'Stressful Gameday!' Per Ravens OC Todd Monken
The Baltimore Ravens brought in offensive coordinator Todd Monken to give quarterback Lamar Jackson a new vehicle to drive this season.
Two games in, Jackson is on pace to set a new career high in throws reaching nearly 500 attempts after hitting 401 only once in his career thus far. He's also on pace to eclipse his previous single-season passing yards record by over 300 yards. The bottom line is a lot of this sounds really fun for Jackson and the Ravens' offense unless you ask Monken.
"It's never fun. Gameday is not fun," Monken said when asked about how much fun he had in Cincinnati. "It's stressful as [heck], but I enjoy watching our guys play. I enjoy coaching our players. We have a great group of young guys that it's fun to come out every day and come to the meeting rooms with those guys. That I enjoy, but it's a job. Everything builds up to gameday, and I don't take that lightly...You fight like heck during the week to get the looks you want and try to carry it over on Sunday and put the guys in the best position to be successful."
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So it's not that Monken doesn't enjoy his job, and he even admitted to a small dose of fun in there, but football is serious business for those who have lived it every day for decades. Monken himself had spent eight seasons in the NFL prior to joining Baltimore this offseason with additional years spent coaching at the collegiate level.
In those years he's been a part of just two winning NFL seasons coming in 2007 as wide receivers coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars and again in 2016 as offensive coordinator / wide receivers coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Two out of eight isn't great, and perhaps that's why Monken doesn't seem to have as much fun as the outside world thinks he should.
Of course, he's never been part of Baltimore's NFL franchise before either. In those same eight years, the Ravens produced six winning seasons and two AFC North Division titles.
And if Monken continues to impact Jackson's passing production in positive ways then Baltimore may win their first division title since 2019. Now that would be fun.
