What Could the Ravens Offense Look Like in 2023?

With questions still swirling regarding the Ravens star quarterback’s future in Baltimore, and rumors circulating about the team attempting to lure in another big-name receiver, it might be a bit of a fool’s errand to try to guess what the offense could look like in 2023.

Well, fear not: I am exactly that fool. Let’s take a shot at what new coordinator Todd Monken could be coming up with for the offensive attack for the coming season.

A common refrain about Monken is that he has an ability to maximize the talent at his disposal and plan accordingly, and there’s plenty of evidence to back up that sentiment. From a “chuck-and-duck” offense at Oklahoma State to a downfield passing attack in Tampa to a balanced system in Georgia that got the ball in his playmakers’ hands, Monken has indeed conformed to his talent.

Since his most recent stop was at two-time national champion Georgia, I started out with a good look at that offense, and how they were able to function. Though there was plenty of attention on quarterback Stetson Bennett, tight ends Brock Bowers and Darnell Washington, and, previously, receiver George Pickens, Monken was persistent with the run.

According to teamrankings.com, Georgia ranked 76^th out of 131 programs in pass-play percentage last season at 46.54 percent, an increase from just 43.13 percent the year before. Now, to be fair, Georgia had a tendency to win a ton of 239-6 games (slight exaggeration), so those numbers are probably a bit skewed as attention often turned to killing off clock in second halves of games. Still, it showed a commitment to controlling the ball, at least when needed.

But it’s a little lazy to just prescribe that percentage to nursing big leads against teams, as Georgia didn’t only run the ball a lot, but they also ran it well. Last year’s Bulldogs saw Kenny McIntosh run for 829 yards and 5.6 yards per tote, while Daijun Edwards also chipped in 771 yards at 5.5 yards per carry. Let’s not forget about Kendall Minton, and his 590 yards on a ridiculous 6.9 yards per carry. This speaks to a willingness to utilize multiple backs, and an ability to find efficiency with each.

This bodes well for Monken’s ability to use JK Dobbins, Gus Edwards and Justice Hill (and a rookie to be named later?) in the run game, and maintain efficiency on the ground. In fact, Monken spoke glowingly on the Ravens’ website about Greg Roman’s run schemes as he was reviewing last year’s film.

“I first started watching (film), and I’m like, ‘Wow, they do really good stuff in the run game,” he said. “Like, holy cow, that is very creative. Obviously, the better you run the football, the better you throw it, so it starts with an excellent run game and then go from there.”

Can Monken emulate Roman’s schemes and sense of timing when it comes to the rushing offense? That’s a tall order — no matter how one feels about Roman as a play-caller, his run-game offense is considered elite by nearly everyone who follows the game. But Monken’s ability to capture some of what he’s seen, and the return of those backs, along with some well-schooled veterans on the line like Ronnie Stanley, Kevin Zeitler, Patrick Mekari and others, certainly bodes well for at least carrying over some schemes and tendencies that have been successful.

That’s important.

Of course, the ceiling of this offense will ultimately come down to what improvements Monken can bring to the passing offense (and… ahem… who will be actually throwing the football). I looked back to Monken’s final season as play-caller in Tampa Bay in 2018 to get a feel for how he attacked in his previous NFL experience, as word was he never really got that opportunity when he coached under Freddie Kitchens in Cleveland.

That 2018 Tampa offense was not the reason the staff got fired. Monken led the 12^th-ranked attack, while their defense finished 31^st out of 32 teams. I’m certainly no math guy, but 31 out of 32 doesn’t seem good.

What was good, again, was how he was able to utilize what he had at his disposal. Mike Evans (1,524 yards on 17.7 a catch), Chris Godwin (842 yards and seven touchdowns), Adam Humphries (816 yards on 76 catches) and DeSean Jackson (774 yards on nearly 19 yards a catch) all feasted. Embattled tight end O.J. Howard put up 565 yards, and Cameron Brate chipped in another 289, providing great productivity at tight end. Those are very different receivers, all of them, and Monken was able to use Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick to bring out their best work — to the tune of 5,358 passing yards as a team.

He also coaxed 871 rushing yards out of Peyton Barber (400 more yards than his next-best season), and more than 430 rushing yards out of Winston and Fitzpatrick. That is maximizing what he had to work with — I think you’ll notice a trend there.

Looking back at last year’s Georgia team, Monken fell back on his talent again, as Bowers hauled in 942 receiving yards at 15 yards a catch, while Washington added 454 on a whopping 16.2 yards a reception. Ladd McConkey led their receivers with 762 yards and seven touchdowns, while McIntosh contributed 505 receiving yards to the attack. Again, and stop me if you’ve heard this before: Monken used what he had, and performed.

Your 2023 Ravens

A lot of what this will look like depends an awful lot on what the team’s quarterback looks like, right? For the sake of this, let’s go with Lamar Jackson playing on his tag and being the signal-caller in 2023.

What I think we’ll see is Monken try to continue to use space as his friend. I’m sure there will be plenty of run-game similarities to past Ravens’ teams because… well, it’s worked. But I think he will especially focus on getting the ball to Dobbins on the edges, and through short east-west passes when he is on the field, and trying to get Edwards into situations where he attacks up the middle while the rest of the offense flows east and west. It’s kind of a staple of Monken’s to utilize the entire field to his advantage. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to see Justice Hill get a few more reps, as well, particularly in the passing offense.

As for the meat of the passing game, I’m expecting more space utilization than Ravens fans are used to. It’s easy to see tight ends Mark Andrews, Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar being used to attack the seams, both to utilize their athleticism and catch radiuses (Radii? Radiotomotopuses?) to draw defenders away from other points of emphasis for Monken.

It’s also a good bet that we will see quick passes to get the ball into the hands of Odell Beckham Jr. and Rashod Bateman so they can use their run-after-the-catch skills against a defense that is being taxed both vertically and horizontally by other targets. If another certain contested catch specialist who will remain nameless signs up, expect him to test the sidelines and put even more stress on the defense.

My wild cards here are Hill and Devin Duvernay, who both might find more action underneath and sideline to sideline as Monken sends other targets downfield to create more — wait for it — space.

Notice we haven’t discussed the quarterback yet, outside of being the guy who should have all these options in front of him with increased attention being spent on creating space for receivers? Well, I think there will be fewer “designed” runs for Jackson, as Monken will give him one or two reads, with an escape alley created by that space to take advantage of Jackson’s athleticism and ability to destroy one-on-one tackling options. Think more “pass-run-options” and less zone reads.

One last item to watch for, in my opinion? Tempo. It felt like Jackson and John Harbaugh were both frustrated at times last season with a consistent inability to get off snaps until the last second of the play clock, and we will see more no-huddle and hurry-up to prevent substitutions and to take advantage of match-ups.

It’s all speculation, obviously. But it’s fun to speculate on something different for a change, right?

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