What actually closes out close games?

Every Ravens fan knows the feeling. We’re up late, the other team gets the ball, and you just know how this ends. So I wanted to answer a simple question: when a game comes down to the final drive, which part of a defense actually wins it?

My thesis, stated up front so you can hold me to it:

1. Pass rush closes games more than any other position group. Not blitzes, stunts, or gimmicks, but real penetration from a four-man front.
2. Defenses built on blitzing or coverage eventually get picked apart in the final minutes, when quarterbacks have time and nothing to lose.
3. The Ravens have invested heavily in the secondary and neglected the pass rush for most of a decade, and that lines up with their defense faltering late.
4. Even the Ravens’ good pressure years were driven by scheme, not players.

We all blame the coordinator or the cornerback when a late lead slips away. I suspect the real problem starts up front.

I looked at every dropback since 2022 in the fourth quarter or overtime where the offense trailed by one score or was tied and neither team was better than a 95% bet to win, meaning the defense was trying to close a game still in doubt. Then I split them by whether the defense rushed four or fewer or blitzed with five or more, and whether the quarterback was pressured.

EPA allowed measures how much each play helped the offense’s expected points. Lower is better for the defense.

Three takeaways:

• Pressure is the whole ballgame. A pressured dropback is a disaster for the offense, no matter how the pressure arrives. An unpressured one is a win for the offense.
• A blitz that doesn’t get home is the worst outcome on the board. That part of my thesis held up. When the extra rushers don’t get there, the quarterback picks apart the thinner coverage behind them.
• But on average, blitzing late wasn’t worse. Blitzes got home more often, and that roughly paid for the times they didn’t. This is where the data pushed back on me.

One limit worth knowing: pressure here only counts sacks and hits. Hurries that force an early throw aren’t in the public data, so real pressure rates are higher for everyone.

Okay, so pressure wins the snap. But does a great pass rush win you the season’s close games more than great coverage does? This is the heart of my thesis, so I was nervous about this one. Turns out it’s closer to a tie than I wanted. Teams in the bottom quarter of either one hold about 65% of their late leads. Teams in the top quarter hold about 77%.

I measured every defense from 2018 through 2025 two ways: how often it sacked or hit the quarterback, and how well it covered on dropbacks where it didn’t get pressure. Then I checked which one better predicted holding a one-score lead with eight minutes left.

When I weighed both together, pass rush had a slightly bigger effect on holding late leads. Coverage had a slightly bigger effect on how many yards and points a defense gave up late. The fair read is a tie, with a small edge to the rush where it matters most: the final score.

There’s also a catch. Good coverage makes pressure easier, because quarterbacks hold the ball longer. And a good rush makes coverage look better, because throws come out early. The two feed each other, which is why the best defenses usually have both.

Most contenders sit above or to the right of the medians, and the best ones sit in both. The Ravens’ seasons are scattered. Their 2023 defense sat near the top of the league in coverage. Their 2021 and 2025 defenses fell into the weak-rush, weak-coverage corner, and those two seasons ranked 30th and 32nd in late-game defense.

Then I looked at the teams we all want to be. I figured every champion would have a monster pass rush. Some did. Some won with elite coverage and a pretty average rush.

Ranks are out of 32 teams that season. Four-man pressure rank is only available from 2022 on.

What stands out:

• The 2022 Eagles and 2025 Broncos fit my thesis perfectly. Both led the league in four-man pressure without leaning on the blitz.
• The 2024 Eagles broke it. They ranked 21st in pressure and won a title with the league’s best coverage, while blitzing less than almost anyone.
• Almost none of these teams blitzed heavily. Only Denver ranked in the top 10. That part of my thesis held up: contenders get pressure with their front, or they cover, but they don’t manufacture it.
• The 2021 Rams surprised me. With Aaron Donald and Von Miller, I expected them near the top. By sacks and hits they ranked 24th, a reminder that this measure misses hurries and double teams.

Now the part I really wanted to get to. I’ve been saying for years that the Ravens pour everything into the secondary and leave the pass rush to chance. So I checked the draft history. I was half right. They drafted plenty of pass rushers since 2016, but the premium picks went to the secondary.

I counted every top-100 pick from 2016 through 2026 and weighted each one by its trade-chart value, so a No. 14 pick counts far more than a No. 93 pick.

The pattern is clear once you list the names. The secondary got four first-rounders: Marlon Humphrey (No. 16), Kyle Hamilton (No. 14), Nate Wiggins (No. 30), and Malaki Starks (No. 27). The pass rush got volume on Day 2 and 3, plus one late first-rounder in Odafe Oweh (No. 31).

The results show the difference. Humphrey and Hamilton became All-Pro caliber players. On the front, only Nnamdi Madubuike, a third-rounder, became a true star. Kamalei Correa, Tim Williams, Jaylon Ferguson, and David Ojabo all delivered little for the Ravens.

So it isn’t quite true that the Ravens ignored the pass rush. They kept drafting it, just cheaply, and those picks mostly missed. Two things this doesn’t cover: free-agent spending, where the Ravens rented veterans like Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy, and cap dollars, which I didn’t measure here.

Last piece: I wanted to see how the Ravens’ rush actually looked, year by year, in the moments that matter. Remember the Wink Martindale years, when it felt like we blitzed on every snap? It turns out we basically did, and it caught up with us late. But the 2023 sack record wasn’t what I thought it was.

Late defense rank is EPA allowed per play in the fourth quarter and overtime while protecting a one-score lead or a tie.

What stands out:

• 2019 and 2020 were scheme-driven pressure. The Ravens blitzed on about half of all dropbacks, more than any team in football, and 57% to 71% of their pressure came from blitzes. In 2020 they ranked third in pressure and dead last in late defense. That’s my thesis in one season: manufactured pressure that got picked apart when it mattered.
• 2023 wasn’t what I thought. The 60-sack season came mostly from four-man rushes, with fewer blitzes than average. One caveat: Mike Macdonald loved simulated pressures, where a linebacker rushes and a lineman drops. Those look like four-man rushes in the data. So some of that pressure was still scheme, just a kind the numbers can’t separate.
• 2025 was the bottom. 22nd in pressure, last in late defense, and zero late leads held. The Ravens followed it by drafting another second-round edge rusher, Zion Young, in 2026.

Over eight seasons, the Ravens’ late defense ranked in the bottom third four times. In most of those years, the rush was either average or leaning on the blitz.

Pressure wins the final minutes. But I overstated how much the pass rush matters compared to coverage, and I had parts of the Ravens story wrong.

Here’s where I landed. The best defenses in close games get pressure without selling out for it, and they cover behind it. You can win with an elite version of either, but a defense that has neither, or fakes the rush with blitzes, is the one that gives up the late drive.

For the Ravens, the problem wasn’t a lack of effort on the pass rush. It was a lack of premium investment and poor hit rates. Spending first-round picks on Humphrey and Hamilton worked. Hoping mid-round rushers would develop mostly didn’t.

Now I want to hear from you. Which Ravens late-game collapse still keeps you up at night, and was it the rush, the coverage, or something else? And if you think I’m underrating the pass rush, make the case in the comments. I’ll pull the numbers on the best arguments.

Definitions used: late_one_score_defending@v2 · dropback@v1 · pressure@v1 · blitz@v1 · coverage_epa@v1 · Each links to the exact filter, the thresholds, and the argument against them.

Sources: nflverse play-by-play 2018-2025; FTN charting via nflverse (CC BY-SA 4.0) for pass-rusher and blitzer counts, 2022 on. For 2018-2021, rusher counts come from NFL Next Gen participation data, which covers about 44% of plays. Through 9/28/26. The Bottom Row No. 003 · bottomrowsports.substack.com · Written by a fan, for an argument. Bring your own numbers.

Sources: nflverse play-by-play 2018-2025; FTN charting via nflverse (CC BY-SA 4.0) for pass-rusher counts, 2022 on. Through 9/28/26. The Bottom Row No. 003 · bottomrowsports.substack.com · Written by a fan, for an argument. Bring your own numbers.