The Opening Drive 7/25: Todd Monken's Schemes to Know -- Power and Counter

Block down and pulling the guard to get the advantage. The Ravens were dominant using these gap concepts.

Jul 25, 2026

∙ Paid

Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken calls out to his players during team OTAs at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus of the Cleveland Browns in Berea, Ohio on June 2, 2026. (USA Today)

We’ve now covered Todd Monken’s use of trap, influence, crunch, and outside zone. We close with his final core run usage and it was perhaps the Ravens best over his three seasons. Gap concepts are popular across the sport because of the point-of-attack advantages it provides and Monken loved to tap into it with a powerful downhill runner. Power and counter announce themselves with physicality. Which is precisely why Monken has kept it as a base call in Baltimore even while building an offense that leans so heavily on misdirection everywhere else.

The blocking rules are the most straightforward of any concept in this series. The playside of the line down-blocks — every lineman working the man to his inside, taking away penetration rather than reaching for width — while the backside guard pulls through the hole to log or kick out whichever defender shows up first, usually a linebacker who’s had to fill against a double team he couldn’t do anything about. A fullback or H-back, when the personnel group has one, leads through the same hole to clean up whatever the pulling guard doesn’t finish. Power isn’t hiding who’s unblocked, it’s simply overwhelming the point of attack with more blockers than the defense has defenders to match.

Football 101: Power (Run Game) - Weekly Spiral

Counter aims to accomplish the same goal, with one or two pullers, as it’s a gap down concept with a puller from the backside. This time, however, the lead puller is looking to kick out the EMLOS (end man on line of scrimmage) instead of trying to pull for the playside inside linebacker.

Football 101: Counter (Run Game) - Weekly Spiral

The Ravens ran these gap concepts better than anyone in the NFL since 2023 when Monken arrived. They lead the league in usage, yards, and touchdowns by a wide margin so expect to see plenty of this in Cleveland this year as well.

Below you’ll find the latest in the BFB catalog for supporters to dig into. Click the link to become a supporter if you haven’t already, and enjoy all the latest from Browns Film Breakdown.

Latest Podcasts:

Latest Articles:

Latest Film Rooms:

That physical, well-blocked simplicity is exactly why it’s been such a consistent complement to Henry specifically. Henry’s game has never been about elusiveness in space; it’s about vertical push through contact, which is what power is designed to create. With Patrick Ricard on the field as a lead blocker, Baltimore’s ground game turned genuinely absurd in 2024 — Henry produced more rushing yards behind Ricard alone (1,324) than the entire Raiders offense gained on the ground that season, scored more rushing touchdowns (15) than fourteen full teams managed, and posted a higher yards-per-carry mark (6.2) than every team in the league. That’s not outside zone’s patient, cutback-dependent profile. That’s a downhill, gap-scheme identity built on double teams and a lead blocker clearing the specific hole the play is designed to hit.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Browns Film Breakdown to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.