Off to a surprisingly competitive 3-1 start, the Cleveland Browns carry genuine momentum into Sunday’s matchup against the New York Jets. Yet while the team's early success is catching plenty of attention, head coach Todd Monken’s path to this moment has been years in the making.
Since his hiring this past winter, Monken has frequently acknowledged that had he landed an NFL head coaching job 15 years ago, he would not have been the best version of himself.
On Wednesday, Spencer German from 92.3 The Fan pressed him on that idea, asking why right now is finally the right time for him to take the helm. Monken leaned into the perspective that only time and experience can bring.
"It didn’t feel like that 15 years ago. It’s easy to say that now, but
I think we all would say that. I’m not the only one that would feel that way. I take anybody that’s a little bit older, and you would look back at the things you did then and what you thought you knew and how you handled things. And God puts you in certain places for a reason, to learn, and not put you in other places ... But you’re certainly in a much better place, I am, than I was years ago. Even last year, five months ago, I’m better today than I was then."
At 60 years old, Monken raised some eyebrows across a league that increasingly leans toward younger coaching candidates. But his willingness to embrace his age comes from a 15-year coaching evolution that few can match.
After coordinating explosive offenses at Oklahoma State from 2011 to 2012, he took his first head coaching role at Southern Miss, where he turned a winless program into a 9-5 bowl contender by 2015.
From there, he refined his craft in the NFL with Tampa Bay and Cleveland before stepping back into college football to orchestrate back-to-back National Championship offenses at Georgia from 2020 to 2022.
Most recently, as the Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator from 2023 to 2025, he guided Lamar Jackson to an MVP award and led the league’s top-ranked offense in 2024.
When the Browns brought Monken back in January for his first NFL head coaching gig, they weren’t hiring a coordinator with a proven system. They were getting a coach whose decades on the sideline built the exact perspective, maturity, and leadership required to keep Cleveland winning.
This article originally appeared on Browns Wire: Todd Monken explains why now is the right time for him to be an HC
