Anthony Weaver, the former defensive line coach for the Baltimore Ravens, gave his position group a “winning thought” during their final meeting before each game. Although he usually took charge, he occasionally gave other coaches a chance to speak. Last season, Weaver was assigned as the head coach’s assistant and defensive assistant to Megan Rosburg on the Saturday before the team’s game against the Cleveland Browns in Week 4.
Rosburg was born and raised in Cleveland, where her father, Jerry, was the special teams coordinator for the Browns. For her, it was a poignant occasion. However, it was also nerve-wracking because she had never addressed the D-line room and was just in her second year as an NFL coach. But when she got up in front of everyone, that nervousness turned into unfiltered emotion.
“Every good story needs a villain!” Rosburg shouted.
As the Ravens defensive line dominated the Browns in a 28-3 rout the following day, that message became their rallying cry.
“All the guys on the sideline were repeating her line,” Weaver said recently. “That stuck with us for a while.”
The 31-year-old Rosburg is one of the NFL’s 12 full-time female coaches. Rosburg was reassured by the players’ enthusiasm for her message that they held her in the same regard as other staff coaches.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about the players. Whether you’re a female coach or a male coach, your resume is what they do on tape,” Rosburg said. “If you can give the players information or give them an advantage to help them win on Sunday, they will trust you and they will respect you. If you’re genuine and you do things that will help them win and help them prolong their career, it doesn’t matter what you look like. … If you’re real with them and you can help them, they’ll trust you as their coach.”
One time for the women in the NFL holding it down in this league 👏👏
Speak on it @clownejd ❗️ pic.twitter.com/Nv7b2tmeUN
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 18, 2023
Rosburg has a different day every day. Outside linebackers and the defensive line are her main areas of responsibility. She assists the coaching staff with film analysis and scouting, leads defensive line drills during practice, and supports her fellow coaches in team meetings. Off the field, she assists head coach John Harbaugh with travel arrangements, practice schedules, and communication between the players, executives, and coaching staff.
“Nothing’s beneath her, but she’s capable of so much,” former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald said recently. “You didn’t have to think, ‘Oh, well, Megan, she’ll get it at some point.’ It was always like, ‘Oh, she gets it immediately.’ She’s the real deal.”
Rosburg’s work ethic helped her gain favor with the Ravens staff right away, but the team decided to invest in her growth because of her enthusiasm for the game.
“We really weren’t sure exactly what she was going to be capable of or what she was going to be able to handle, but very early on I realized that she was a football girl,” said Weaver, now the Miami Dolphins’ defensive coordinator. “So I was going to do everything within my power to help feed that.”
Examining film to find run or pass cues from opposition offensive lineman was one of Rosburg’s initial tasks. The idea was to give their defensive linemen an advantage by using those pre-snap hints.
“Once she gave those reports to me,” Weaver said, “we were like, ‘Oh yeah, this is 100 percent accurate,’ and I would have her present it to the players. I think at first that was probably a little bit intimidating for her, but I knew she could handle it.”
Rosburg, who is about to begin her third season in the NFL, is not afraid to admit that she is constantly learning more about football. That has not changed how the Ravens’ management, coaches, or players treat her.
“I truly don’t think that coaches or players are opposed or appalled by the idea at all,” Rosburg said. “I honestly think it’s the opposite. It just goes back to, ‘Hey, it’s the NFL, this is the best of the best. Who can help me learn in the way that I need it the most?’”
Rosburg, who is about to begin her third season in the NFL, is not afraid to admit that she is constantly learning more about football. That has not changed how the Ravens’ management, coaches, or players treat her.
“It’s truly all I’ve ever known,” she said. “My dad would come home, and we would obviously talk a lot about our days, but I was more interested to see how practice was going.”
Jerry could always make Rosburg feel like he was a member of the team. She began her collegiate volleyball career at American University, where she captained her team to the NCAA Sweet 16 after playing flag football as a young player. After graduation in 2014, she accepted a corporate job in Detroit, but she missed the camaraderie and competitive spirit of athletics. She talked to her father about possibly pursuing a career in football.
Working together as coaches at the University of Cincinnati and then as the Ravens’ special teams coordinator from 2008 to 2018, Jerry and Harbaugh cultivated a close friendship. In the spring of 2022, Harbaugh approached young Rosburg with a job offer after learning of her interest.
Jerry saw his daughter’s growth personally and retired in 2022.
“We always carve out time to talk ball,” Jerry said. “I’m really impressed by her grasp of the defensive system. She’s now at a point where we’re talking about things, not (just) what they are, but how they’re applied and how they can be utilized.”
As crucial as Xs and Os are, Jerry understood that she would also need to figure out how to relate to and win over players. That is true for any coach, but it seemed obvious that a woman coaching football would have a particular challenge in pulling that together.
“When there’s a female college volleyball player coaching the defensive line in the NFL, it’s unique. But she’s gone into it with the idea that, ‘I need to earn my way,’” Jerry said. “And, because of that, I think she’s garnered the respect of the players.”
Rosburg established rapport with the players fast, especially with defensive tackle Michael Pierce and former edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney of the Ravens. Even though Rosburg is actively working to increase the number of female NFL coaches—she was just coach Rosburg in Baltimore—and she spoke at this year’s NFL Women’s Forum on the subject.
“I could see that they weren’t just treating her as an ornament or a fringe piece,” Jerry said. “They respected her, and they consulted with her. Aside from the football piece, she’s always had this emotional intelligence about her. She’s been a leader even when she was young.
“She’s been involved in big-time athletics from a female perspective, but to stand in the defensive huddle and command that kind of attention, it’s something to be admired. And she does it because she approaches it the right way. She’s not trying to make some kind of point for the oppressed females in the NFL. That’s not what she’s doing. She’s trying to help the D-line.”
Although Macdonald never played football beyond high school, he was appointed this offseason as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Though it is becoming more common, women still have very few opportunities to play football after high school. Despite not having played in the NFL, Macdonald became the league’s youngest head coach at age 36, and he does not think it should be a reason to disparage female coaches.
“It’s so competitive that you’re trying to find the best people you can find, and there’s a lot of talented women out there that can help you win,” Macdonald said. “So why would you not want these people in your building to help you out?”
In 2022–2023, during his second season with the Ravens, Macdonald got to know Rosburg. Her capacity to relate to people astonished him.
“Her superpower is to generate those relationships,” Macdonald said. “The players can feel how genuine and authentic she is and how much she cares about where they’re coming from to be able to relate.”
Rosburg is not a professional football player, but he understands the emotional and physical strains that athletes face. She has been able to dodge some of the stigmas associated with being a woman in the NFL because to this.
“When I first got into this game as a player, I’d probably turned a blind eye to it, but now I’m just seeing how much value (women) can have,” Weaver said. “They offer a different perspective of the game. Sometimes women can do a better job of taking some of the machismo and ego out of it, right? … There’s a tremendous amount of value in that.”
The only female athletes Jerry observed working in the sport were athletic trainers when he began coaching high school football in 1979. It would have been difficult for him to picture his daughter coaching professional football at that time. Rosburg’s journey was undoubtedly sped by his relationship with Harbaugh, but he is aware that she would not be hired unless she proved she was deserving.
“Especially at the highest levels in the NFL, I don’t think there’s space for free riders. You’ve got to contribute,” Jerry said. “And the talents of these young ladies that I’ve seen, they have something to bring to the table. … The more we can do to bring more people in, we should all be fully in favor of that.”
Rosburg is optimistic that more women will be motivated to pursue careers comparable to hers by visibility.“That’s the main thing: just realizing they can be a part of it in that way,” she said.
With the Ravens, Rosburg has already demonstrated her value. Is it possible that she will eventually assume a more significant role?
“As her confidence grows and her knowledge of the game grows in terms of the schematics, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see her growing into a position coach and maybe one day even being a coordinator,” Weaver said. “You talk about someone that’s capable of breaking glass ceilings — if I was going to bet on somebody, I’d have no problem putting money on her.”
(Top photo: Courtesy of Megan Rosburg)
