BEREA, Ohio — The NFL is a young man’s game, and Todd Monken knows that all too well. He sees that half of the league’s head coaches are 45 or younger, including five who haven’t even hit 40 yet. He knows coaches almost never get their first head coaching job at 60 years old.
Yet here he is, the league’s oldest rookie, getting his first and probably last shot all at once. Yes, the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns would’ve jumped at an NFL head coaching job in his 30s and 40s. He once thought he was headed in that direction.
He knew back then he was ready, too.
He knows now that he really wasn’t.
“No, there’s no way I was ready,” Monken told me recently. “Not even close.”
That’s what Monken sees as he looks back over a 37-year coaching career that began as a grad assistant at Grand Valley State in Michigan in 1989 — a few weeks before current Buffalo Bills head coach Joe Brady was born. And yeah, maybe that is what he has to say, as just the fourth man to ever get his first NFL head coaching job in his 60s.
Todd Monekn’s first NFL job was with the Jaguars, coaching their wide receivers from 2007-10. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
But it’s that wisdom of hindsight, and the wisdom of the years, that Monken truly believes gives him an advantage as a head coach, even with one of the most troubled and star-crossed franchises in the league. It doesn’t matter that some of his players are a third of his age. It doesn’t matter that he entered the ultimate no-win situation, taking over a franchise that has just four winning seasons and one playoff victory in the last 27 years.
What matters is what he’s learned along his winding road to this destination. What matters is that he knows now all the stuff that he didn’t know then.
“If you’d have hired me six years ago or 15 years ago, you could’ve said ‘Boy, he’s a young up-and-comer,'” Monken told me. “But I’m better now at 60 than I really would have been at 45, just because of all the coaches and players I’ve been around.”
Monken sure has been around a lot of them on a journey that took him through eight colleges and four NFL teams, including a three-year stint as head coach at Southern Miss. He learned at the feet of coaches like Les Miles at Oklahoma State and LSU, Dirk Koetter in Tampa and Kirby Smart at Georgia. His last job was in Baltimore working for John Harbaugh, who tried hard to bring Monken with him to the New York Giants.
Todd Monken’s first head coaching job came with Southern Miss, coaching the Golden Eagles to a 13-25 record over three seasons. (Photo by Bobby McDuffie/Icon Sportswire/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Years ago, when Monken was still that “young up-and-comer,” he didn’t have most of those experiences to draw from yet. He hadn’t gotten that elite education he knows he got from Koetter, Smart and Harbaugh — the one he called “a doctorate in how to handle a team.”
As those years went by, though, Monken began to believe he’d never be able to apply that education to a top job, because it looked like his shot was going to pass him by. He had some momentum when he resigned as head coach of Southern Miss after the 2015 season to become the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator. He had taken a program that had imploded and went 0-12 the year before he arrived, and he turned it into a team that went 9-5 (and to the Heart of Dallas Bowl) in his final season. It’s still the best mark the Golden Eagles have had in the last 14 years.
And there was interest when he succeeded in calling plays and running offenses in the NFL, too. But it was never more than interest. He interviewed with the New York Jets before they hired Adam Gase in 2019. He met with the Los Angeles Chargers (before they hired Jim Harbaugh) and the Carolina Panthers (Dave Canales) in 2024. And he talked with the Jacksonville Jaguars (Liam Coen) and Chicago Bears (Ben Johnson) in 2025, too.
“I didn’t interview well enough, obviously,” Monken told me. “But you can never look at it and say, ‘Why didn’t I get it? They hired a schmo.’ F–k no. They hired great f–king coaches. I don’t think I’m beneath them, but I don’t look at it and go, ‘I don’t get that.’ I get it.”
Todd Monken (left) became a prominent coaching figure when he helped Georgia win two national titles as its offensive coordinator. (Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Monken also understood his fate. After the flurry of interviews in 2024 and 2025, he assumed that was it, that he had missed his chance. He figured he was too old, that only men with head coaching experience would get jobs at his age, that too many teams were looking for young hot-shots, which he clearly wasn’t anymore.
He began to accept he’d forever be a long-time NFL assistant. Or at least that’s what he thought.
“I didn’t wonder. I didn’t think it was going to happen,” he told me. “You get to a point to where it would’ve been fine. Being an offensive coordinator in the NFL, I had already been a head coach [in college]. If that’s where it ends, cool. Pretty damn good job, right? Awesome.
“But it was going to take the right opportunity.”
Todd Monken helped coach Lamar Jackson to an MVP win during his three seasons as offensive coordinator. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
It’s hard to imagine anyone thinking the Browns are the “right opportunity.” And cynically … well, of course he has to say that, too. It was his only opportunity. But Monken seems serious. He knows the history in Cleveland. He knows he’s got a quarterback problem. But he likes the young talent all over his roster. And he believes this franchise that has been an enduring nightmare since it was resurrected in 1999 has finally positioned itself for a brighter future.
“I think it’s the right time to be the head coach of the Cleveland Browns,” Monken told me. “I’m 100% convinced of that.”
More importantly, he’s convinced it’s the right time for him, that he’s going to be much better at this job now than he would’ve been when he was younger. Besides, the long wait for this chance doesn’t matter anymore.
One of Todd Monken’s top challenges in his first year as Browns coach will be to get the most out of Deshaun Watson. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images)
All that matters is he’s finally here.
“I do believe, as much as I swear, that God puts you in the right place for when you’re ready,” Monken told me. “And the things you go through prepare you for what the next step is. You just don’t know what it is or when it’s going to happen.
“I’m blessed to have this one and I’m never going to take that for granted. That’s what I told them when I took the job. I’ll never take it for granted. It’s fourth-and-1 every day. Let’s go.”
