Head Coach Todd Monken (9.16.26)

Todd, when you were talking about Baker (Mayfield) the other day, you said he’s a great player and talked about how much he loves the game from when you were around him. From an on the field standpoint, what do you like best about him?

“Well, first off, he’s highly intelligent. You could just get the beginning of a call out of your mouth, and he’s already got it down. He wants the game plan early so he can look at it at home. So, he comes into the building prepared. On the field, he’s just highly, highly competitive, and he holds himself to a high standard, and he holds others to a high standard, which is everything you’re looking for in a player, I guess, just in a human being in general.”

 

What was your message to the team today after a rough start in Week One?

“It’s pretty simple. We didn’t coach or play as well as we’d have liked to, but it is one, and we’re going to own it and we’re going to fight like hell to fix it. That’s all you can do. That’s really it. And we’re disappointed, but what do we have to be down about? I sure as hell don’t. I waited my whole life to be a head coach, I said that the other night, and heck, I’m 60, I don’t know how many years I’ve got left. I’m going to enjoy every day, work my rear end off to get this thing turned. And our players have nothing to be bummed about. They get paid to play this game. So, we’re going to go out there and have a heck of a Wednesday practice, and tomorrow have a great Thursday and Friday, and take another step forward this Sunday.”

 

Do you feel differently about the operation after you’ve had a chance to watch the film and digest it?

“Well, it wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t anticipating that, I really wasn’t. So, what are we going to do? We’re going to fight like hell to get better at the operation. We all got to own that, that’s not a one-player thing, that’s a coaching thing, that’s a playing thing. I did not anticipate that; I really did not. But that’s okay. The operation, as much as it was disappointing, was not the reason we lost. It was a piece of it, but it wasn’t everything. There were other pieces that were part of it. We just got to clean it up. That’s what we’ll do, starting today.”

 

You mentioned the two rookie O-linemen a little bit the other day, but with Austin (Barber) specifically, how did he handle the silent-count stuff, and looking forward to next week, how important is that?

“Yeah, Austin did great. Austin has been progressively getting better every week. I was excited for him, not the outcome from a team standpoint, but to go back home, being from down there, I’m sure he had lots of family there. He wanted to be able to play well, and he did.”

 

Did he play well enough in that game to remain the starter this week even if Teven (Jenkins) is healthy?

“I see it that way, yes.”

 

Deshaun (Watson) had a couple of deep drops out of the shotgun on Sunday. One was a sack and I think the other was the (Denzel) Boston touchdown. How much of that is part design and how does that help him execute what you guys need him to execute?

“We need to be more consistent in our drops overall at quarterback. But there’s a lot of things we’ve got to be more consistent at collectively as a team. That’s just one piece of it.”

 

From a defensive standpoint, the fact that you guys are playing a little bit more zone than these guys had last year, were they just not ready for that adjustment in-game? Or is that something you have to reconsider?

“Well, we didn’t play well collectively as a team. So, the idea was to take the ball, get a good return, give ourselves a chance to score early in the game, and we did that other than when we turned it over. And then they proceeded, they went down and scored. They had a third-and-seven converted for a touchdown. But then offensively you go three-and-out, three-and-out, two-and-out, and how do you get any adjustments done? How do you even get a chance to catch your breath defensively? And we just didn’t do a very good job. We couldn’t get a stop, and we couldn’t get a first down, and that’s where the game was won and lost, right there, for them and for us, against a really good and well-coached team. The Jaguars are a really good football team, and we did not put our best foot forward. And when you don’t, and you don’t make the other team play their best, you give them chips, it’s going to look like that, and we did that to ourselves.”

 

Do you approach every game like scoring first is essential?

“I don’t know that. I felt it there to start it. I felt the game there, the season they were coming off, the firepower that they have, I wanted to be able to take the ball and show confidence in our offense, and it didn’t turn out that way. But that’s okay. I don’t regret doing what I did…”

 

Is that your overall philosophy?

“I don’t know that each game’s a little bit different. Would I like to score first? Of course.”

 

Going back to the zone-defense question, is that a philosophical thing for you and/or Rudy (Mike Rutenberg), that you think you should play more zone defense, maybe create more turnovers, than the man coverage the Browns played previously?

“Well, we played a decent amount of man the other night. Even some of the zone principles have match-coverage principles within it. So it wasn’t, at the end of the day, and Rudy would say this, we weren’t good enough coaching and playing, really, at least for sure, offense and defense. It just wasn’t. And that’s okay. It’s okay now, it wasn’t okay then, but it’s okay now. There’s nothing we can do about it now besides look at it, learn from it. What did we gain from that, and how do we fix it? And that’s what we’re going to do, as long as I’m here, and that’s what you can do. And whether you’re playing zone or man, because I’ve gone against the previous Browns regime, they played a good amount of zone. They played a good amount of spot-drop zone and invert. So, it wasn’t just all man. But we’re trying to figure out who we are, who we’re going to be moving forward. And that’s part of the process; part of the long game is figuring out who we’re going to be as we move forward each week.”

 

It’s obviously disappointing to lose Dylan (Sampson) to IR for a little bit, but how can Raheim Sanders use this opportunity to showcase his capabilities within the run game and special teams?

“Well, I think it’s going to open up opportunities for him and for JMac (Jaleel McLaughlin), who we’ve had on practice squad.”

 

I know you said that the decision to start Deshaun is not going to be a week-to-week thing. But based on what happened in the first week, do you feel like he has to have a really good game in Tampa to earn that start back at home?

“I wouldn’t say that. I always expect our players to play well; I wouldn’t put them out there if I didn’t. So, I expect him to play really well. There was moments Sunday that he did, and there were moments we did a really good job offensively, and there were moments we didn’t. There were moments we didn’t coach well enough; there were moments we didn’t play well enough. I don’t get too far ahead, because really what matters most is that we have a great Wednesday, and that’s what I can control. Today was my messaging this morning, what our game plan, at least the initial part of it, looks like, and how we can go out there and have practices like we’ve had. That was what was so frustrating in some regard, just that we didn’t play better based on how we had practiced. But again, there’s a difference. Because I thought early in the game, if you look at the tape, our guys were playing hard, they were flying around to the ball, we were trying to play physically. We just got worn down. And you can get worn down physically and mentally when things aren’t going your way. And we just couldn’t stop the bleeding. And it’s just the way it is, happens sometimes.”

 

Baker, your year with him, one of his strengths/weaknesses is that he can get over-hyped in a game. He has the mentality where he carries a chip on his shoulder. Did you see that in your year together?

“Oh yeah. But I would rather have it that way. I don’t see anybody who sees that as a negative in my mind. You’d rather have – you don’t have to tell somebody to slow down, right, to take less risks. You’re giving too much of yourself to somebody. Man, I would rather have somebody that loves it so much and is so competitive that it means that much to them. And then you go from there, because it’s hard to go in the opposite direction. I’ve seen it, it’s a lot easier to come down from that than there is to go up. And he has that about him. I saw that the year I had him. And it was only four years ago when I was in Baltimore, we thought he was coming there to be our backup, and the (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) Bucs signed him, and the good Lord put that in place for him, and he has taken advantage of that. We thought after Carolina and the (Los Angeles) Rams he was going to come to Baltimore, and I was fired up about it. And the good Lord put him in Tampa, and this is his fourth coordinator. That’s hard, man. He’s been the one constant playing there and has played at an elite level.”

 

Deshaun mentioned that part of the way you guys can clean up the procedural stuff is getting out of the huddle quicker. Logistically, what goes into that? Is that guys running harder off the sidelines? Is that you picking a play quicker? What needs to improve there?

“It’s all the above. It’s getting the call in. And again, it happens in different spots. It’s not just one, it’s the call in, him getting in the huddle, the guys getting in the huddle, breaking the huddle. If you have motions and shifts, and if there’s whatever four or five pieces to it, say six pieces that fall into that, if each one takes an extra second, you’re six seconds less on the clock. Let’s be really honest, it’s never one thing, it’s all the above. And it really doesn’t matter; it wasn’t good enough. And I hadn’t seen that, and we had been stressing the hell out of it, and we’re going to continue to stress the hell out of it, because ultimately, we’re going to want to get in and out of plays, and we’re going to want to be elite at cadence. Otherwise, you can’t say you’re elite on offense if you’re not. So, we’re going to keep doing it, we’re going to fight like hell to get really good at it.”

 

Just to go back to Baker for a second, there’s not many guys left on this roster who played with him, but there’s so much history between him and the team that drafted him. Is there any way to harness any of that for you guys, relying on those guys? Does it not matter?

“No, I don’t think so. Who’s left? Denzel (Ward) and myself for one year. I mean, Grant (Delpit). But, you know, I don’t get into how a person feels. We all feel the way we feel about certain situations in our life. And I don’t blame him, just like he could never blame me for the way I feel about certain things. And listen, he’s so competitive, he wants to beat everybody he plays. This just happens to be one where I’m sure there’s a little bit there, but ultimately, he always wants to play well. I think that’s, again, you’ll have to speak to him, but I’ve never been around him where he didn’t want to compete and fight like hell to win. So, this just happens to be one other piece of it.”

 

As far as Jared (Verse) is concerned, was that the first game for him to be in this new system and his new team where he needed to get his feet wet a little bit? Are you expecting a big step up in his second game?

“I think, I hope we expect a big step up with all of us, for God’s sakes. Being clean on offense, and then defensively. I think one thing I’ve loved about today is it felt like, today, just around the building, our guys, there felt a lot of ownership, and that’s a really, really good sign, when you have guys that are owning it, and coaches as well. That was below the line. We’re going to get beat, we’re going to make mistakes, but we certainly are capable of playing better, individually and then collectively.”

 

Todd, being here in 2019 with Baker, he was in year two, the city loved him and he just came off a great rookie season. Did you feel at that time that the Browns had their guy? Were you surprised, ultimately, how that situation played out for him at the end?

“Well, I wasn’t here, so I can’t speak to how it went. I just know the competitor he is, and I’ve said it all along, I wish I had done a better job in ’19. I’ve said that a lot of times. You’ve got to own the things you can be better at as a coach. And I’m sure there’s certain things that, throughout the course of his life or career, he would look at the same way. Ultimately, I was not here for the rest of it, but I can just tell you that you want your players wired like Baker Mayfield.”

 

You’ve been supportive of Deshaun; you talked about his competitiveness and going out there and having fun while he’s playing. Are you confident he’s in a good headspace to get this thing turned around?

“I am, I am. You’d have to ask him.”

 

We tried to and didn’t get much.

“Well, that’s okay. That’s his prerogative, he controls the narrative of what he wants out there. I would just say that there’s not one player or coach in that locker room that I don’t have their back. Just like with my son, who’s here coaching with me, or anybody that I’ve been around. I want and expect to see them play their best. And that’s what we’re paid as coaches to try to get the best out of them, and we can play better around him. I think he had fun. When you’re not moving the ball, is that fun? No, that’s not fun, for me or him. I mean, that’d be silly to say that it was, but he hadn’t played in 22 months, and he finally got the first-team reps for like, two weeks. And I think there’s enough there to say, I expect to play better, I expect to coach better, I expect our team to play better around him. And as I say, I’ve got our players’ backs, and he happens to be one of those guys that we expect to play well.”

 

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