Huge Friday News Dump: Ravens Defensive Coordinator Wink Martindale Is Parting Ways With The Team

Welllll this is a surprising turn of events to say the least. Obviously the Ravens season was a disappointment through and through and when that happens, sometimes a couple heads gotta roll. I just never expected it to be Wink Martindale.

This is a guy who spent the majority of this season coordinating with one hand behind his back. The injuries that happened in the secondary was something that no DC could overcome. It’s true that his scheme was overly dependent on the secondary playing at a high level, and that was exposed in a big way. But all signs seemed to point toward the Ravens defense returning to full strength next year with Wink at the helm.

His 4 years were pretty damn successful all things considered. The guy took over for Dean Pees, whose MO was constantly playing conservative soft coverage and blowing leads late, the New Year’s Eve disaster against the Bengals being the final nail in the coffin for him. Wink brought a new aggressive attitude to the defense and by all accounts seemed to be well liked by everyone that crossed paths with him. 

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That’s what makes this firing so bizarre. If anyone was gonna be on the hot seat, it was gonna be Greg Roman. I’m not bullish on getting rid of him, but there’s a huge faction of the fan base that wants his head. I would have bet my life it’d be him over Wink. So weird.

Maybe something will come out indicating something behind the scenes has been brewing  for a while. I can already tell you right now there’s a lot of other shit under the surface completely unrelated to Wink that may or may not surface this off-season. Stuff that would make your head spin. My hope is that this is the worst to come and we can put the pieces together to run it back with a healthy roster next season. Fingers crossed on that. But be warned. This may just the tip of the iceberg of things that could happen in Baltimore this offseason.