As if being less than a week away from the kick-off the 2023 regular season wasn't exciting enough, analysts are throwing even more wood to the hype fire by forecasting fireworks around the Baltimore Ravens' news and soon-to-be-unveiled offense.
The Ravens, just in case, moved on from their former stale Offensive Coordinator Greg Roman this offseason. The replacement: back-to-back NCAA Champion at Georgia and former NFL OC Todd Monken.
On last weekend's edition of the Ross Tucker Podcast, ESPN analyst Greg Cosell touched on the new Ravens offense and what he expects and envisions the unit doing once the ball gets rolling in Baltimore next Sunday.
The Ravens offense is going to look VERY different this year.
— Ross Tucker Podcast (@RossTuckerPod) September 2, 2023
Does @GregCosell think that is a good thing? pic.twitter.com/mBc5SwaTkz
Cossell seems to as excited as every Ravens fan out there, if not more. He started his speech by labeling the Ravens as "one of the most intriguing, fascinating teams" for the 2023 season.
On top of that, and expanding on the main reason under that statement, Cossell simply said "obviously, Todd Monken has come in."
"It's going to be different," Cossell started. "It's going to be more spread, more tempo, more passing."
Based on the Ravens' offseason dealings we all know about and have discussed to no end through the summer, Cossell thinks that the Ravens will employ "more three wide receivers personnel groupings" than Baltimore did last year with Roman leading the offense.
Cossell dropped a huge hammer on former OC Roman saying that it was "unbelievable in today's NFL" to watch the Ravens use 11 personnel (that's 1 RB+ 1 TE + 3 WR) in just 12% of their total offensive snaps, something the analyst said "is just not done in the NFL now."
Monken is widely known for his varied and spread playbooks, which led the Bulldogs to back-to-back college titles before the OC decided to return to the NFL this season to handle the Flock offense.
The new OC comes with pro experience as he already had spells at Tampa Bay (2016-18) and Cleveland (2019), where he shared the field with current-Raven Odell Beckham in what ammounted to be the last 1,000+ yards season of the veteran wideout.
According to reasearch made by Gordon McGuiness of Pro Football Focus, Monken used 11 personnel groupings "on 64.4% of plays," a figure that ranked 12th in the NFL when he was managing the Bucs offense, and then 23rd when he became the OC of the Browns one year later using such grouping "at 56.8% in 2019."
With a trio of wideouts featuring Odell Beckham, Zay Flowers, and Rashod Bateman, along with the presence of TE Mark Andrews in the offense, it makes sense for Baltimore to use only one rusher (J.K. Dobbins) for the majority of snaps this season while taking advantage of Lamar Jackson's rushing prowess.
The best news? We're less than seven days away from finally watching the new Ravens offense going at full speed.