Head Coach Todd Monken (10.19.26)
Todd, when you watch the film, what do you think was going on with Deshaun Watson in the first half? Why was it so hard for him to generate anything at all? And what can you do to kind of correct some of those things going forward?
“Well, when things don’t go well or as you hope, there’s more than just one thing. We certainly need to call it better and execute better. Certainly, there were some plays out there that we could have made. Like I said, it’s more than just one thing. Obviously, when you end up with whatever it was, 44, 45 yards in the first half, I mean, it’s below the line. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’re going to continue to work that. I thought we took some steps in the run game in terms of being on the right people, moving people, and we certainly need to look at how we’re starting the game, what we’re calling, and put Deshaun in a better position to be successful.”
Hey, Todd, when you said last night that it was under construction offensively, did you think it would be this kind of bumpy over a six-game stretch to start?
“Well, I mean, you never – I don’t think you ever go into a year expecting…I would just say you’re expecting it to go a lot smoother than it’s gone. I would just say that. But I’m not frustrated. In a lot of ways, over the last few weeks, there’s certain parts of what we’re doing that I feel better about. In some ways I feel like we still have some work to do, and so that’s what we’re going to do. Go back to work and try to figure it out. And it starts with me and then our offensive staff, and then the guys that we put on the field and how we execute.”
How important or special did you think it was to get contributions, you mentioned the backup running backs, but the backup D-tackles again, Daniel Thomas coming in when Grant (Delpit) goes down. Felt like you got a lot of contributions from guys down the roster.
“Oh, for sure. No, I mean, when Grant went down and Eman (Emmanuel McNeil-Warren) had to play a lot more snaps and DT was in, and then you’ve got the running backs. Hell, I said it last night after the game with Audric (Estime). The guy shows up on Wednesday and heck, he’s taking meaningful snaps and scores a touchdown. So that says a lot about the depth of our team and the expectations of the position, which you should have. You should have expectations of any player on your roster playing at a high level. And credit to those guys and their coaches that coach them to get that out of them and have them be in a position to make plays, which is ultimately what this game is about. It’s about making plays.”
It seems when Deshaun gets the hot hand is when there’s an urgency, like those fourth quarter drives. I know you’re not in actual hurry-up mode in those cases, but it seems that that’s the mentality. Have you considered using the old hurry-up earlier in the game to get him on track?
“We’ve considered that a little bit. If you go back to the Steelers game, it felt like we had a pretty good rhythm, and then I attributed a little bit of the slow start to, we didn’t handle the weather very well. But it’s certainly something we’ve looked at in terms of trying to speed that up, and we certainly have that at our disposal. And, no, it’s hard to really put your finger on. I guess that’s why you just say it’s a 60-minute game, is you’ve got to play every minute. It just has worked out to where we’ve played a lot of our best football in the second half, minus the Steelers game. And so, again, that’s something we’re going to continue to work on, and something we’ll look at.”
Defensively, you coached against this defense for three years prior to this year. Why do you think this defense is better without Myles Garrett?
“Well, I’m not going to say that. You said that. I’m not going to say that it’s better without Myles. I don’t know that, because he’s not here. What I do know is that our guys play with physicality. They play with elite effort. They’re connected and they enjoy playing together. And that’s part of the connection piece. But they swarm to the football, and I think if you get that, it allows you to maximize your players’ measurable skill sets. And I think you see that collectively each week. You see that from our guys. They also do a great job of understanding, as I think our team does, the idea that: the ups and downs of an NFL game, the ebb and flow of it, that the other team’s going to make plays. So, what, now what? Let’s go to the next play. Each play is six seconds. Each play is independent of itself, the game within the game. And shoot, defensively, we’ve given up scoring drives on the first drive of each of the last three games. And then they’ve settled in and played outstanding and have gone stretches where they’ve gotten stops, just like nine straight the other day. So, I’m really pleased with where we’re at, and I think the guys are embracing, it’s the same scheme, but it’s a different coordinator. We’re calling it different. There are different things that we’re doing on the back end, which I think has really added something to where we’re at now.”
I know you talked about it after the game, but you talk about on offense how big it is, you’ve got to get the run game going. Ravens come in here averaging 164 a game, third in the NFL. You cut that in half. Can you just talk about how big that was with a banged-up line and backups in there?
“I think you hit it on the head after whatever it was I said last night. I think Scott (Petrak) had it in his little flip, the flip notebook. Scott had that last night of, like, 17- and 11-yard runs. And then after that I think he had 58 yards on 17 carries. I thought our guys did a great job of being physical at the point of attack, swarming, not really allowing, when Derrick (Henry) gets downhill, it’s hard to stop his momentum. We did a good job of making him run sideways and stuttering his feet. And that’s the key to it. Like you said, if you can’t comfortably turn around and hand the ball off, or you’re not efficient on first downs, it makes it hard on a starting quarterback, a starting-level quarterback in the NFL. We’re dealing with that now. At times, the more efficient you are on first down, the easier it is. Now, we found a way a couple times to not get that right. But the bottom line is the more efficient you are on first down, the easier it is to call the game.”
And do you think you’re going to get any of those guys back this week?
“I think it’s too early to tell, but I’m hopeful that we’ll get a number of guys back, and we’ll see what the guys that got dinged up yesterday, where we’re at. It’s too early to really say.”
Todd, most of your production in the passing game yesterday was on in-breaking routes. Was that more of what Baltimore’s defense was showing or doing, or more, you know, Deshaun having comfort throwing those types of routes?
“Well, it just kind of worked out that way at the end. It wasn’t the only thing we had planned. Outside lane throws, we certainly had those. We either didn’t get them thrown or they just were covered. I mean, it really isn’t, it just happened to be a byproduct. And some of them were on third downs where we were trying to attack the middle of the field. So, some of them happened organically, and some of it just happened by them taking away something or by pressure.”
And then just the past couple games, how good has it been to see Jerry Jeudy kind of get that confidence and come up big for you in the fourth quarter?
“I mean, we’re better with Jerry than we are without Jerry. And I think we’re doing a better job of getting him involved and trying to find the places where we can use Jerry. And it hasn’t been easy, as I said before. But he’s handled it well the last few weeks, and you can see it with the confidence playing, the juice he has. And that’s the biggest thing, from practice to the games, carrying that over.”
Todd, you gave some credit to the coaches for the depth pieces that you had stepping up in that game. Audric last night was talking about how Duce Staley stayed late, extra hours with him, just to get him up to speed on a short week of joining the team. What does that intentionality look like by your coaching staff? What does it look like maybe all season, not just the game plan, but what they’re doing to embrace that next man up mentality for guys to be able to step in when they’re called upon?
“No, I mean, first off, from top to bottom, from a coaching staff standpoint, you should have guys that are the best in the world. I mean, we’re coaching the guys that are the best in the world, so we should have the best-in-the-world coaches. And every organization should be fighting to have the best coaches in the world. And so, Duce does a great job with his guys, just like all of our guys do. And that was, you get a player in here that’s probably going to have to play. So what, now what? Okay, fine. We’ve got to get him ready. And Duce really took that to heart. And that’s what an elite coach does. He gets them ready for the game. Nothing in our contract says we get the guys ready, that we’re here all the way through training camp or get the guys ready that won’t do it on their own. No, that’s, I said that way back when. Like, our job is to get in the mix. That’s what you have to do, is you have to get in the mix with the guys. And it’s our job to make sure they know. And Duce did a great job.”
I have two questions on offense. One, another five sacks, I think, yesterday. Was it a carryover from the same issues of last week, or is there something else going on?
“It really wasn’t. Some of it was we were behind the sticks, so it allowed them to get into some of their exotic blitzes, which is always going to be hard. You get behind the sticks, you’re going to get the exotic blitzes, and you’re trying to push it down the field. That’s one. Two is, sometimes we were covered. That can happen. There’s a couple times where we need to get rid of the ball. It’s all of the above. The good thing is there weren’t as many communication issues. We did not have, in my opinion, Browns hurting Browns. Maybe depth of route on one, some other things, but those are easy to clean up. We took another step forward, and I would say this, there’s a couple things there. Deshaun is certainly capable of making plays with his feet, so that’s going to come up a little bit with guys that make plays with their feet. And the other is he’s very conscientious of not turning the ball over. We’ve gone four of the last five games, really, without an offensive turnover besides the last play of the game of the Jets. And that’s a winning formula. And that’s going to win if we end every possession with a kick. So, I just think he’s very conscientious of not putting the ball in harm’s way, and that’s going to lead to that. And we can certainly scheme it better, certainly get the ball out of his hands. We certainly can. It’s from top to bottom. And when we really get cooking, we’ll be shrinking those numbers for sure.”
Are teams taking Harold Fannin away? Because I know there’s only one ball to go around and all that, but he’s been kind of quiet here the last couple games.
“Well, we tried to get him a screen and they snuffed it out, so that sucked. That was early in the game, and that put us at second and 10. And sometimes the matchup’s not great, like when they go dime and that’s Kyle Hamilton. We had some that were designed or that could get to him, and that was Kyle Hamilton covering him. And the game goes sometimes in a way that it doesn’t end up where the ball doesn’t find him. And I thought Harold did a great job blocking. He did a number of things well when we asked him to do that, and he is certainly a weapon that we are trying to get the ball to. Like I said, sometimes they covered him, sometimes the coverage…but that’s hard, too, because we went three quarters without really doing much. So, it’s hard to really… No one really touched it. I mean, we would like to get the ball more to 12 (Denzel Boston), and we’d like to get the ball more to one (KC Concepcion Jr.), and Harold happens to be one of those others. And so, we just got to do a better job collectively. And then you’ll see those touches will rise.”
Deshaun talked a little bit last night just about how in the second half, especially with those in-breaking routes, he just kind of got in a mindset of he was going to let it rip a little bit more, and then those were there kind of all game. But I know you also highlighted last night, and you just talked about it, the protecting the football part of it. So, how do you balance with him, like getting him in that mentality earlier or sooner and having the confidence to just kind of make some of those tighter throws at times while also still trying to protect the football?
“Great question. I mean, that’s a lot to unpack, because you’re right. How do you balance that early in the game of letting it rip and yet maybe putting the ball in harm’s way? And certainly, like I said, I can call it better. We can put him in better position to give him some easy completions. And I don’t know, like I said, I do agree with that, that I think you get up against it and you have no choice, right? We know that. You’re up against it. You’ve got to find a way to let it rip. And like I said, that’s why you play four quarters. I’m very proud of Deshaun and the way the guys responded, because it can happen in the reverse. I mean, you could go the first quarter and have 145 yards and then go the opposite like they did. Theirs was just the opposite. Theirs was the beginning, and then in between there they were choppy. And they’re going to go back and say they’ve got a lot to work on, and we do, too, and that’s the NFL. I’m looking forward to correcting the mistakes that we made and moving on to the Titans.”
And then you touched on it briefly, but Emmanuel coming in and filling in for Grant after he went down six plays in. How have you seen him grow and get more on his plate from sort of starting the season as primarily a special teamer to now he was able to sort of just jump in and fill that role so well like he did?
“He’s going to be a tremendous football player. His range, his toughness, and he really doesn’t say much, just smiles and takes coaching and competes every day. And he missed a decent amount in the spring. He was out for a little bit. Had some issues in the spring, and that takes away from a little bit. And I just think, and I’ve said this before with a lot of players, I think confidence grows in a lot of areas. His is also part of special teams. Before he was playing a lot on defense, he was playing well on special teams, and that starts it a little bit where you gain confidence of making plays in another area and that then carries over to playing on defense. And you can see that.”
Off of Spencer (German)’s question about pulling the trigger, when you went back and looked at it on tape, because everyone now is a film sleuth that the replays are available for folks to watch, it’s easy to say, ‘Hey, the quarterback should have thrown it at this point or thrown it to A, B, or C or whatnot.’ But when you went back and looked at yesterday’s game, specifically with Deshaun, were there a lot of missed opportunities? Is that something that we’re all making too much of a big deal at the Ravens defense that tight on the receivers, et cetera?
“That’s fair. I think it’s fair to say that we look back on it now and say, ‘Maybe if we would have done this, maybe the way they match these routes, we could have uncovered the receivers better,’ which is true. We could have done a better job. I think if you asked Deshaun, there’s going to be certain plays where, I could have progressed quicker and could have gotten to my next read. I think that’s a part of it. I think there were times where we got in third and extra-long, as I mentioned before, and they hit us with a couple of stunts, and it didn’t allow him to have… If you look at the last throw that he made, we had great protection and they didn’t stunt. They rushed four. And on a couple of the others, if you have the time to really exhaust and try to get through four and five, I think you have a better chance there. And so, it’s a lot. We can do a better job of scheming it. We can certainly do a better job of holding up in protection, and he can certainly do a better job of moving through his progressions. It’s all of us, and we’ll continue to fight to get better in all areas, running it and throwing it.”
This question has kind of been asked already, so I’ll see if I can modify it from a little bit of a different angle. It seemed like Deshaun was alluding to the fact last night that perhaps he was thinking too much in the first half about what Jesse Minter was throwing at him in terms of whatever, rotating blitzes, and he ran through a whole list of different things. So, I guess my question is, is there a way that you can combat… I mean, he’s such a cerebral football player. Can you combat him from thinking way too much, and early on just kind of going out there and playing ball?
“Sure, without a doubt. There’s certain things we can do schematically. There’s certain things he can do and not overthink it and just play it out irrespective of what the pre-snap read is and then what the post-snap is. And so, they do a good job disguising. Jesse (Minter) does a great job. The staff does a great job. They’ve got good players, so the credit really goes to them early on, which at times I don’t think we do enough of that in football. And I’m going to elaborate on that. I don’t think we do enough of that in football. And there’s times that’s going to happen. Let’s take the baseball analogy, when someone will say, you know, great pitching is going to beat great hitting. And at times, you’re going to have a one-nothing game in baseball and it’s going to be hard to get hits. And at times in football, it’s going to be hard. We don’t want that. I sure as heck don’t want that. I don’t want 45 yards at halftime, maybe, I guess it’s 44. I better not tack on a yard there. But we don’t want that. But I think at times we have to give credit where credit’s due. I think our defense, for nine straight stops, they’re going to be looking at their end and going, ‘God, if we’d have done this, this, this and this.’ And I want to credit our defense, and I want to credit our players for continuing to battle and continue to fight. And even in a one-run game, a two-run homer wins it in the ninth, so, that’s what I keep pushing. I keep pushing no matter what. When it’s a low-scoring game, all it takes is a play here or there, and we got that with Carson’s (Schwesinger) knockout, and we can certainly do a better job there in helping ourselves early.”
I wanted to follow up on my original questions first. Defensively, you mentioned the defense is playing, you use the word ‘connected.’ I take that to mean as an 11-man defense, right?
“Yes, I think connected in a couple different ways. One is connected in terms of their communication. In terms of that we’re not blowing assignments, we’re not turning people loose in the back end, which can happen. I mean, with every defense, that’s a sign of a… When you have guys turning loose, you’re like, ‘Well, what just happened there?’ So, we’re connected in terms of how we’re playing certain route combinations and then connected in terms of our guys enjoying playing with each other from a human element. Of the enjoyment of the day to day, coming to practice and working together and having each other’s backs, because we’re human. You’re going to lose contain, you’re going to give up a completion, you’re going to jump offside, and then, do I have your back?”
And then back to my question about the hurry-up, up-tempo offense. Is it my imagination, or is that kind of out of vogue nowadays? I just don’t see it that much.
“Well, no, that’s a great point, Tony (Grossi). Where it’s gone is, it had kind of gone to a little bit more tempo up at the ball. And then it’s gone to a little bit more of getting up to the line. What is the defense showing you, trying to get to a premium play? Does that make sense? And when it tilts towards that and you’re under center, because a lot of your no huddles used to evolve, I’m not saying all, you can be under center, but a lot of no huddles originate from the gun. So, as the game has tilted towards under center, it’s tilted to more trying to get to a premium play. Because when you go no huddle, you have to have the answers, not always, but you’re trying to have the answers built in. Little bit of that. And, yeah, you can still get up there and try to pick the defense. I just think you’re seeing more of that under center trying to get to a premium play, and less of gun, okay, what am I seeing here? And that doesn’t mean it’s not good football, because it is.”
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