ClutchPoints
When news broke that Lamar Jackson was sitting out his second-straight day of practice ahead of the Baltimore Ravens’ Week 5 showdown against the Houston Texans, it left fans in Charm City feeling less than confident about the showdown against DeMeco Ryans and company.
Sure, it is just Friday, and with another day and change to get his body right before the Sunday afternoon showdown at M&T Bank Stadium, but the Texans have already begun to prepare for a world where Cooper Rush is handing the ball off to Derrick Henry under center, and the Ravens have likely done the same with the game fast approaching.
Asked about how his offense could change with Rush under center instead of Jackson, offensive coordinator Todd Monken told reporters on Friday that he appreciates the former Dallas Cowboys signal-caller as a player and would feel confident if he had to see the field.
“Preparation. [Cooper Rush] is the consummate pro. From the moment he got here … He was here the whole offseason, and you can see why he has been successful,” Monken told reporters. “He’s played a lot of football in this league. You forget his record as a starter. It’s outstanding. He did a great job. Everybody that you spoke to in Dallas, [their comments were] glowing about [him], and the guys that went – [Garrett] Nussmeier went to the Saints, and Kellen Moore, they loved him. He’s been as good as advertised.”
Asked if the Ravens will have to abandon the QB run with Cooper running the show instead of Jackson, Monken kept it somewhat candid, noting that the team will have a game plan ready to go for Week 5.
“Obviously, as athletic as ‘Coop’ [Cooper Rush] is, some of those things are not going to look the same as [when] Lamar [does it], but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be effective and efficient,” Monken noted. “It’s just a different way of approaching certain aspects of your game. That’s obvious, but our staff and myself have enough background and history with guys that we can still play winning football. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have signed Cooper. We wouldn’t have put ourselves in that position, if we weren’t confident enough to be able to build a game plan that would allow us to score and be really efficient.”
After watching the Texans struggle to get much going in the first month of the 2025 NFL season, securing their first win of the season in Week 4 against the hapless Tennessee Titans after dropping three-straight to the Los Angeles Rams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Jacksonville Jaguars to start off the season, it’s hard to really judge where Houston is at heading into October. They might be a good team that’s just slow to get the rust off, a bad team capitalizing on a worse foe, or something in between the two.
But one thing is for sure: the Ravens are a very different team without Jackson at quarterback. If...
