New York Giants coach John Harbaugh (it is still nice to write that) is expected to want to bring Todd Monken, his offensive coordinator the last three seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, to the Giants to work with quarterback Jaxson Dart. The Cleveland Browns, though, appear to be an obstacle. Monken will interview in-person on Tuesday for the Browns vacant head-coaching job, according to ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler. Monken has already has a virtual interview with the Browns, who fired Kevin Stefanski at the end of the season. Monken, 59, was head coach at Southern Miss from 2013-2015, but has never been an NFL head coach. Monken was offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2016-2018, and held that same role with the Browns in 2019. He was offensive coordinator at Georgia from 2020-2022 before returning to the NFL with the Ravens. When Monken was hired to run Harbaugh’s offense in Baltimore, he laid out his six pillars for what makes a good offense in a conversation with the Ravens’ official website. Those are: Don’t turn it over Be explosive Score touchdowns in the red zone Be good on third down Don’t have lost yardage plays Have an athletic quarterback who can make off-schedule plays “I don’t care if it’s with a fullback, without a fullback, four wide [receivers], three wide [receivers]. The reality is that there are a lot of ways to skin a cat, but still the principles of how you win are the same,” Monken said at the time. If Monken gets the Cleveland job, Harbaugh will have to go to Plan B. BBV’s Chris Pflum recently listed Mike Kafka, former Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, Denver Broncos’ quarterbacks coach Davis Webb, and Los Angeles Rams’ passing game coordinator Nate Scheelhasse as other possibilities. See More:

New York Giants fans overwhelmingly love the team’s decision to hire John Harbaugh as head coach. That is reflected in a poll here at Big Blue View in which 95.2% of respondents (5,227 of 5,490) said the hiring of Harbaugh was the right decision. The move has been nearly universally praised. Dan Duggan of The Athletic wrote that “Landing Harbaugh is like hitting the inside straight the Giants have been chasing all these years.” There are, though, always naysayers. Always doubters. Always people who look for reasons why things won’t work out. Are there valid reasons to doubt the Harbaugh hire? Sure. Nothing is ever guaranteed. Having success in one place does not mean you will definitely have success in another. So, let’s give the doubters their due. Doubter No. 1 — ‘Long-time listener, first-time caller’ I received an e-mail to the Big Blue View mailbag inbox from Daniel Selz. It’s really too long for a mailbag question, but is worth discussing. Daniel’s letter reads: One of the things I admire about your work at BBV is your generally even-keeled takes, not getting too high or too low, not getting caught up in the hyperbole of the ‘hot take machine’. Then this morning I read in your piece, ‘has there ever been a bigger, more stunning, more potentially franchise-altering move than this one by a New York team?’ And I don’t want to just single you out, everyone on the Internet seems sure this is the best, most amazing move in the history of sports and maybe everything. For fun as a thought experiment, I had Google Gemini help me compile the following table comparing Harbaugh to ‘Mystery Coach A’: Metric John Harbaugh Mystery Coach A Regular Season Win Pct. 61.4% 60.8% Super Bowl Titles 1 1 Playoff Wins 13 11 Playoff Losses 11 11 Top 5 Scoring Offenses 3 9 12+ Win Seasons 4 6 Can you guess who Mystery Coach A is? What if I tell you, like Harbaugh, he was also fired from his first head coaching gig for friction with his two-time MVP quarterback who wore number 8… Mystery Coach A is Mike McCarthy! And just as a thought experiment, let’s say the Giants were hiring Mike McCarthy right now, after whiffing on Harbaugh and Stefanski…it’s hard to imagine everyone and their mother would be saying hyperbolic things about this being the best moment in the history of their giant fandom. What gives? My point isn’t to claim we should have hired McCarthy or that i would have been excited about that, I’m just trying to understand what is driving such a difference in ‘vibes’ about Harbaugh vs. McCarthy, since the underlying key data about each’s performance seems shockingly similar (if anything–gasp!–you could look at the bottom two rows and have a preference for McCarthy right?)? One last question in the spirit of being a wet-blanket…in your opinion or based on what you’ve heard, what are Harbaugh’s weaknesses or shortcomings that need to fixed that led to him being fired from his last job? As a Giants fan of a certain age, it’s impossible not to remember the narrative that Tom Coughlin was too rigid, too hard-edged in Jacksonville, but with the G-Men, he softened up, started listening to his players a bit more and the rest is history. What about Harbaugh? From what I’ve read, it seems part of why he was dismissed was his fierce loyalty to/unrelenting stubbornness about (depending on your perspective) Todd Monken. Which then makes one a little queasy to read the online papers where it seems a foregone conclusion that Harbaugh is going to make Monken his OC here. Not even willing to consider a change. Not learning from his mistakes in the way Coughlin did perhaps? Valentine’s View Daniel, there really wasn’t any palace intrigue regarding the identity of ‘Mystery Coach A’ in your table. Anyone who has been reading Big Blue View in recent weeks should know that on several occasions I have pointed out that Mike McCarthy’s resume is almost identical to that of Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin. Except, of course, for those two pesky firings. I have always maintained that McCarthy’s accomplishments should not be downplayed, that he has many of the characteristics the Giants were looking for, and that the idea of the Giants hiring him shouldn’t have been scoffed at. Hiring McCarthy would have been fine. It wouldn’t, though, have been nearly as good for the Giants as hiring Harbaugh is. McCarthy and Kevin Stefanski are good coaches and would likely have improved the team’s fortunes on the field had they been hired. No other hiring would have been met with the excitement, or brought the instant credibility that Harbaugh did. The Giants have been flailing for more than a decade now, going mostly in the wrong direction. Harbaugh offers them the best chance for a course correction. He comes from a winning environment that he was a big part of establishing and maintaining. He brings with him knowledge of how the Ravens have been consistently good, and the cachet to get ideas implemented with the Giants. We are already seeing some of that take place. He brings a reputation with him for having a keen eye for finding quality young assistant coaches who could help set the organization up for sustained success. On the field and in the locker room, Harbaugh is a culture-setting CEO type head coach who brings the ability — and credibility — to set standards and hold players accountable. The Giants, and the entire organization, desperately need that. There are other good offensive or defensive coaches who could have been hired. None, though, with the reputation Harbaugh has for creating a winning culture and being willing to stand up to star players who may not want to do things his way. Yes, Harbaugh reportedly was unwilling to fire Todd Monken. I disagree, though, that he is unwilling to learn from his mistakes. He fired offensive coordinator Greg Roman