Head Coach Todd Monken (9.2.26)
So, these were the days you’re kind of envisioning getting ready for Florida?
“100%. What a blessing yesterday was, being out there where the heat index, whatever the hell they call it, ‘feels like’, was in the 90s, and today will be the same way. Tried to tell everyone it is a blessing. It won’t feel like that today, but it will be when we play next week.”
Teams that travel out to the West Coast for back-to-back games early sometimes stay out there. Did you give any thought to staying out west, or in Florida, to acclimate to the weather?
“Not really. It’s not that far of a trip, West Coast is a little bit different in terms of the travel and the time, we’re in the same time. The only thing would have been the weather, could’ve been that. But there’s a lot of logistics that go into that. You balance sleeping in your own bed, being here, as opposed to the weather. We balanced it and said we’re coming back.”
Throughout the preseason, the rookies have talked about conditioning being maybe their biggest challenge acclimating to the NFL. How have you seen your team navigate conditioning throughout camp, and where are they at in terms of being ready for the heat in Week 1?
“We’ll find out today. It was better yesterday than it was Monday, after the day off, and practicing Saturday. Yesterday was better. We’re going to find out today, I mean we’re in full pads, and it’s going to feel like it’s 95. So, we’ll find out where we’re at.”
As you start to prepare for Jacksonville, where are you at with knowing what your team does well heading into Week 1?
“I think we have a pretty good idea. I think we probably have more of an idea in terms of our personnel, per se, because we still go against each other. I think we’re pretty good on defense, we win against the Bills. We have a little bit better idea of where we are personnel-wise, but until we actually play, until we actually see it come together. I’m not sure we’re there yet, but I like where we are at. I don’t mean that as a negative, I just mean we haven’t really played a game with our ones for 60-plus snaps and all the situations and the games within the game. So, we’ll find out in less than 12 days.”
All the players Andrew (Berry) added to the 53-man roster are veterans, three, four, five-year veterans, not raw rookies. Is that more comforting to you as a coach?
“It can be. Ultimately, whether it’s a rookie, a first- or second-year player, or a veteran player, we’re just looking for players that can help us win and play well, and do they still have a developmental trait? Is there something about them that we think can help us this year and moving forward?”
And is there any clarity on Teven (Jenkins) and Austin’s (Barber) role?
“We’ll see if he practices today. He wasn’t out there yesterday, so at this point, if he’s not able to go, then Austin will be our right guard.”
When Mike Hall Jr. came back today after his 10-day layoff, I remember the first practice he looked disruptive right from the jump, did he not miss a beat, and how have you seen him return?
“Mike likes football. He likes to practice, he’s fun to be around, and very competitive. The biggest thing is trying to keep him, because he’s reckless with his body, that abandonment that you want. Trying to keep that is the biggest thing. When he’s out there, he’s very disruptive. He’s a huge plus for us defensively.”
How is Harold Fannin Jr. like tight ends you’ve coached in the past, and how is he different?
“Harold is still a developmental blocker, but what I do like about him is that guys at times with his athleticism aren’t all in on the blocking aspect of it, which he has shown he will be. He will do that for our team, so that’s still a work in progress. There were parts of the spring where we didn’t have him. But I think he has the ability to be a matchup player but also an elite run-after-catch guy. What I’ve seen on film is the run-after-catch, and a bull with the ball in his hands. Now it’s, can we get him in terms of his development further along in terms of his blocking, and as a matchup player.”
It’s unusual to keep a punter on the practice squad unless there’s an injury concern. What’s the reason you put Wes Pahl on the practice squad?
“I just think we saw a lot of upside to the player. Maybe not the consistency at this point in his career, but I think there’s enough there to at least warrant keeping him around and seeing where it goes from there.”
How did Austin look working with the ones for the first time? How did he fit in?
“He was fine. He was fine. He’s only going to continue to get better. He’s still a young player working his way through the bumps and bruises of the offense and whatnot, but he was fine.”
Enough to where he could be comfortable being a starter in Week 1?
“Sure, yeah. He’s only going to continue to get better, and we’re only going to know, their defensive style is completely different than ours, so trying to compare attack style, jet-up-the-field compared to a knock-back style bigger bodies, we’ll only really know once we play.”
For a guy that big, is there any question about whether when he is inside, he can get low enough?
“No. Again, I think it remains to be seen once we play a different style, and I like the way he’s wired, the way he works. Nothing about what he’s shown thus far tells me that he’s not capable of executing what we’re going to ask him to do at guard or at tackle.”
Todd, you and every coach are focused on keeping your starters healthy and not playing them much in the preseason. Is there a downside to that heading into the regular season?
“Sure, there is. I think where is that sweet spot, how many days of pads do you have? How many reps do you take where there’s contact involved? But where’s the upside of getting reps against good people, that’s a development piece. Where’s that balance of development with the potential for injury? That’s just the way it is. As you’re moving forward with anything in life, there are benefits to both. You can’t just walk through it all the time, and you can’t beat up your guys having them play in every preseason game. We thought we struck a pretty good balance there with our guys. And they haven’t shown any propensity to not want to hit and not enjoy contact.”
What’s your philosophy on how often you want to involve the quarterback in the run game, given the inherent risk of him getting hit more?
“That’s part of it. It kind of falls back to the same question, how much do you want to expose your quarterback to hits, and yet where can you take advantage of certain situations that helps you offensively? So, we’ll have to weigh that risk as we move forward.”
Was Lamar (Jackson) pretty injury-free when he ran in years past?
“In the two years previous to last year, when I was there, I don’t remember him being significantly hurt, run or pass. He’s really elusive. He has an uncanny ability to avoid direct hits, I’ve never seen anything like it. His spatial awareness, which shows up in the passing game, is the same in the run game. Now, when he hurt his hamstring against Kansas City, that was him running, and it didn’t really occur on a run play. So then after that, it did become a little bit hard on him to utilize all of his tools, but it really wasn’t that part of it. But any exposure isn’t good for a quarterback, or any player.”
Todd, you talked about limited reps in the preseason to take care of your guys. It seems like every year, some teams get off to slow starts because they haven’t had their starters in game settings. Do you anticipate some of that, where you’re still figuring out who you are and what you do well? What’s the timeline for when you expect it to feel like a well-oiled machine?
“I don’t know that. Our first two years in Baltimore, I’ll just speak offensively, were a little sluggish, and then last year against the Bills, we were not. So that was not the case. We had played them twice the year before, so there may have been a different mentality or approach. But I can only compare it to, Jacksonville didn’t play their starters a heck of a lot more than we played ours, so it’s equal. We’re going to go into the same game, basically practicing against other teams, and I feel like we’re going to be fine. Yesterday’s practice, we were out there in the heat, we had the noise cranked up, and our guys were fine.”
Todd, when you send everybody off for the three-day holiday weekend, does that apply to the entire coaching staff? If so, with the opener coming up, are you able to shut it down at all, or what will that look like for you guys?
“Friday we’ll start installing. We’re practicing against them, but we’ll start game-planning and really drilling down on Friday. Coaches will have Saturday off, and Sunday morning, and we’ll be back here Sunday afternoon to finish up the game-planning for Monday. We’ll work tomorrow afternoon after we let the guys go, all day Friday, and I’ll be here Saturday morning. I’m a fan like everybody else, I like college football, so I’ll be watching college football, maybe catch a horse race or two, try to get my mind off of it and get away a little bit. But you can never really get away, because you’ve got to prep and be ready. There’s a certain point of like, where we are who we are, at this point, it’s kind of hard to reinvent the wheel with what we’ve worked on and what we want to continue to drill down on. But yeah, the coaches will have Saturday and Sunday morning off.”
Todd, what are the challenges of adding three of your six corners within the last week, getting them up to speed?
“I’m excited, because we didn’t have them. I mean, the other side of it was we didn’t have them. There’s a reason why we signed them to come here, because we needed them, we needed the depth there. We’ve had some guys banged up. We brought D (Damarri) Mathis in because we had others out. That’s just been a tough position in terms of guys getting nicked up, so I’m excited because, obviously we had a deficit there and needed to get some guys in that we think can help us and develop.”
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