After a poor 2025 at home, the Ravens try to turn the page when they host New Orleans

Jesse Minter wasn't even with the Ravens last season, but the new coach seems to have a healthy grasp of how 2025 went so badly wrong for Baltimore.

The team went 3-6 at home — the worst mark in franchise history.

“I have coached in this stadium a bunch of times. It is an advantage for the home team, and we need to play that way,” Minter said. “We need to play the way that lets our crowd really be into the game and really help us. We need to feed off of their energy. I know it is going to be a great crowd. We have the best fans in the world.”

Baltimore plays its home opener Sunday against New Orleans. It'll be the second straight road game for the Saints, who fell in overtime to Detroit last weekend. The Ravens opened with a win at Indianapolis.

Both teams showed they could put up points, although Baltimore is now dealing with injuries to receiver Zay Flowers (hamstring), tackle Ronnie Stanley (toe) and guard John Simpson (groin). All three missed practice time this week.

New Orleans quarterback Tyler Shough was Louisville’s starter in 2024, eight years after Baltimore's Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy for the Cardinals.

“I’m a huge fan. I feel like he’s playing the game at such a high level that’s different than a lot of guys in the league. His ability to obviously separate and make plays, but he’s so under control, he can throw it anywhere on the field," Shough said. "It’s going to be a really good test for us.”

Saints running back Alvin Kamara (knee) has been a full participant at practice this week after missing Week 1. New Orleans ended up with 469 yards without him, but the Saints fell behind 21-0 in the third quarter before coming alive.

“We’ve just got to play better in the first quarter, simple as that," New Orleans coach Kellen Moore said. "We know where we’re at. We know where we’re going and there’ll be adjustments as we go.”

The Saints had the fourth-most total yards last week. Only Chicago (552) managed more than Baltimore's 506.

New Orleans (0-1) at Baltimore (1-0)

When/where to watch: Sunday, 1 p.m. EDT, CBS

Latest odds: Ravens by 8 1/2

Against the spread: Saints 1-0; Ravens 1-0.

Last week: Saints lost to the Lions 31-30 in OT; Ravens beat the Colts 41-23.

Last meeting: Ravens beat Saints 27-13 on Nov. 7, 2022, in New Orleans.

Series record: Ravens lead 6-2.

Baltimore RB Derrick Henry against the New Orleans defense. It's the second straight week the Saints have to deal with a top running back after Detroit's Jahmyr Gibbs rushed for 156 yards and two touchdowns against them. Henry had 144 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries against the Colts, but the Saints may be able to crowd the line of scrimmage a bit against a banged up Baltimore receiving group.

— Shough led the NFL with a career-high 410 yards passing last week to go with three TD passes.

— Saints WR Chris Olave caught 10 passes for a career-high 182 yards receiving in Week 1. Olave set career highs with 100 receptions for 1,163 yards and nine TDs in 2025.

— New Orleans edge rusher Chase Young was credited with a pass defensed in Week 1 after what initially had been ruled a sack and forced fumble for a defensive TD was overturned to an incomplete pass. Young had a career-high 10 sacks in 2025.

— Henry needs 98 yards to surpass Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson (13,259) for ninth place on the NFL's career rushing list.

— The Ravens had an NFL-high 19 plays of at least 10 yards in Week 1.

— Minter can become the first person since the 1970 merger to produce 40 points in his first two games as a team's coach.

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) passes under pressure from Detroit Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson (97) in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Rey Del Rio)

Baltimore Ravens' Lamar Jackson throws during the second half of an NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Syrian military official convicted of torturing prisoners during the rule of former President Bashar Assad has been sentenced to 60 years in a U.S. prison.

A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Samir Ousman Alsheikh on Thursday. A jury found him guilty in March of one count of conspiracy to commit torture and three counts of torture while in charge of Syria's infamous Adra Prison from roughly 2005 to 2008.

“The conduct was heinous, unimaginably cruel, and almost unspeakably violent and brutal,” the judge said before announcing the sentence.

Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families.

Prosecutors said Alsheikh, seeking to quash political dissent, sent certain prisoners to a wing of Adra where they were held in small isolation cells and tortured.

At the two-week trial, three victims recounted beatings while suspended from pipes on the ceiling and the use of a device that folded their bodies in half at the waist. One person testified that Alsheikh stomped on the device with his foot, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Defendant knew that what he was doing was wrong,” DOJ prosecutors said in a sentencing memo filed this month. “Nonetheless he ordered and participated in the torture of his victims because he had the power to do so and because he thought he would never be held accountable.”

The memo included statements from several victims, one of whom, Nidal Shikhani, said he can “still hear the screams of others begging for mercy, repeating, ‘Leave me, leave me.’”

The prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera for a minimum sentence of 80 years. Alsheikh's attorneys, Nina Marino and Collin Cate, have called for a five-year sentence, noting that he is 74 years old and has “significant medical and cognitive conditions.”

They also said he was willing to be deported to Syria, where a new government has sought to hold Assad-era security officials accountable.

“Whatever moral weight this case carries in the broader arc of history — however much the world, or the victims, or the public might wish the sentence to ‘send a message’ — that desire cannot be the foundation of a just sentence,” Marino and Cate wrote in their Sept. 3 memo.

Alsheikh came to the U.S. in 2020 and applied for citizenship, but prosecutors say he concealed his involvement in torture. Federal authorities detained him at Los Angeles International Airport in July 2024.

Jurors also convicted him in March of lying to U.S. immigration authorities and fraudulently obtaining a green card and attempting to naturalize as a U.S. citizen.

Assad was ousted in a lightning rebel offensive in December 2024, bringing a 14-year civil war to an end, but the country has continued to suffer from sporadic outbreaks of violence.

In March 2025, armed groups aligned with Assad ambushed the new government’s security forces on Syria’s coast. A government counteroffensive then spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks and the massacre of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which Assad belongs.

On Thursday, three people were sentenced in the Syrian city of Aleppo in connection with the violence. Two members of the pro-Assad groups were sentenced to death and life in prison, while a member of the security forces who took part in the revenge attacks was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Thanawala reported from Atlanta.

The exterior of the federal courthouse is seen March 27, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)