Anthony Weaver: Player, Coach, and the Man Behind Baltimore’s 2026 Defense
Anthony Weaver is the defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens. He is 45 years old, has spent 22 years in the NFL between playing and coaching, and is currently on his third stint with the same franchise that drafted him in the second round back in 2002. That last part is the part worth thinking about.
Early Life: From Abilene to Saratoga Springs
Weaver was born in Abilene, Texas, on July 28, 1980, but grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he attended Saratoga Springs High School and played for the Blue Streaks. He was not just a football player. In high school he carried the ball 109 times for 592 rushing yards in a single season, also played on the defensive side, and by his junior year was named area player of the year. The Chicago Sun-Times ranked him the 48th best player in the country in his class. USA Today gave him honorable mention All-America. The Sporting News had him at 66th nationally.
He was inducted into the Saratoga Springs Blue Streaks Hall of Fame in 2010, then the Capital Region Hall of Fame in 2011. For a guy who went on to coach in Super Bowl contenders, that local recognition clearly still matters to him.
Notre Dame: Four Years as a Starting Defensive End
Weaver enrolled at the University of Notre Dame and started at defensive end for four straight years. By his senior season in 2001 he had earned All-America honors, was named team captain, and won the team MVP award. Football News named him to the All-Freshman First Team back in 1998, which tells you he was not a developmental player waiting for his moment. He arrived ready.
That four-year starting experience at Notre Dame shaped everything that came after. He walked into the NFL draft process as a proven starter, not a projection. That distinction mattered when Baltimore came calling.
Baltimore Ravens Playing Career, 2002 to 2005
The Ravens selected Weaver in the second round of the 2002 NFL Draft, 52nd overall. He wore number 98. Over four seasons in Baltimore he started 54 of his 57 games at defensive end, recording 14.5 sacks and five forced fumbles. Rex Ryan was his defensive coordinator. That relationship would resurface years later when Ryan hired him as a coach.
His career numbers across all seven seasons playing in the NFL: 103 games, 265 tackles, 15.5 sacks, five forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries, three interceptions. Not a Pro Bowl resume, but consistent. He was a starter from his first year and stayed one until his last.
Houston Texans, 2006 to 2008
In March 2006 Weaver signed with the Houston Texans as a free agent. He spent three seasons there, starting 44 games. His playing career ended after the 2008 season.
What came next is where his story actually gets interesting. Most players step away from the game. Weaver stepped toward it from a different angle.
The Long Road to the NFL Coaching Ranks, 2010 to 2015
He did not land a coaching job immediately. In 2010 he was a graduate assistant at the University of Florida under Urban Meyer. Not a coordinator, not even a position coach. A graduate assistant. When defensive line coach Dan McCarney left Florida to take the head job at North Texas, Weaver followed him as linebackers coach in 2011. From there, Rex Ryan hired him as assistant defensive line coach with the New York Jets in 2012.
Then the Buffalo Bills made him their defensive line coach in 2013. Then Cleveland did the same from 2014 to 2015. In 2014 the Browns held opposing quarterbacks to the lowest passer rating in the NFL, 74.1, and tied for fourth in the league in takeaways with 29. Those were not flashy numbers. They were the kind of numbers that get you a call from a team with bigger ambitions.
Houston Texans Coaching Stint: Where the Reputation Was Built, 2016 to 2020
Bill O’Brien hired Weaver as defensive line coach in Houston in 2016. He spent four seasons in that role under legendary coordinator Romeo Crennel, then took over as defensive coordinator himself when Crennel moved to associate head coach in 2020.
The production under Weaver was measurable. Jadeveon Clowney earned three consecutive Pro Bowls while Weaver coached his position (2016, 2017, 2018). J.J. Watt earned his in 2018, finishing second in the NFL with 16 sacks. D.J. Reader recorded a career-high 52 tackles in 2019. The Texans won three AFC South titles during that stretch and beat Buffalo in the 2019 Wild Card round. Houston went 11-5 in 2018 with six Pro Bowl selections on the roster. That kind of output from a defensive line does not happen without a coach who knows exactly how to place talented players in positions where they can eat.
His 2020 season as coordinator was tougher. The Texans traded away two first-round picks that year, cut Clowney, and watched the roster disintegrate around him. He coached a depleted unit and left for Baltimore with his reputation largely intact.
Back in Baltimore as Assistant Head Coach, 2021 to 2023
John Harbaugh brought Weaver back to Baltimore in 2021 as defensive line coach and run game coordinator. His first year back, the Ravens finished with the NFL’s top rushing defense, allowing just 84.5 yards per game. In 2022 they ranked third in that same category. In 2023 they allowed fewer rushing touchdowns than any team in the league (six) and gave up the fewest points in the NFL.
Harbaugh promoted him to assistant head coach for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. That title carries weight. It signals that a coordinator job is coming, eventually.
Then Mike Macdonald left for Seattle after the 2023 season. Weaver was widely seen as a candidate to replace him. Harbaugh chose Zach Orr, a former player 12 years Weaver’s junior. That decision pushed Weaver out the door and toward Miami.
The numbers from Baltimore 2021 to 2023 do not lie about what he contributed, though. The defense was historically good against the run on his watch, and the pass rush numbers looked better when Macdonald was calling plays with Weaver’s defensive linemen in front of him.
Miami Dolphins Defensive Coordinator, 2024 to 2025
Mike McDaniel hired Weaver as his third defensive coordinator in as many years when Vic Fangio departed. No pressure.
His first season went better than almost anyone expected. The Dolphins finished fourth in total defense in 2024, allowing 314.4 yards per game. That was Miami’s best defensive ranking since 2006. He did it without Bradley Chubb, the team’s top pass rusher, who missed the entire season with injury. The secondary included Jalen Ramsey, the lone Pro Bowler on the unit. Defensive line depth was thin. The defense still finished fourth.
The 2025 season was harder. Miami traded several contributors at midseason and the roster thinned out. Still, his unit finished top 15 in takeaways (18), sacks (39), and forced fumbles (11). Linebacker Jordyn Brooks earned first-team AP All-Pro honors after leading the NFL with 183 tackles, including 99 solo. Brooks became only the fifth player since 2000 to reach 800 career tackles in his first six NFL seasons. The team went 15-19 across Weaver’s two seasons as coordinator, but that record reflects an offense that was inconsistent most of both years, not a defense that failed.
Five Teams Interviewed Him for Head Coach Jobs, He Got None
During the 2025-26 coaching cycle, Baltimore, Arizona, Atlanta, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh all interviewed Anthony Weaver for their head coaching vacancies. Baltimore interviewed him twice, once when they ultimately hired Jesse Minter. Pittsburgh also brought him in. None of the five chose him.
It is genuinely hard to explain. He had coordinator experience at three franchises, a track record of developing Pro Bowlers, and a top-5 defense his first season calling the shots. His demeanor in press conferences reads as exactly what ownership groups claim to want: calm, direct, clear. The Baltimore Banner noted the obvious without flinching: he is a Black coach who was passed over by five franchises in one cycle, and the NFL’s record on that front does not need much elaboration.
What he said about it is the part worth quoting: “I’m here to serve players and help them reach whatever God-given potential they have. I don’t need to be a head coach to do that. I can certainly do that from this seat.” That is not a bitter man talking. That is a person who has had a long time to figure out what he actually values.
Baltimore Ravens Defensive Coordinator, 2026 and Beyond
The Ravens announced Weaver’s hire on February 10, 2026. This is his third stint with the organization. He played here from 2002 to 2005. He coached here from 2021 to 2023. Now he runs the defensive side under a head coach, Jesse Minter, who he never actually overlapped with during his previous stay (Minter was in Baltimore from 2017 to 2020, Weaver from 2021 onward).
One unusual wrinkle: Minter will call the defensive plays on game days. That is typically an offensive head coach trait. Most coordinators who get passed over for head jobs and land in this situation bristle at reduced authority. Weaver publicly said he doesn’t care. Whether that holds when the defense struggles in October remains a different question entirely, though nothing in his public comments or his history suggests it will be a problem.
The context for the hire: the Ravens ranked 24th in total defense and 31st in pass defense in 2025. The pass rush generated almost nothing after losing key contributors. The Baltimore Sun’s Josh Tolentino called it “a clear floor-raising hire.” Russell Street Report’s Rob Shields was more direct: “The perfect hire. The DC won’t be calling plays for the Ravens but you needed someone the players like and someone who knows this defense.”
At his February press conference, Weaver spelled out exactly what he wants from the unit: “I want our guys, when they finish the game, to give 60 minutes of hell. When you play us, you’re going to know you left a fight.” He said the same thing in Miami, almost word for word, and then built the fourth-ranked defense in the league. The Ravens should take him at his word.
How He Actually Coaches Defense
The word Weaver uses most often is “violence.” He means it in the specific technical sense of defensive football: setting the edge, driving your helmet into a blocker’s chest, refusing to give ground. At a 2025 Miami press conference he said plainly, “All of our problems that we need to solve can be solved through violence.” Defensive football, at some point, is a physical negotiation, and Weaver’s teams have always known which side of that negotiation they are supposed to be on.
His coaching tree includes Rex Ryan, Romeo Crennel, John Harbaugh, and Mike McDaniel. Four very different coaches. What he took from each is less obvious than you might think. Ryan’s aggressiveness on third down is in there. Crennel’s gap discipline is in there. Harbaugh’s run-stopping culture is certainly in there. But Weaver spent two years in McDaniel’s system too, which runs a coverage-heavy, scheme-dependent structure that is about as far from “just be violent” as NFL defense gets. That experience probably made him a more complete coordinator than he was when he left Baltimore in 2023.
His defensive lines have produced at an unusual rate without elite talent. The Dolphins’ 2024 pass rush was 15th in the NFL in sacks despite missing their best player. The Ravens’ 2021 and 2022 run defenses were statistically elite with a group that had no household names beyond Calais Campbell. He makes average players look like starters and makes good players look like All-Pros. That is the specific thing that is hard to do and harder to teach.
Anthony Weaver’s Full Career Timeline
Playing career: Baltimore Ravens, 2002 to 2005 (57 games, 54 starts, defensive end, 14.5 sacks). Houston Texans, 2006 to 2008 (46 games, 44 starts). Career totals: 103 games, 265 tackles, 15.5 sacks, 5 forced fumbles, 3 interceptions.
Coaching career: University of Florida, graduate assistant (2010). University of North Texas, linebackers coach (2011). New York Jets, assistant defensive line coach (2012). Buffalo Bills, defensive line coach (2013). Cleveland Browns, defensive line coach (2014 to 2015). Houston Texans, defensive line coach (2016 to 2019), then defensive coordinator (2020). Baltimore Ravens, defensive line coach and run game coordinator (2021), then assistant head coach and defensive line coach (2022 to 2023). Miami Dolphins, defensive coordinator (2024 to 2025). Baltimore Ravens, defensive coordinator (2026 to present).
He enters 2026 in his 15th year as a coach and his 22nd year connected to the NFL in some form. He and his wife Kristin have two sons, Anthony Jr. and Justus.
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