How the Ravens' revamped offense will unlock a more complete Lamar Jackson (2024)

After shocking the league by leaning into an option attack in 2019, the Ravens’ offense plateaued. It’s not that option plays are gimmicky — they still work in the NFL and still cause headaches for defensive coordinators — but teams are defending them more soundly. In response, the Ravens have increased their passing rate in neutral situations (early downs in a game’s first 28 minutes) every season since 2019. Lamar Jackson has made improvements as a passer, but it’s not reflected in his stats because the Ravens have not surrounded him with a lot of talent and former Baltimore offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s passing scheme relied too heavily on Jackson creating plays.

With Roman now gone, the Ravens hope they can take the next step with their new offensive coordinator, Todd Monken, who has roots in the air raid offense. Monken was an offensive coordinator with the Buccaneers and Browns before enjoying a wildly successful two-year stint at the University of Georgia. With the Buccaneers, the only NFL team Monken has called plays for, his offenses were explosive passing attacks but turned the ball over at a high rate. With the Ravens, Monken will be tasked with marrying Roman’s run game with a more sophisticated passing game.

“That is the challenge for sure is marrying up what’s been done here in the past in terms of running the football and controlling the game … (with) what I’m used to, which is maybe a little more open sets, a little more space,” Monken said in an interview for the Ravens’ website.

There are a lot of concepts from Monken’s Georgia offense that should translate to the Ravens. Last season, the Ravens were second in snaps from empty — a trend that should continue, along with majoring in pistol and bunch formations. In turn, I expect Monken will utilize fewer two-back formations with Patrick Ricard as a fullback and fewer multiple tight end personnel groupings with Ricard lined up as tight end. Ricard is a good player and one of the league’s most unique ones, but Monken has made it clear that he wants to create more space with formations and put more speed on the field.

Multiple tight end sets will continue to be a big part of the Ravens’ offense, just as they were for Monken’s offenses with the Bucs and Georgia, but Baltimore figures to be more balanced than it has been in past years. Last season, the Ravens used multiple tight end sets a league-high 62.3 percent of the time. The Seahawks were the next-closest team, at 42.7 percent. The Ravens significantly upgraded their receiving corps by signing Odell Beckham Jr. and drafting Zay Flowers in the first round. They’ll also get back Rashod Bateman, who underwent season-ending foot surgery after Week 8 last year.

Though Monken has talked about creating more space, his base formation last season was “bunch.” Bunch is a condensed formation, but it’s a one-back formation with four immediate vertical threats on the line of scrimmage. Monken ran all his bread-and-butter concepts from it. Defenses have to have special rules with how they handle bunch formations because of the potential pick plays it offers, so Monken uses a lot of motions and shifts that force defenses to quickly communicate and adjust.

In the clip above, the Bulldogs ran inside zone to the weak side on the first play and to the strong side on the next. When they ran to the weak side, the running back cut back toward the bunch, where the receiver executed a fold block on the inside linebacker. When they ran to the strong side, the tight end sifted to the backside to create a cutback lane for the running back. The Ravens could leave the end unblocked for Jackson to read and have the tight end arc around to the second level in case Jackson keeps the ball.

Monken’s offense is littered with constraint plays. For each one of his bread-and-butter plays, he also has plays built off the same action that punish defenses for playing too aggressively.

This is one of those bread-and-butter plays: a same-side toss to the running back with two crack blocks and two pullers. It’s called same-side toss because the running back runs to the same side that he was offset to before the snap.

A constraint play that Monken has in his playbook for his same-side toss is a reverse off the same action. The receiver who receives the reverse is put in motion just like he would be if he were to make a crack block, and the quarterback opens up like he’s tossing to the back but finesses it to the receiver.

To add another layer to it, Monken also has a play-action concept off the reverse action. The offense starts in empty but motions into bunch, a shift you’ll see often in this offense. When the play starts, the quarterback fakes the toss and reverse, causing the second-level defenders to bite.

The Ravens were a big counter running game team under Roman, and one of Monken’s favorite run concepts is GH counter. GH means the guard and H-back pull. In the clip above, the Bulldogs again shift into their bunch formation and then shift the back to the other side, so the defense has difficulty determining where the strong or weak side is.

Here, the Bulldogs run their boot play off GH counter action. The H-back faked like he was pulling before pirouetting around to run in the flat. Though the quarterback was under center in this clip, the Ravens can easily run this play from the pistol.

An example of a constraint play from the passing game is Monken’s constraint off a dagger concept.

Diagram from Kyle Shanahan’s 2018 playbook:

Dagger is a pretty common play-action concept throughout the NFL. The inside receiver runs a “deep thru” route to occupy the safety, while the outside receiver runs a dig. Monken called this concept frequently with the Buccanneers.

2018, Week 2, 13:06 remaining in the fourth quarter, first-and-10

When the corner on the outside receiver (X or Z) got nosey and started to drive on the dig route, Monken would call his constraint play, which would have the X or Z break outside instead of running a dig. Having plays like this help protect your base plays from an overaggressive defense.

Game planning and play design also stood out when watching Monken’s offense. He always had a few interesting plays drawn up to directly counter the defense he would face each week.

In the most recent national championship game, against TCU, Monken faced “Tite” fronts, light boxes featuring three-man lines and edge defenders outside the box. Instead of running a traditional zone read reading the edge player, Monken ran a midline read in which the tackle would arc outside to block the perimeter while the quarterback would read the defensive linemen lined up on the guard’s outside shoulder. The play worked to perfection, and quarterback Stetson Bennett ran untouched to the end zone. Monken understood the defense he faced and drew up a play that seamlessly countered its rules.

There were also examples of this type of tactical prowess when Monken coached in the NFL.

2018, Week 14, 3:06 remaining in the first quarter, second-and-10

During Dennis Allen’s tenures as defensive coordinator and head coach, the Saints have played a lot of press man coverage, often across the board. Usually when receivers have close splits, one of the defenders will back off and play at a different depth to avoid getting picked. Knowing the Saints don’t do that, Monken had his slot receiver set a pick for the most inside receiver to run a seam route. Pick plays like this are often designed for the outside receiver, but that’s a more difficult throw for the quarterback. Creating a pick inside for the seam creates a fairly low-difficulty throw.

In 2018, the Buccanneers led the league in air yards per target by nearly a full yard (10.61) and finished fourth in explosive pass rate. They also led the league in the percentages of drives that ended in turnovers, but it’s unfair to put that blame on Monken. His quarterbacks that season were Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston, two turnover-prone passers. Monken’s goal is to make the Ravens more explosive, but he won’t have to throw as aggressively downfield because of the Ravens’ effectiveness on the ground.

Aside from explosiveness, Monken has to find ways to make the Ravens’ passing game more efficient. Run/pass options (RPOs) are a great way to do that, and they protect the Ravens’ run game against teams that want to load the box or aggressively fit against the run. Though Roman used RPOs, he had stretches where he would go away from them for too long. Monken has made RPOs part of his offenses in the NFL and college. With the Ravens, he should even expand on his RPO package.

On this play, Monken packaged his zone read with a yo-yo motion that ends with the tight end coming out to the perimeter to block for a bubble screen. On the other side, the single receiver ran a speed out. The quarterback likely noticed the overhang defender to the single-receiver side inching toward the box, liked his one-on-one matchup on that side and decided to throw the ball. Monken also ran similar RPO plays in the NFL.

2018, Week 12, 4:10 remaining in the third quarter, first-and-10

Under Roman, the Ravens ranked near the bottom of the league in screen plays last season. Monken has shown several well-designed screen concepts that target outside receivers, slot receivers, running backs and tight ends.

Play-action screens like this one are effective because they force linebackers to move in so many different directions. They come up against the run, bail back because of play action, then finally have to rally back up to defend the screen.

It takes commitment to get good at screens because of all the details and timing. Roman likely invested more time in the running game and never committed to practicing screens. We’ll see if Monken can put in the necessary practice time it takes to work on screens while not taking too much time away from the running game.

One of the most common criticisms of Roman’s passing game is spacing. The Ravens gave their receivers a lot of freedom on option routes and to find space, but too often receivers would end up too close to each other on routes. For example, tight end Mark Andrews is great at finding space, but he would freelance a little too often and seemed to be guilty of clogging up spacing for other receivers a lot.

Diagram from Monken’s playbook from Oklahoma State:

Though Monken’s playbook also has several routes that require receivers to read the coverage or an individual defender, he has a lot more experience in pass-heavy offenses with these sorts of concepts. His rules and the way he teaches these routes should clean up a lot of the spacing issues that the Ravens had under Roman.

As much as Roman was criticized, he deserves credit for putting together one of the most unique offenses the league has ever seen. That offense helped Jackson win an MVP award, but it seems Jackson has outgrown it. He needs a more sophisticated passing game to take the next step as a quarterback, and the Ravens hope Monken can provide that for him. Watching his offense in the NFL and college, it’s clear why the Ravens hired him: His strengths are exactly what they believe their offense needs.

(Illustration: Sean Reilly /The Athletic;photos: Rob Carr, Diamond Images, Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)