ExtremeRavens Posted January 26 Posted January 26 The unsung hero of the Ravens’ season has to be offensive coordinator Todd Monken. Outside linebackers coach Chuck Smith is a close second because of his innovative pass rushing techniques, which is why the Ravens are No. 1 in sacks, but Monken came in with a big bullseye on his back when he replaced Greg Roman last February. The Ravens have responded. They are ranked No. 6 in total offense, No. 1 in rushing and No. 21 in passing. They have a quarterback, Lamar Jackson, who is a favorite to win the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and they will play the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday in the AFC title game. That’s impressive. The only encore would be holding up the Vince Lombardi Trophy and collecting a Super Bowl ring, which would go along with the two national championships Monken won as the offensive coordinator at Georgia. But, first things first. The Chiefs are ranked No. 2 in total defense and No. 4 against the pass, allowing only 191.1 passing yards a game. They are second to Baltimore in sacks with 57. “I mean, what a great job they’ve done collectively,” Monken said. “They have outstanding coaches. They have outstanding players. They’re very disruptive. Whatever you’re going to run, you better have the answers for what they’re going to give you. “When you’re fourth in the league in yards per play [allowed] and I don’t know how many games they haven’t given up 20 points, but you can see it on tape — how hard they play, they tackle well, they’re well-coached and they are very disruptive.” Regardless, nothing can take away from Monken’s success in a year of transition from the college to the pro game. He mixed a roster of young players with some veterans and the Ravens overcame major injuries to running backs J.K. Dobbins and Keaton Mitchell and tight end Mark Andrews. Offensively, the Ravens have had their ups and downs, but more pluses than minuses. They make opposing teams defend the entire field, something Monken stressed when first hired. “We have to keep working, attack down the field a little bit more,” Monken said. “But I think we’ve done some of it from sideline to sideline and trying to spread the ball around. We don’t have a 1,000-yard rusher, we don’t have a 1,000-yard receiver, but we’ve been pretty good about having to defend all our players. I think that’s balance, which is just not run-pass [ratio] but having players capable of making plays and utilizing their skills.” Ravens' Organized Team ActivitiesKenneth K. Lam/Baltimore SunRavens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, left, talks with quarterback Lamar Jackson in June. “I think he’s a great blend of veteran in terms of playmaking, in terms of seeing the field, in terms of leadership,” Monken said of Jackson. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff) It all starts with Jackson, but it doesn’t end there. Jackson’s statistics — career-high 3,678 passing yards, 24 touchdown passes — are impressive, but the biggest difference compared with previous seasons is that he doesn’t panic. He has improved in other areas, but go back and look at the first half of the Christmas night victory against the San Francisco 49ers and the second half of Sunday’s divisional round win over the Houston Texans. In the past, Jackson would have imploded in similar situations. Monken’s experience of having coached in both college and the NFL since 1989 has provided a calming influence. Jackson, in his sixth season, is a “tweener” in the NFL. “I think he’s a great blend of veteran in terms of playmaking, in terms of seeing the field, in terms of leadership,” Monken said. “He’s a veteran in terms of a lot of those things where he’s young in being in charge. I’m fine with that, but tell me what you don’t or do like, if you rather do this or that. “Then he has to live with it when it doesn’t work. There’s some empowerment that comes from that and he’s embraced that. As he gets older, he’s going to want to be in charge and he should.” Monken has had the same influence on the receivers. Coming into the season, he had a mix of veterans such as Odell Beckham Jr. and Nelson Agholor as well as younger players such as Rashod Bateman, rookie Zay Flowers and tight end Isaiah Likely. Monken, 57, can be gruff at times. He has that raspy voice and can run practices like a marine sergeant. A lot of receivers in the NFL demand the ball, but the Ravens haven’t had any of that, at least publicly. Maybe it’s because Monken coached receivers in college and later on in his pro career in Jacksonville and Tampa Bay. Or maybe it’s because Jackson has been able to spread the ball around. Flowers had 77 receptions during the regular season, while Agholor and Beckham each had 35. Bateman had 32 and Likely finished with 30. “I’ve coached wideouts a lot in my life and they are fun to be around,” Monken said. “It doesn’t bother me when they want the ball. I mean, they should want the ball, it’s what they do for a living, right? You play basketball, you want shots. You play baseball, you want at-bats. But they’ve got to understand it’s still one ball. “I think there’s a part where you try with whomever your players are to treat them similarly as best you can in your approach — coaching, demanding, teaching, hearing what they have to say.” It’s been the same way with the rotation of the starting offensive tackles. Monken has inserted backups Patrick Mekari and Daniel Faalele at times in the final quarter of the season to keep starters Morgan Moses and Ronnie Stanley healthy for the postseason run. It seems as if everything Monken touches works, but there was an adjustment period. The pro game has changed, though he was the Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator in 2019 before he left for Georgia. According to Monken, defenses are attacking more, trying to negate spread offenses and causing disruption to prevent big plays. At Georgia, the Bulldogs weren’t involved in a lot of close games. In the NFL, it happens weekly, even though the Ravens have won by 14 points or more nine times this season and rarely trailed. “I would say Georgia probably didn’t prepare me for having a lot of the last two minutes, four minutes where the games are on the line like in the NFL,” Monken said. “You’re going to have games where you’re going to have to be really good in situational football. When these situations come up, that’s where you gain your experiences — trial and error — mistakes that you make and try to get better with.” Then there are analytics, which might be a coach’s friend or enemy. Monken prefers a combination. “Why not have information or analytics in terms of decision making? Then what you do with the information is really the critical part of it and having a great feel for it,” he said. “There is room for both at the same time.” Monken has been able to evolve with the game. The Ravens still dominate with the running game, but there are more passing concepts such as flood and wheel routes, delays over the middle, rubs and clearouts. In Baltimore, Monken has been able to use space appropriately with players like the 5-foot-10, 172-pound Flowers, who can operate in the slot, on the outside or as a running back. More and more teams are finding a need for smaller, shiftier players like Flowers. Monken started out as a graduate assistant at Grand Valley State in 1989. Back then, most teams were still in a two-back formation. Few used a shotgun formation, and a one-back set was only for third down passing situations. Wide receivers were still in a three-point stance and big shed and shock linebackers such as Dick Butkus and Mike Curtis were in vogue. But the game has changed, and Monken has been able to change with it. He’s a major reason for the Ravens’ success. That’s why he is the unsung hero. View the full article Quote
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