The Minter Effect

What Derwin James Tells Us About Kyle Hamilton’s 2026

Here’s a question worth pondering for a minute.

How does a coach take a 27-year-old safety coming off the worst season of his career and, inside of twelve months, turn him back into an All-Pro? And then do it again the following year, just to prove the first one wasn’t luck?

Jesse Minter did exactly that in Los Angeles.

And now he’s got Kyle Hamilton.

What Minter Inherited in L.A.

When Jim Harbaugh brought Minter west in 2024, the Chargers’ defense was a mess. Los Angeles had ranked 24th in points and 28th in yards the year before. Derwin James was part of that mess — a former first-team All-Pro who, in 2023, allowed a 93.7 passer rating in coverage on 68.8% completions, per Pro Football Reference. No Pro Bowl. No All-Pro. Just a very expensive safety playing very ordinary football.

Minter didn’t hedge. “I’m excited just to sort of try to unleash Derwin,” he said that spring — and then he told anyone who’d listen that the plan was to stop asking James to do everything and start asking him to do the right things, close to the football.

The results:

(Pro Football Reference)

Two straight Pro Bowls. Two straight second-team All-Pro nods. By 2025 James graded 81.2 overall at PFF, ninth among 98 qualified safeties, with a coverage grade of 83.8 that ranked fifth. He collected three interceptions and held quarterbacks to a 68.4 rating by PFF’s count.

And then Los Angeles paid him. On May 26, the Chargers gave James a three-year, $75.6 million extension that nudged him $100,000 in average salary past Hamilton.

How He Did It

In 2025 the Chargers played zone on 80.7% of snaps — fifth-most in the league per Next Gen Stats — while blitzing the third-fewest times in football, sending extra rushers on just 21.4% of snaps. They rushed four on 72.6% of downs. They used dime personnel at the third-highest rate in the NFL (23.3%) and split-safety looks at the fourth-highest rate (49.6%).

Translation: he floods the field with defensive backs, plays sound zone behind a four-man rush, and dares you to be patient enough to beat him. It only works if your defensive backs are special. So, he makes sure they are — by putting them where they can hurt you.

The deployment was the whole ballgame with James. In Year 2 of the scheme he logged 236 snaps in the slot, 203 in the box and 89 on the defensive line. “How can you get him as close to the point of attack as many times in the game as possible,” Minter said. “I think that’s the vision.” 

Not everywhere. Close.

Now, to No. 14

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that Hamilton is broken. Far from it. Although a recently fired talking head on 105.7 The Fan would lead you to believe that the 2022 14th overall pick has always been broken since his days as a Golden Domer. But I digress.

Hamilton posted an 86.3 PFF grade last season, second among 98 qualified safeties, with an 84.3 coverage grade that ranked fourth. He was first-team AP All-Pro. Again.

But look at the trend line and tell me you’re comfortable with the trajectory:

• Interceptions: 4 → 1 → 0
• Sacks: 3.0 → 2.0 → 1.0
• Passes defensed: 13 → 9 → 9
• Passer rating allowed: 38.4 → 84.4 → 98.6
• Touchdowns allowed in coverage: 1 → 1 → 4

(Pro Football Reference, 2023-25)

An All-Pro who hasn’t intercepted a football since 2024. That’s not a player problem. That’s a deployment problem — and Hamilton, to his credit, said as much himself. “I don’t want to be Jack of all trades, master of none, and I feel like I haven’t mastered anything right now,” he said at minicamp.

Here’s why. Last season Hamilton played 355 snaps as a box safety, 298 in the slot, 164 as an outside linebacker, 162 at free safety and 24 at wide corner. Five jobs. And the Ravens went 8-9, surrendered 4,403 passing yards on 625 attempts and finished with a minus-3 turnover ratio, per NFL.com.

The versatility was being used to paper over holes. It wasn’t being used as a weapon.

Kyle Hamilton has THREE sacks in the FIRST HALF
pic.twitter.com/5oAAWlyM9Q

— PFF (@PFF) September 24, 2023

The 2026 Projection

Minter has been explicit that the James blueprint travels. “If you just look at what I’ve done the last couple of years with a guy like Derwin James and the safeties,” he said at the owners meetings, “I think we want to be really versatile.” He calls Hamilton a weapon and describes him as a one-of-one player who could be the best in the league at more than one spot.

Three things change, and each one points the same direction:

1. He gets to rush more. Hamilton’s blitz count has actually climbed — 30, 34, 46 over the last three years — while his sack total has fallen. That’s what happens when a safety attacks with nothing behind him. Minter’s version of this is different: James went to 66 blitzes and 5.5 sacks in Year 1 of the scheme, off a defense that wasn’t blitzing at all as a team. The pressures were chosen, not desperate.
2. He gets help. Trey Hendrickson is in Baltimore. Calais Campbell is up front. Nnamdi Madubuike — who led all NFL defensive linemen with 13 sacks in 2023 — is back from a neck injury and day-to-day for Week 1 at Indianapolis. Minter’s four-man rush model dies without a real front. This one is real. Oh, and let’s not forget the ascending Travis Jones.
3. He stops being the whole roster. Baltimore signed Jaylinn Hawkins specifically because Minter likes three safeties on the field regularly, with Malaki Starks in Year 2. Fewer snaps at outside linebacker and wide corner. More snaps in the slot and the box, where the ball is.

The number to watch is interceptions. James went from one to three the year his coverage duties tightened and his passer rating allowed collapsed to 59.6. Hamilton is a 6-foot-4 free safety with a catch radius most tight ends don’t have. Zero picks was never a talent verdict.

Put me down for four interceptions, double-digit passes defensed, and 4-plus sacks — the 2023 version of Hamilton with three more years of tape in his head.

One Caveat, Because Somebody Has To Say It

Minter’s defense asks defensive backs to hold up in zone without blitz help. Quick-release quarterbacks with sure-handed slot receivers — hello, Cincinnati — are exactly the problem set that scheme invites. If Wiggins and Humphrey aren’t right, “clean looks” becomes “no disguise.” Minter is calling the defense himself, per Ravens.com, which means there’s no one to hide behind if it goes sideways.

But Ben Solak of ESPN named Hamilton a dark-horse Defensive Player of the Year, and Mina Kimes picked Minter for Coach of the Year, largely on the theory that this defense is due for a violent correction.

They’re not wrong.

Minter took a safety in decline and made him rich twice. He’s now got a better version of that player, four years younger, on a $100.4 million extension, and a front seven that finally lets him play defense the way he wants to.

Derwin James was the proof of concept.

Kyle Hamilton is the payoff.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2026/09/06/lombardis-way/derwin-james-to-kyle-hamilton/