The Georgia Bulldogs received two consecutive nationwide championships with a 5-foot-11 former walk-on at quarterback. The offensive thoughts guiding Stetson Bennett via that double gauntlet belonged to a well-traveled coach named Todd Monken.
Now, the Ravens hope Monken will assist coax championship-winning performances out of a much more gifted quarterback, Lamar Jackson. They’re hiring Monken, a 57-year-old Illinois native who has led two NFL offenses along with his expansive faculty work, to be their subsequent offensive coordinator.
“Todd’s leadership and coaching acumen were evident from the beginning,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh mentioned in an announcement. “He has a proven track record for designing and teaching offensive systems that allow players to succeed at the highest level. We’re excited to get to work and begin building an offense that will help us compete for championships.”
Monken’s introduction can be difficult by the uncertainty round Jackson, who may develop into a free agent in March if the Ravens don’t signal him to a profitable extension or use the franchise tag to maintain him in Baltimore. Monken won’t know for months if he’s revamping the group’s offense for Jackson or for one more quarterback.
Regardless, he’ll come to the Ravens off one of the vital profitable runs in current faculty soccer historical past.
He will substitute Greg Roman, who parted methods with the Ravens final month after his offense misplaced steam within the second half of the season for a second straight yr. Roman’s 4 years as coordinator started with a bang, when his offense set a single-season dashing report and Jackson received NFL Most Valuable Player honors in 2019. But the Ravens didn’t rating greater than a single landing in any of their final six regular-season video games in 2022 with Jackson sidelined by a knee damage.
Monken can be Harbaugh’s seventh offensive coordinator. As promised, the Ravens searched far and huge for Roman’s successor, with stories linking them to greater than a dozen candidates, lots of them with current expertise as quarterbacks coaches or pass-game designers. Harbaugh has mentioned he doesn’t need the group’s offensive identification to alter and that he’d wish to retain a few of the ideas that gave the Ravens the league’s most efficient working assault underneath Roman.
Monken can be charged with reviving a passing recreation that jumped to a scorching begin in 2022 however ranked twenty eighth in Football Outsiders’ DVOA over the second half of the season. At Georgia, Monken’s offense achieved the type of steadiness Harbaugh yearns for, averaging 295.8 yards per recreation via the air and 205.8 final season on the best way to a 15-0 report. Bennett grew to become a star regardless of his unremarkable bodily traits, throwing 4 landing passes and working for 2 extra scores in Georgia’s 65-7 nationwide championship bludgeoning of TCU.
Before his success at Georgia, Monken served as offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns in 2019 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2016 via 2018. Quarterback Baker Mayfield threw 21 interceptions because the Browns ranked twenty second in factors scored and whole yards underneath Monken. His Tampa Bay offenses, that includes Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick at quarterback, had been extra productive but in addition turnover-prone.
Monken, whose brother, Jeff, is the top coach at Army, was a quarterback himself at tiny Knox College in Illinois earlier than he started his teaching profession as a graduate assistant at Grand Valley State in Georgia after which at Notre Dame. He climbed the ladder as a large receivers coach at Louisiana Tech, Oklahoma State and LSU earlier than his first NFL stint with the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2007 to 2010. He went again to school as offensive coordinator for highflying Oklahoma State and took his solely head teaching job, at Southern Miss, in 2013. After he went 13-25 in three seasons there, he went to the Buccaneers as coach Dirk Koetter’s offensive coordinator. He joined coach Kirby Smart’s workers at Georgia in January 2020, simply because the Bulldogs had been about to supplant Alabama because the dominant group within the SEC and within the nation.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com