A day after losing Mike Macdonald to the Seattle Seahawks, the Baltimore Ravens have found their next defensive coordinator, announcing Thursday that assistant Zach Orr has been promoted to the position.
Macdonald, 36, became the NFL's youngest head coach by agreeing to replace Pete Carroll atop Seattle's staff on Wednesday. Now, Orr will become one of the league's youngest coordinators at 31 after two seasons as Baltimore's linebackers coach.
Orr was on the field for the Ravens not so long ago, appearing in 46 games at linebacker from 2014-2016. In his lone season as a full-time starter, he earned All-Pro honors, logging 133 tackles and three interceptions in 2016. He retired the following offseason, however, due to a spinal and neck condition and immediately joined Baltimore's staff as a defensive analyst.
Orr briefly left the Ravens in 2021, serving one year as the Jacksonville Jaguars' outside linebackers coach, before returning to Baltimore in 2022 in the same role. Under Macdonald the last two seasons, he helped the Ravens log back-to-back top-five finishes in scoring defense, also overseeing productive marks from veteran newcomers Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy.
Van Noy has already endorsed Orr's promotion, joking that the Ravens' defensive-coordinator speeches are "about to hit different."
