Turning the page on a disappointing end to the 2024 season, the Ravens received good news with the latest NFL head coach hiring cycle winding down.
After not being hired by the teams with which he either interviewed or shared some dialogue, offensive coordinator Todd Monken is staying put and finalizing a contract extension with Baltimore, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. Monken, 58, completed formal interviews with Jacksonville and Chicago earlier this month before the Jaguars hired Liam Cohen and the Bears made Ben Johnson their head coach last week. Las Vegas also requested to interview Monken, but that apparently never took place before the Raiders hired Pete Carroll.
Head coach John Harbaugh said last week that Monken “will be a great head coach” while expressing hope that he would stay put for at least a third season, citing how you “don’t underrate experience.”
“He’s a really good football coach. He’s an old-school football coach with kind of a new-school and creative mind — always creating,” Harbaugh said. “He works well with his staff. We have a great staff around him, so because of that, it would be very meaningful if and when we get him back and we continue forward. I really am excited about 3.0, that iteration of this offense going forward.”
After helping guide star quarterback Lamar Jackson to his second league MVP award in 2023, Monken’s success proved even more lucrative in his second year in Baltimore as the Ravens became the first team in NFL history to record 4,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards. Averaging a whopping 6.8 yards per play, they also became the first team in league history to eclipse 40 passing touchdowns and 20 rushing touchdowns in a season.
Jackson bested what he did in 2023 by becoming the first quarterback in NFL history with at least 4,000 passing yards and 900 rushing yards in a single season. That brilliance — which also included 41 touchdowns and just four interceptions for an eye-popping 119.6 passer rating — appears likely to land the 28-year-old his third regular-season MVP trophy next week.
“We’re kind of in every world offensively, and it’s not easy to do that, but we can do that because our quarterback is capable of living in all of those different offensive worlds,” said Harbaugh about Monken’s multi-pronged offense. “That’s tough for a defense to defend. How we can continue to evolve that so we can operate it more efficiently, more effectively, more quickly with less verbiage and all those kinds of things, where everybody is even more and more on the same page, that’s what we’ll be striving for.”
