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As the Ravens look to turn around a spiraling season, some players have grown confused and frustrated by coordinator Todd Monken’s play-calling, according to team sources.

Over his first two record-breaking seasons in Baltimore, Monken typically followed the plan he laid out to players and coaches during their week of preparation. The only notable exception, sources told The Banner, was in the Ravens’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023 AFC championship game, when running backs Gus Edwards and Justice Hill combined for just six carries.

But this year, Monken has surprised some around the team with his play calls, deviating before the Ravens have even fallen behind in games. That approach, sources said, has created a disconnect with players, who’ve practiced certain plays during the week and felt good about how they were executed, only for a different approach to be adopted in games.

After 81 total points in Week 1 and Week 2, the Ravens’ offensive production has steadily dropped, with progressively fewer points in each outing over their four-game losing streak. Some struggles were to be expected after star quarterback Lamar Jackson suffered a hamstring injury in a Week 4 loss to the Chiefs, sidelining him for the next two games and potentially keeping him out of Sunday’s crucial home game against the Chicago Bears.

But several sources who spoke with The Banner on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss team dynamics said they believe the Ravens have the talent to overcome Jackson’s absence, and that they felt let down by uncharacteristic changes to the offensive schemes.

An unexpected 1-5 start in Baltimore has left players and coaches searching for answers. There are obvious culprits: Four of the losses have come to Super Bowl contenders, and injuries to defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike, Jackson and others have forced them to rely on young, inexperienced players. A leaky defense has been one of the NFL’s most disappointing units. An inconsistent offensive line has struggled to create running lanes and protect the pocket.

But there’s also been a current of discontent with Monken, who entered his third season in Baltimore as a potential head coaching candidate.

Sources said Monken’s hard-driving style has not resonated with certain players amid the team’s struggles, with one saying the 59-year-old, who’s spent most of his coaching career in college, is still “getting better with handling professional athletes.”

Monken’s agent did not reply to a request for a follow-up interview after the coach answered questions from reporters on Thursday.

Sources who spoke to The Banner said Monken has not lost the trust of the offense; many players believe, based on his first two years in Baltimore, that he can still help them win games.

But they’ve questioned his approach as a once-promising season has deteriorated:

• While they pushed back against the notion that the offense lacks creativity — “That’s a lazy way of putting it,” one source said — some players have taken issue with the rhythm and timing of his calls.
• Some players feel Monken, as part of an effort to spread the ball around, has overcomplicated his approach.
• At the same time, sources said the Ravens have become too predictable with their personnel tendencies.

Sources who spoke to The Banner were careful to say that players on both sides of the ball deserve blame for the season’s slow start. Locker room angst, they acknowledged, is more likely to bubble up during losing seasons, too.

But as the Ravens look to orchestrate a dramatic turnaround — only four NFL teams in modern league history have started 1-5 and gone on to make the playoffs — the sources hope their concerns will be taken into consideration.

A different dynamic

While the Ravens’ defense has been historically bad at points this season, both players and coach John Harbaugh have vehemently defended coordinator Zach Orr.

The vibe around Monken has been different. Harbaugh has openly laid blame at his feet. After the 37-20 loss to the Chiefs, he questioned certain play calls and rebuked the staff for two delay-of-game penalties in a single series.

“I mean, that’s play-calling,” Harbaugh said last month when asked after the game about short-yardage failures. “I am not going to sit here and say I’m happy about it, at all. I am sure that Todd is not happy about it, either. None of us are. You have to look at that and decide what you want to run there, in some of those circumstances and situations. If they work, they look good. [The Chiefs] threw the ball on fourth-and-short and third-and-short a few times and completed them, so maybe we just need better plays, plays that are going to pop open. Maybe we have to do a better job of game-planning in those plays.”

Monken didn’t shrink from his boss’s critiques and took ownership of the offense’s shortcomings in the game.

“One thing that I’ve done throughout my career is that you got to look at what you do,” Monken said. “And that’s what I’ve done my whole career is, OK, how did we scheme it? How did we coach it? How did we execute it? How was our plan? All of those things, we can go into. And, when it’s below the line, you got to own it and fix it.”

The Ravens’ offense was explosive, if inconsistent, with Jackson under center, averaging 34.7 points in the three games he finished. But without the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player available, the offense has been largely discombobulated.

Sources said some of that stems from Monken’s style. While Orr, 33, is a former Ravens player — he even has a former teammate still on the roster in defensive lineman Brent Urban — who often jubilantly celebrates on the sideline, Monken operates from more of a remove.

Around the facility, even sources who do not get along with Monken have a grudging respect for him. Jackson won MVP in 2023, Monken’s first year in Baltimore, and was even better last season, when he finished second in voting. The 2024 Ravens led the league in yards per play (6.8), yards per game (424.9) and red-zone touchdown rate (74.2%) and finished third in third-down conversion rate (48.2%) and points per game (30.5).

This year, the offense’s recent struggles have raised questions about Monken’s locker room buy-in. It’s not imperative that players have amiable relationships with their coordinator, sources said, but it can’t hurt. One source explained that better connections with play-callers can lead to better play calls, as there’s a greater understanding of players’ strengths and weaknesses going into games.

Sources said Monken is not always an easy person to work with or for. Players have clashed with him in meetings, with some storming out midway through. Monken arrived in Baltimore with a reputation as a tough-love coach, but some players have found the “love” part does not feel genuine.

Winning, of course, kept things running smoothly over his first two years in Baltimore. But a 1-5 record this year has left some cracks showing. On Thursday, Monken was asked at a press conference whether he feels this season has tested his relationships with coaches and players.

“No, not at all,” Monken said. “I don’t see it that way. Coach [Harbaugh] has set an unbelievable culture of confronting everything that gets in the way of winning football. We’re frustrated, but we’re not deterred. I love our energy this week. We’re fired up. We’re ready to go. We’ve had a couple of great practices. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out on Sunday, but I don’t feel that way. This isn’t my first rodeo here. This isn’t like I just showed up. So I’ve said that before. We’ve been really damn good around here, and we expect to be good again.”

Still, there is a feeling, sources said, that those charged with executing Monken’s vision are not always aligned with his approach.

Over the bye week, the Ravens brought out four assistant coaches for their first and only news conferences since the end of training camp. Two answers from that session appeared to indicate discord.

When asked why the Ravens were able to run the ball better in their Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, offensive line coach George Warhop suggested it was not an execution problem but a philosophical one.

“That depends on how we approach a game from an offensive perspective,” Warhop said. “If we choose to run the ball, I think we have the capabilities of running the ball. So, really, it’s how we decide we want to approach a game.”

Quarterbacks coach Tee Martin was asked whether Jackson, who has been sacked 15 times in four games, after taking just 23 sacks in 17 games a year ago, should try to get the ball out faster. He directed the question to Monken.

“Some things are within the plays that are called where we’re trying to get the ball out, and sometimes routes are deeper developing,” Martin said. “If you’re in third-and-8 or 9, you’re not going to throw the ball for five yards. Todd was just here [at the podium] before me; it’s kind of a question for him, but our job is to execute the plays that are called and do the best we can to get the ball out.”

Too much of a good thing?

Ravens players still have faith that the offense can get going with Monken in charge, sources said — but only if he worries less about spreading touches around.

The question of whether the Ravens would be able to feed so many talented players this season became a talking point during training camp. But players said then, and still believe, that a veteran roster would not get bogged down in worrying about who got the ball.

Sources said Monken has overcomplicated his approach, creating confusion with substitutions and play variations that have prevented the offense from finding its rhythm. Some players feel the offense is well designed, but disagree with how calls are being deployed.

The Ravens’ goal-line failure at the end of the first half against the Rams, for example, has lingered. Players had confidence that three runs from the 1-yard line should’ve been enough to reach the end zone and take a 10-3 lead into halftime.

But players felt that Monken’s play calls, including two “tush push” attempts with tight end Mark Andrews, were out of step with the game flow and the Ravens’ matchup advantages, sources said.

Sources also pointed to the offense’s fourth-down struggles against the Chiefs. The Ravens finished 1-for-4, with Jackson in for the first failed attempt and backup Cooper Rush going 1-for-3 in the fourth quarter of the blowout loss. While there were shortcomings in the execution, the formations and play calls were notable.

On the Ravens’ first fourth-down failure, Henry was on the sideline for a fourth-and-1 drop-back. Jackson ended up throwing the ball out of play under pressure. On another fourth-and-2 play with Rush at quarterback, Henry was again missing, Hill was lined up at receiver and wide receiver Rashod Bateman was in the backfield. Rush overthrew Bateman, who was running a route well short of the first-down sticks, on a pass that also ended up out of play.

The Ravens have been unable to find ways to sustain drives, ranking 28th in time of possession per game; last season they were sixth. This leaves the defense with little time to rest, further weakening their performance.

Monken’s offense has been better on opening drives, which are often scripted; the Ravens have scored on nine of their first 12 half-opening drives. Where things seem to be falling apart is when Monken has more room to improvise.

Some Ravens players, according to sources, believe that, with two-plus years of Monken’s offense on tape for opponents to study, they’re becoming predictable.

Harbaugh has, in recent weeks, downplayed any concerns around the idea, and said after the loss to Kansas City that the offense broke from some tendencies. But sources said Harbaugh’s been “harping” on the topic behind closed doors.

Monken said Thursday that he doesn’t think his game plans have been predictable.

“We’ve had tendencies the last two years,” he said. “If you’re really good, you have tendencies. That’s what you do. When they look on film, they look at what you do well and what you don’t do well. When you’re struggling, you have tendencies. When you’re not doing well, you have tendencies. Tendencies aren’t really the issue. It’s, do you know them? Do you know what they’re seeing, and then how do you combat that?”

The Ravens, according to sources, started addressing some issues before their loss to the Rams. Players have said that their bye week came at a great time to allow coaches to figure out solutions. When the team returned this week, sources said, coaches had a plan in place.

Monken, for his part, has accepted responsibility at his weekly news conferences for the offense’s struggles and for the need to find a fix. While some sources said Monken’s tone can be “arrogant,” they said he’s acknowledged he needs to adapt.

Players have also reckoned with their own role in the offense’s troubles. While the unit is executing at a higher level than the defense, it’s not perfect.

That, sources said, is partly because the players never expected to have to overcome these sorts of issues.

Success breeds complacency

The Ravens came into the season with high expectations inside and outside team headquarters. Around Baltimore, many media members were picking them to win the Super Bowl.

While, at least publicly, players claimed to not pay attention to the predictions, sources said the locker room grew overconfident. Even in the fourth quarter of the Ravens’ season opener against the Buffalo Bills, many players were convinced there was no way the game would slip away.

“We let our reputation get to our heads,” one source said.

The embarrassing 41-40 loss should’ve been a warning to players that simply wearing a Ravens uniform wouldn’t be enough. But as things went downhill in subsequent weeks, players kept counting the losses.

The Ravens’ blowout loss to the Houston Texans in Week 5 was a wake-up call. They played better a week later against the Rams, but with Jackson sidelined, they still lost. Heading into the bye, many players were stunned by their record.

“What the fuck, we’re 1-5,” is how one source described the mentality in the locker room. Another said coaches and players mentioned their record every day.

When the team returned this week from a much-needed bye, the Ravens had a motivational speaker, Eric Thomas, lined up. He talked about the 2011 New York Giants, who finished the regular season 9-7 but went on a playoff run and won the Super Bowl.

The message to players: It was time to stop focusing on how their first six games went and start focusing on what their 11 remaining regular-season games could be.

How much of an impact will the reset have on the team and the Ravens’ staff? The team will see on Sunday.

This story has been edited to reflect the fact that Todd Monken was made available by the Ravens on Thursday during his usual press conference.