Strange Comments From Todd Monken
May 20th, 2016
Bucs OC Todd Monken meets the press yesterday.
When Todd Monken was introduced as the Bucs’ offensive coordinator back in January, he met before the Tampa Bay pen and mic club and could barely contain his excitement about his new job and he had a chance to work with, namely America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston.
Yesterday, the first time Monken has addressed the local fourth estate since that January day, Monken was in a totally different mood. He stood stoic. Leaned towards being a bit tight-lipped at times. Little to no expression on his face. His demeanor led Joe to think Monken had a health ailment.
Oh, and this: Monken all but confessed he wasn’t a fan of America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston, until he got to know him. This is a total 180 turnaround from what Monken said back in January about Jameis.
First, here are Monken’s words about Jameis from yesterday:
“It’s who he is, how he’s wired,” Monken said. “I think that’s one thing that’s a misnomer. I think from the outside you would have looked at it and with all the things that were publicized in the past about him and who he is, I was dead wrong. He wants to win as much as we do. He’s a competitive joker. He’s smart, he’s competitive, wants to win as much as we do. You can win a lot of games with guys like that.”
OK, fine. Monken said he was wrong about Jameis. But the way Monken talked about Jameis back in January, Monken was dead-right about Jameis.
“I wish I would have [recruited him],” Monken said of Jameis, noting he was at Oklahoma State when Jameis was coming out of high school.
“We had Brandon Weeden, but we could have used [Jameis] after it. No, I’m excited, I’m excited to be part of that. I worked with Jimbo Fisher for two years at LSU. I know what kind of coach Jimbo Fisher is and he thinks the world of this young man, so that means a lot to me.”
So what the hell happened in the past five months or so? Did Father Dungy get to Monken? Was Monken reciting a poorly produced script of sorts yesterday? If he knew all about Jameis from his good friend Jimbo Fisher, how then was Monken wrong about Jameis?
Something doesn’t add up here. Maybe Monken meant to say he had preconceived notions about Jameis before Fisher set him straight?
It was just a really weird comment from Monken, debunking his own words from January.
May 20th, 2016 at 5:46 am
Yeah i think his intro words were based on what he had heard from koetter and others. I think he said that but obviously he didnt feel that way yet. Now he does. So it seems to me anyway
May 20th, 2016 at 5:59 am
Shame on Joe for not mentioning the part where Monkin talked about social media’s role in preconceived notions and dropped brilliant terms such as, ‘snap fish’ and ‘fish chat’. The things Joe could said about that…Coach fish chat.
May 20th, 2016 at 6:00 am
Not that weird at all. Like most people I talked to leading up to and after we drafted Winston they had serious reservations about him. Monken just admitted he was one of those that had reservations based on the media reports. He never said that he talked to Jimbo about Winston when he was coming out of college. For all we know he only talked to Jimbo about Winston after he was hired to be the OC here. Non-issue regardless. Looking for problems where they don’t exist.
May 20th, 2016 at 6:53 am
I hate people that hate Jameis. I wore a Jameis shirt in San Franscisco and almost had to throw down with multiple people. I defend Jameis everywhere I go
May 20th, 2016 at 7:07 am
I have to nearly throw down in Tampa still wearing a Winston jersey. So many still hate him for all of the wrong reasons.
May 20th, 2016 at 7:15 am
Perhaps Monken is not used to reporters who actually listen to what he says and remembers every word. Got you!
May 20th, 2016 at 7:29 am
There needs to be more National stories like this. Like it or not there is a national view of JW3 formed from the TMZish like new coverage from college. Winning and more stories getting out will slowly correct the national perception!!!!
May 20th, 2016 at 7:54 am
Realist – I’d like to think you are right. Winning will do a lot but these kind of things linger in the background. Rothlesburger (sp?) and even Payton Manning still get their past accusations brought up when ever the media wants to drag it back up. The press did a pretty good smear job on Winston, and a lot of people will believe Kinsman’s story 15 years from now, even if Winston wins the civil trial. People just like to judge and hate other people.
May 20th, 2016 at 8:08 am
So…..ask about the discrepancy….and……we don’t have the context of time…..or perhaps he was talking about on field/off field….
May 20th, 2016 at 8:08 am
I must admit I cringed a bit when I heard Monkin say that. He let one slip and will probably regret it because the local press is not going to let that one die. So far though between him and Koetter these guys are direct and not much for spin and BS. Monkin seems to be a tough SOB and just the kind of guy to not put up with selfish penalties out of our receivers. I will be surprised if Mike Evans has another 10 penalty season and is getting kicked out of games. If he does you can bet that Monkin’s foot will be deeply loged in his backside.
May 20th, 2016 at 9:18 am
No, not a big deal that your HC and his new OC were both not all in on your franchise QB and actually were dumb enough to say that out loud, especially since he proved both of them wrong. Just one of the first examples of the high school mentality of the 2. The only professional coach on the staff unfortunately is coaching the defense, in Smith, but at least you have a natural in house replacement with him. This is going to go very badly, and I just hope Winston doesn’t get all of the blame like Tampa fans always do with their players, particularly the QBs.
May 20th, 2016 at 10:13 am
The coaching stafff is much improved over last year’s version sans Hardy Nickerson. I guess silent wanted Lovie Smith Jr. to continue coaching our db’s
May 20th, 2016 at 10:27 am
I think Monken was just in a down mood yesterday because of this humidity! I know I was. He was sweating a lot and that was probably just from walking from his car into OBP
May 20th, 2016 at 10:38 am
Dreambig
I think we got a lot of tough SOB coaches and Im lovin it. When I heard Hayes saying his players need to act like “grown ass men” in his PC, that got me excited
May 20th, 2016 at 11:04 am
He’s a good kid. Period.
May 20th, 2016 at 11:06 am
@ dallasbuc
You are spot on. It amazes me how joe tries to create controversy or how he is easily confused. Its really easy to understand. At oklahoma state using revisionist history, he wish the staff there would have recruited him but didnt because of Weeden. Jameis would have been a great successor while keeping oklahoma state very relevant. Fast forward to jameis “off the field issues” and monken became skeptical of him like most of america because he relied on media reports. Now when he got the job with the bucs prior to the introductory press conference, he spoke with both fischer and koetter who raved about winston. That led monken to stand in front of the pen and mic club and say he is excited. He was probably excited based on conversations. Now that he has had time to work with jameis personally, he realizes how wrong he was by letting the media influence the way he use to think while a head coach in college prior to his conversation with fisher etc. All he did was admit at one point in his life, he did what many did and judged jameis based on media propaganda. Its nothing weird about that. Its only weird if you are trying to create a story. Monken is not the first to admit he was wrong about jameis. Yesterday’s presser was just insight to how off base the smear campaign was and insight to how great of a player you have on your hands.
May 20th, 2016 at 12:33 pm
Its not like practically every media outlet did everything they could to annoint Marcus as the #1 pick while bashing Jameis every chance they got. Oh wait…
May 20th, 2016 at 1:02 pm
Yeah, let’s get one thing straight: this guy had ZERO shot of recruiting Jameis at OSU.
Had Jameis not gone to FSU, he was going to Alabama. Shoot, had THAT fallen through, he would have rather ended up at one of the OTHER Big 12 schools over OSU. Gundy is a decent college coach, of course, but who is this guy kidding?
Those comments from January make him look… blissfully ignorant, frankly.
May 20th, 2016 at 1:11 pm
Nope. Bama was out. Saban wouldn’t let him play baseball.
Jameis has said repeatedly his final three schools were FSU, LSU and Stanford and Jameis said he likely would have picked LSU if not FSU because it was closer to home.
May 20th, 2016 at 1:13 pm
Its not like practically every media outlet did everything they could to annoint Marcus as the #1 pick while bashing Jameis every chance they got. Oh wait…
Ahem. Not every.
May 20th, 2016 at 1:22 pm
Jeezus, this is dumb… I don’t think Monken stated that he wasn’t sold on Jameis until meeting him. I think he meant, at draft time last year, that he was skeptical. I imagine after JW’s rookie season and information he received from Koetter, his opinion changed. This is another classic case of Joe trying to create controversy where there is none. I saw the video of Monken’s comments, and I didn’t take them to be unusual at all – it was clear to me that he was referring to his preference for Mariota leading up to the 2015 draft.
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb…
May 20th, 2016 at 2:33 pm
Geeez Joe – Monken obviously wasn’t referring to his being “wrong” about Jameis within the last 5 months – he was talking about the 1st hand correction of his mis-perceptions in 2013 and 2014 when the media was crucifying Winston relentlessly because of the false accusation.
May 20th, 2016 at 4:30 pm
@Joe
My mistake, that is of course correct… and I recall the Stanford thing in particular.
My overall point stands, though. Winston wouldn’t have given OSU the time of day. Monken sounded as if Winston was some sort of easily-missed diamond in the rough. He even put Winston in the same sentence as Brandon Weedon… again, he was a decent college QB, but seriously?
Again, Monken just sounds aloof in January, compared to now. Plus, Koetter is the captain of this ship, so the rest don’t matter as much.
May 21st, 2016 at 2:33 am
So overblown Joe.
He’s talking about Jameis coming out of high school back then. Now he’s talking about the preconception of Jameis after college based on media, social media, etc.
Duh.
May 21st, 2016 at 7:34 pm
So this is what it’s like here during the off season eh? I guess ya gotta talk about something.