Defense. That has been the Baltimore Ravens identity and reputation over the last seventeen years. It is who they are, and it is something general manager Ozzie Newsome worked hard to build and maintain this offseason. Newsome is trying to turn a good but overrated defense from a year ago into a great one, and the pieces are in place for that to occur in 2017.
ESPN Insider, with the help of Football Outsiders DVOA advanced-metric system, ranked the thirty best defenses over the last thirty years. Six Ravens defenses were among the thirty defenses listed, and you can make a case a couple of them should be higher than they are.