When in doubt about the Ravens offense, switch in mid-season to a new coordinator! It just happened again.
John Harbaugh made the decision Sunday night that it was time to change offensive coordinators, firing Marc Trestman and promoting Marty Mornhinweg. Harbaugh didn’t consult quarterback Joe Flacco, and he informed Owner Steve Bisciotti and General Manager Ozzie Newsome of his decision Sunday night.
“It’s my call,” Harbaugh said.
“I didn’t feel in my gut that, going the way we were going, it was going to change.”
Harbaugh isn’t one for comparisons, but acknowledged the similarities between his move Mondayand the decision he made to replace Cam Cameron with Jim Caldwell in 2012, which sparked an offensive turnaround en route to Super XLVII victory. Harbaugh says he didn’t make the decision because it worked last time, but he’s hoping for a similar kick start.
“We need to ramp things up, we need to do something differently, we need to look at defenses differently,” Harbaugh said. “We need to be different than we’ve been.”
The Ravens’ starting offense didn’t come together until just before Week 1 due to injuries, but the unit still hasn’t clicked after more than a month. The Ravens are the NFL’s No. 23-ranked offense, averaging 338.2 yards and 18.8 points per game. Baltimore didn’t run the ball well in the first three games, then didn’t run it enough when it was working Sunday against the Redskins. Baltimore ran the ball 11 times for 74 yards in the first quarter, then just eight times for 44 yards in the next three quarters. Terrance West averaged 8.6 yards per carry, but had just 11 rushes.
“We didn’t run the ball enough,” Harbaugh said Monday. “When you go back and look at it, I feel like we were running the ball well enough to run the ball a lot more than we did.”
Flacco is second-to-last in the NFL in average yards per passing attempt (5.4 yards). The Ravens mustered just 210 passing yards despite 46 attempts against the Redskins, and Flacco often relied on check-down passes underneath.
“We’re not putting enough points on the board and we’re not putting enough yards on the board for the amount of times we’re throwing the ball,” Harbaugh said. “That’s just not going to cut it.”
“It’s more about direction,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a big picture type of a feel thing. Are we heading in the right direction? Do I see us getting there doing the things that we’re doing right now? I think as a coach you have to assess that and make that call.”
“I just think we need different chemistry in there right now to get to where we need to go,” Harbaugh said. “It is what plays get called in certain situations, but it is also the physicality of our offense [and] the attack mentality of our offense. It is how we go about our business. Those are things that just were not getting there.”
“That is all of our responsibility. It’s like I told the offensive coaches: ‘Let’s take this on us.’ Marc Trestman is the guy that is going to suffer the most at this time, but it is all of our responsibility that this happened. It is all of our responsibility to get it right.”
Harbaugh said it was nothing personally against Trestman, who the head coach said was “really good and really classy” when informed of the decision.
“He understands. He wants what’s best for the Ravens,” Harbaugh said.
“He’s a good man. He has a good heart and he wants to see us do well. He understands as well as anybody that it becomes a bottom line type of situation and we just need to do the best we can to become as good as we can get. It has to be better than what we’ve done so far this year.”
With Marty Mornhinweg as the new coordinator, you get a mixed bag of stuff.
He was the Ravens QB coach last season. Mornhinweg, now 64 years old, started all four years at quarterback for the University of Montana, where he set 15 passing records. During the 1982 season at Montana, Mornhinweg led the Griz to its 1st Big Sky Championship in 12 years. He went undrafted in the 1985 NFL Draft.
In 1985, Mornhinweg was the receivers coach at the University of Montana. Between 1988 and 1994, he coached at several universities, including: Northern Arizona (running backs), SE Missouri State (offense), Missouri (tight ends and the offensive line), and again at Northern Arizona (offense).
During 1995 and 1996, Mornhinweg coached with the Green Bay Packers, first as an offensive assistant, then as the quarterbacks coach. From 1997 to 2000, he was offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, under Steve Mariucci.
In 2001, Mornhinweg became the head coach of the Detroit Lions, taking over a team that saw two head coaches leave in the previous season. He compiled a 5–27 record in two seasons, and his .156 winning percentage is the worst for a non-interim coach in franchise history.
In 2003, he joined the coaching staff of the Philadelphia Eagles. Mornhinweg masterminded the Eagles offense in the final six games of the 2006 season, and into the NFC Playoffs. Coach Andy Reid gave Mornhinweg the play-calling responsibilities after the Eagles’ disastrous loss to the Indianapolis Colts, 45–21. The Eagles won all six games, employing a more balanced run/pass attack. The wins included a three consecutive December divisional road games, all with a back-up quarterback, Jeff Garcia. It was the only time Reid yielded play-calling responsibilities, a role Mornhinweg continued through the 2012 season, until Andy Reid and his staff was fired at the end of 2012. Instead of continuing to coach under Reid in Kansas City, Mornhinweg took an offensive coordinator position with the New York Jets in 2013. During his time with the Jets he was the offensive coordinator under Rex Ryan.
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