporter rattles off the names of his former assistants who are now spreading the gospel of the Ravens’ defensive philosophy all over the country. Mike Macdonald is doing it in Seattle and Jesse Minter in Los Angeles.

“Dennard (Wilson) in Tennessee, to add to that,” Harbaugh said. “And Anthony (Weaver) in Miami.”

Then there is Wink Martindale in Ann Arbor, where Michigan football’s newest coordinator will run a version of the system that reversed the fortunes of the program three years ago after his old boss, Harbaugh, loaned Macdonald to the Wolverines for a 375-day term. It was inside that small window of time that Macdonald installed a scheme that has since become all the rage in the sport.

“Everybody wants a piece of the Ravens,” a former Michigan staffer told the Free Press.

It’s easy to see why, considering the profoundly positive effect the defense has had on the individuals and organizations tied to it.

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Just look at what it has wrought. It eventually set Michigan on the path toward a perfect 15-0 record and the national championship this past season. It made the Ravens into the NFL’s stingiest team during the same period. It helped carry Macdonald to the top rung of his profession, where, at 36, he recently became the youngest current head coach in the league after taking over the Seahawks. It also boosted the careers of Minter and Wilson — two first-time coordinators at the pro level.

It even revitalized the football life of Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, who is now back in the NFL with the Los Angeles Chargers after Michigan went 40-3 during his final three seasons in Ann Arbor. But what makes this style of defense so attractive?

“It’s that illusion of complexity that everyone talks about,” Seattle general manager John Schneider said at the NFL scouting combine this week. “You can see it on film. It’s the product, right? You are watching it. You saw it happen several times this year. You saw it happen at Michigan.”

Under Minter’s direction this past season, the Wolverines were poisonous to opposing offenses. No team in the Football Bowl Subdivision allowed fewer yards and points per game than Michigan. Minter was able to extract phenomenal results out of a versatile system that featured multiple fronts, a variety of different coverages, a bevy of camouflaged arrangements and an assortment of simulated pressures. The goal was to seed confusion, and the Wolverines followed through by creating havoc at every level.

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“Man might look like zone,” slot cornerback Mike Sainristil said. “Zone might look like man. A lot of disguises. We sent pressure from all over the field. Coach Minter did a great job in different situations not allowing us to be predicted. And I think that our success rate with what he did was very high because of those reasons.”

During his two years in Ann Arbor, Minter was able to build on what Macdonald implemented. After Macdonald went back to Baltimore and Minter came to Ann Arbor in 2022, the two coordinators shared information and bounced ideas off one another. They had become friends after working under Martindale with the Ravens, staying in contact after they each went their separate ways.

According to a source, they would talk every couple of weeks. Because they operated the same system and weren’t competing at the same level, they each passed along tips and recommendations. The information exchange between Baltimore and Ann Arbor proved beneficial for both teams, accelerating the development of a system that became better and more refined over time.

“I absolutely believe that,” John Harbaugh said.

The proof is in the pudding. Baltimore had the best defense in the NFL. Michigan was tops at the college level. But the pipeline that connected both may have dissolved in the past five weeks. Macdonald went to Seattle. Minter jumped to the Chargers, following his boss to Los Angeles. Over that same period, the Ravens and Wolverines were forced to rebuild their defensive staffs after they had been raided. It was the price of success, as John Harbaugh was quick to acknowledge.

“It’s definitely something not to be sad about,” he said. “Like anything, one of our beliefs is you have to keep things moving all the time. You’re always moving. ... You’re always evolving.”

But Harbaugh remained steadfast about one thing.

“We’re not going to change our defensive structure,” he said.

The Ravens’ system was too good to abandon. So, Harbaugh targeted someone with the institutional knowledge to operate it following Macdonald’s departure. New Michigan coach Sherrone Moore did, too, once Minter left. Moore eventually snagged Martindale, an NFL veteran who was on the ground floor when the Ravens’ scheme was developed. Harbaugh, meanwhile, elevated inside linebackers coach Zach Orr — one of Macdonald’s protégés. They were among the best options in a competitive market where coaches who had access to the secret Ravens’ formula had suddenly become coveted.

“It just got multiplied three- or four-fold,” the former Michigan staffer said. “Everybody, starting with John, and then Mike, and then Jim and Jesse, they want guys who have been in this package just for the continuity.”

Other teams simply tried to get their hands on the playbook and anyone who could teach it. In a copy-cat sport like football, it is easy to understand why.

As former Michigan pass rusher Braiden McGregor said, “It’s hard to plan for. ... I just think anybody from that Baltimore (tree) has a really good defense.”

He is clearly not alone in that opinion.

The Ravens’ scheme — a style of defense that remade Michigan football — is hot right now.

And the Harbaugh brother who helped birth it doesn’t seem to mind that it is. In fact, he is rather proud.

“It’s definitely a good problem to have,” he noted.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Michigan football helped make 'Ravens defense' a hot commodity