When Trey Hendrickson returned for the Baltimore Ravens in Week 6, it was safe to assume he and an emerging Mike Green would create a nightmarish matchup for the Cleveland Browns. And while Hendrickson was superb, Green stumbled — the duo wasn’t the terrifying force many hoped it’d be.
Hendrickson had a strong day with 6 pressures, 1 sack, 1 QB hit, and 1 tackle for loss. Green, though, had just 1 pressure and didn’t record a sack, QB hit, or tackle for loss.
The issue was clear: Hendrickson was a beast on the right side, and Green was getting comfortable there in the veteran’s absence. With Hendrickson back, Green slotted back on the left side and wasn't as effective as he needed to be.
Jesse Minter has some work to do to mold these two into a dynamic duo.
Baltimore Ravens need to make the Trey Hendrickson/Mike Green duo more effective
The Ravens defense wasn’t bad on Sunday — they were actually electric in the loss. The unit played its best game of the season, holding Cleveland to 13 points, limiting Deshaun Watson to 164 passing yards, and totaling 5 sacks and 10 QB hits.
But imagine how much better they could be if Trey Hendrickson and Mike Green are on the same wavelength. We’ve seen Hendrickson take over, and we’ve seen Green take over. We need to see both firing on all cylinders simultaneously more consistently.
Jesse Minter is aware of that problem, and he spoke about it in his latest press conference.
“We gotta find the spots where, potentially, both of them move them around, create different matchups,” Minter said. “Trey is a really, really good right-side rusher…We gotta find good ways to make sure we’re still getting a lot out of Mike. I thought he played well the last couple of games where we didn’t have Trey. So we gotta make sure that we’re finding ways with both of them out there to be really effective.”
Obviously Hendrickson is Baltimore’s best edge rusher. He has 20 pressures and 2 sacks across 4 games, and he’s barely been healthy in 2026. The team also signed him to a four-year, $112 million contract — you’re not going to move him from his hot spot often when you’re paying him that kind of money.
Of course, a rotation wouldn’t hurt. Green has shown he deserves opportunities to flourish on the right side, and Hendrickson’s talented enough to move around. However, most of the pressure is on the 23-year-old to develop into a real threat opposite Hendrickson.
Green has flashed as that guy, too. In Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints, he notched his first sack of the season on the left side. He also earned an 80.1 grade in that game, per Pro Football Focus.
Sure, two of his best games of the year came with Hendrickson out with a finger injury. He finished with 5 pressures and 3 QB hits in Week 4, and added 1 sack, 2 tackles for loss, and 3 pressures in Week 5. He’s young, though, and when you’re showcasing pass-rush chops like that, there’s hope he can start developing a complementary skillset on the left.
Overall, this is a good problem to have. You have talented guys who’ve endured good stretches; you just have to iron out the kinks in this new partnership. Minter’s proven he’s plenty smart enough to scheme up pressure, and hopefully it’s not long before Hendrickson and Green are on the same page.
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