Head Coach Todd Monken (8.12.26)
What’s the plan when you get to Chicago?
“Friday we will walk through at a high school, De La Salle, there in Chicago. We’ll do a walkthrough there. Similar to as if it was a West Coast game. Similar to that, we’ll leave a couple of days beforehand and enjoy dinner together and then we’ll have walkthrough on Friday and have our normal Friday night meetings and be ready to go Saturday.”
Deshaun (Watson) was up here saying some years had passed since he was in Houston and doesn’t think about him the same way. Do you feel like he has to change his style of play at all given the injuries and the time that’s passed?
“I think you have to be who you are. If you’re trying to be something you’re not, you’re not going to play at the highest level for your skillset. So, it’s just the way it is with him. He’s going to have to utilize his athleticism in order to play at the top of his skill set. Now, can he learn how to slide? Of course. Can he get better at throwing the ball away? Of course. But one of his superpowers is his athleticism. I mean, that always has been. So, you can’t take that away or you’ve basically taken away a part of what made him special.
Todd, have you made the decision as to who is going to start Saturday?
“I have.”
You said the starter would be whoever gives you the best chance to score. How much of a factor is that versus building balance?
“That’s for the first game of the regular season. We’re going to see both of them. One’s going to start this week and one’s going to start next week, and we’re going to play them about a half each. I’d like to see a quarterback play a half and get a two-minute, we’re going to do everything we can to get a two-minute and for the half, and we’re going to try to do the exact same thing the next week.”
Why one for Chicago and the other for Buffalo?
“You have to pick somebody. I have my reasons for how it’s going to go, and it’s still a competition. We’re excited to watch guys practice today, let alone on Saturday, and then next week against Buffalo, and we’ll get a chance to see them both. Every week we’ll assess it. It’ll be a little bit more difficult with the player that doesn’t play as much this week or the other quarterbacks, right? We’ll be able to assess the quarterback that started and how he played and when the other quarterbacks came in and then the opposite will be next week against Buffalo.”
Will the quarterback who doesn’t start play in this game?
“Yes. The one that doesn’t start will play the third quarter.”
Will you keep starting offensive line in for the whole first half?
“We’re not going to do that. Again, I think I mentioned the other day we’d like our starters to begin the game. We’ll see where they’re at in terms of who they’re playing up front. I think it’d be unfair to our quarterbacks, either game, to not have our guys up front to give our quarterback a chance to function, so that’ll be predicated on what the Bears do a little bit. Now, if they play their starters for three quarters, we’re not going to do that. Ultimately, we want to give our quarterbacks a chance to function no matter who they put out there, collectively as a group both weeks. Now, it’s going to be a little harder against Buffalo because, depending on the practice schedule Thursday, we might not play the guys next Thursday because of the Saturday.”
Todd, Austin Barber was at left tackle yesterday and Dawand (Jones) was at right tackle with the second group.
“It was just to move them around and get him some work on either side. That was by design. Hop (George Warhop) had come to me and said, ‘hey, we’re going to do that’, right before practice, and I said that was fine. So, we just flipped them.”
You mentioned the other day that preseason games are an extra evaluation layer for the guys in terms of getting hit. What about for building rhythm? How does game flow help guys build a rhythm differently than practice?
“Well, it just does, in terms of stacking plays. There’s a finality to a drive, as opposed to out here where we’re just playing situations unless you’re moving the football. There, it’s like, all right, we just punted, we kicked a field goal, we didn’t finish with a touchdown. So, there’s that part of it, the repercussions for what you do, interceptions, there’s repercussions other than just a little celebration run-around. There are repercussions. It puts you in a hole, not only in yardage or stops you from scoring, but gives up points. So, all of that is true, even beyond the quarterback understanding they’re going to get hit.”
Is the determining factor for who starts against the Bears something you can share?
“I don’t feel like I need to share that, but I have my reasons why. And again, it’s really not that big a deal, because they’re both going to play in the two games, just more than one or the other, and one’s going to start the other.”
Travis (Switzer) was talking yesterday about trying to save eight seconds before you get to the line of scrimmage. What’s the genesis of that, and how important do you think saving those seconds is when the quarterback gets to the line?
“Well, we came up with this a few years ago, and it’s called the four twos. What saves eight seconds of anxiety on your quarterback and your center? What is that? It’s how we build our play calls. How do we shrink the calls, put a little bit on the players so the call is shorter. Starting with the initial part. How do I get the play in two seconds quicker? How do we shrink the calls to get two seconds off? How do I get it in quicker? How do we get into the huddle quicker from down the field on the sideline? And how do we break the huddle quicker? That’s the four twos. How do we buy seconds? Because there’s nothing worse than anxiety at the line of scrimmage for any decision-maker. That’s a fact, and that’s in life. You don’t want anxiety. I said the other day, if you’re flying, do you want the pilot to have anxiety? Of course not. If you’re getting operated on, do you want the doctor to have anxiety? Of course not, right? Holy s***. So, what are we trying to do? We’re trying to eliminate anxiety. How do we function at a really high level if we’re up there with anxiety and the clock’s running down and you can’t get to the right call, and I’m trying to figure out whether you call a timeout or not. That starts with us, in terms of how we build it, the terminology, getting the call in, getting everybody in the huddle, and then getting out of the huddle and saving time on the clock. For us to really function at a high level, that’s the art.”
Do you think you guys are doing okay with that?
“We’ve been fine, obviously there’s room for improvement, and it’s a little bit different here because at times, we’re behind the line, we basically run 10 yards now, heck, we might be on the sideline, you’ve got to run all the way to the other hash at the 10-yard line. That’s what preseason’s for, and I’m excited to see that part of it, let alone our guys play. Our guys are going to play. Our guys have played hard since I’ve gotten here. I don’t anticipate anything other than them playing their rear ends off, but how we operate: all of us, coaches and players for the first time.”
With Deshaun saying today that with the recognition, it’s not going to look exactly the same for him as it did in 2020 in Houston. With all the quarterbacks you’ve worked with, how important is that kind of self-awareness for a guy as he goes through his career?
“Well, first of all, I would never put limitations on a player. I’d hate that he would do that. Why can’t he be? Why can’t he play like that? I don’t know, I haven’t seen it yet. I’m not going to say he can’t until I see it. I’ve seen a lot of really good things over the course of the four or five months I’ve been here. I’m not going to put that on him. If he thinks he can’t play like that, that’s on him. I think he’s done a lot of really good things athletically, making plays that we’re going to get a chance to see, because we’re not live. We’ll see if that comes to play when we get out there and go.”
What do you remember about your first game at Southern Mississippi as head coach, other than it being your very first game as a head coach? Or is it so long ago it’s out of your mind?
“We didn’t play very well, I know that, because we went 1-11, we won our last game. So, it was 11 straight games of people would call me and they were like, ‘hey, call me back. I said, ‘well, I’m going to call them back after we get our first win.’ Then we got a little further down, and I said, ‘well, I better call them back, s*** I don’t know where this is headed.’ So, obviously we didn’t play very well our first game, I do remember that. I think it might have been Texas State. It was Texas State; we didn’t play very well.”
Given your roots in Illinois, growing up near Chicago, have you thought about your first game being in Chicago, and what growing up in that area means to you in your career?
“Well, it is interesting that it turned out that way, and it is a preseason game. But to go back, I grew up outside of Chicago, and all my family, my wife’s family’s from there, my family being from there, it’s pretty cool, that part of it. But I’m more excited about watching our guys play than anything else, and I’m excited to get started, because we have three of these opportunities to clean up what we want to clean up, along with three weeks of practice to really clean up. So, we’re really ready to go against Jacksonville, because ultimately we are all going to have things to clean up as a staff and as a team before we put our best foot forward against Jacksonville.”
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