All-Twenty Tuesday: Monken As Play-Caller

Last week head coach Dirk Koetter handed the offensive reins over to offensive coordinator Todd Monken and let him call the plays for the Dolphins game. This was the plan all along, something Koetter and Monken discussed during the offseason. Koetter said that it was nice to not being calling plays for once and told us that he could see the game from a different perspective. He also said it’s good for Monken to get experience as an NFL play caller.

Koetter will re-assume play calling duties when the regular season rolls around (we think), but let’s take a look at Monken’s first drive as play caller – the one with most of the starters in it – and see how he did and some of the tendencies he might have shown.

Passing on first-and-10 to open the game when given good field position (playing with house money for the first series of downs). I love it. The Bucs ran the ball on first-and-10 more than any other team in the NFL last season, and their offensive efficiency in the early parts of games was stagnant because of it.

Ever feel like it takes forever for a Bucs offense to get going? Plays like the one above change that. There is not “get comfortable and figure out what they’re going to do” phase. There is only on phase: attack and score.

Pass the ball.

Passing again on first-and-10 immediately after gaining a first down by passing on first-and-10!

I.

Love.

It.

Being balanced is overrated. The only amount of balance you need to be is enough for you to end the game with more points on the scoreboard than the other team. Pass first, be balanced second.

If you did your homework well enough for the team you’re up against, and you have the confidence to call a passing play as the first play of the game like the Bucs did, you likely know that it will work again. So do it.

Put the pressure on the opposing team in the ways that make them the most comfortable. That was clearly when passing right out of the gate, and great on Monken for going to it back-to-back.

After a play where the Bucs gained five extra yards due to an encroachment penalty on the Dolphins, it made sense for them to run the ball in the play above. It worked, and boy were the play calls rolling on all cylinders after that. The Dolphins were then in their own red zone with no hint of what the Bucs might do next.

Listen, y’all, Peyton barber isn’t going anywhere. Barber is going to make Ronald Jones be pretty damn good to eat into his carries. Barber is going to get you tough yards every play. He’s not as dynamic as Jones, but he’ll move the ball. If they can trust him to get four yards per carry, that’s all they might need on first and second down options to compliment how much they should pass to open things up.

The sweet spot for a wide open red zone playbook is about the 15 yards line, since the Bucs were closer than that, I was in support of them running the ball on back-to-back occasions, especially how the drive was going and how it got there. That was a 4-yard gain by Barber and like I said, they’ll take that.

The play above was the first one I didn’t like from the drive, and really it was more the design than what was called. I didn’t mind the pass. I thought that if they were going to pass, that was the time – second-and-6 with a first down still available before the goal line.

But remember on the previous page how I said that sometimes the Bucs’ route combinations run into each other and actually make it easier to cover rather than making defenders choose which to cover, that’s what I see on the top of my screen. I would have understood two of the players being close if they were running some sort of crossing/pick play pattern, but that’s not even what was called. All three receivers took four or five steps into the same area and then broke on their routes where they were separated from each other after another five or so steps. Way too many steps.

Keep it simple. Space in the red zone is hard enough to come by. Don’t make it so the space takes longer to create. Send Humphries and Howard on little mesh routes past each other with Godwin doing a curl or a post in the middle after they cross. Or set the play up differently all together if you know they’re going to play man.

Barber finished the drive off with a nice touchdown run that was paved perfectly by the offensive line. Offensive tackle Donovan Smith did a great job of putting his helmet on the defensive end’s outside shoulder and washing him down the line, out of his spot after he jumped towards the middle. It doesn’t have to be the exact hole to be a well-executed power run play.

Overall, I really liked what I saw from Monken’s first drive with the first-team offense. He emphasized the pass early, didn’t let up the gas and played good situational football after that. The drive came out as a “balanced drive” due to how the Bucs went with their passing game first to get ahead of the defense. Being balanced is just about control. When you’re up, you have control. Balance doesn’t mean you have to start every drive with a run because you know you want to pass more. Just start off passing. You’ll run the ball plenty and it will balance out if your game plan is good enough in a pass-first mentality.