Jan. 31, 2026, 12:07 p.m. ET

This is why football, especially the National Football League, sits above everything else. It isn’t merely a collection of 32 teams or an 18-week, 17-game Baltimore Ravens season within a 272-game slate. It’s our nation’s obsession. It’s a theater. It’s reality television with stakes, structure, and real-time consequences.

The league offers certainty and chaos in equal measure. Baltimore has executed a stunning about-face this offseason, but so have the rival Cleveland Browns, and if you claim you saw all of this coming last January, we’d have to question your honesty.

Is the Ravens hiring a new head coach? Didn’t see it. John Harbaugh becoming the New YorkGiants’ head coach while Baltimore’s offensive coordinator lands with the Cleveland Browns? Certainly not! But, this isn’t a drill. Todd Monken is now leading the Browns, and early assumptions about a coaching migration to New Jersey have been replaced by the reality of familiar faces making their way to Ohio.

Some of the Ravens’ former assistants are joining Todd Monken in Cleveland instead of following Harbaugh to New York.

We’d call your honesty into question if you said you knew last January that Baltimore would be hiring a new head coach and their offensive coordinator would leave to coach a division rival. Can you believe it? John Harbaugh is now the New York Giants‘ head coach.

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Early theories suggested Harbaugh would strip the Ravens’ staff bare and take them with him to New Jersey. Instead, Cleveland has emerged as the more aggressive disruptor. Several Ravens assistants once thought to be Harbaugh-bound are now following Monken west. A nine-year Baltimore assistant, Travis Switzer, has joined Monken as his new offensive coordinator. Cleveland has also requested to interview another Ravens assistant, Danny Breyer, for the role of pass game coordinator.

George Warhop is already set to follow Monken to coach the Browns’ offensive line. Respected Browns insider Mary Kay Cabot reported Monken hoped to retain Jim Schwartz, but that plan appears unlikely after Schwartz was passed over for the head job.

Meanwhile, has wasted little time assembling his Giants staff. Former special teams coordinator Chris Horton joins him in that same role with added assistant head coach duties. Dennard Wilson is in as the defensive coordinator. Still, the bigger picture is impossible to ignore.

This isn’t just a reshuffling of staff titles. It’s an attempt to shift the balance of power. A familiar face hopes to reinvigorate a once-proud Giants franchise. The Browns hope to lose their moniker as a longtime laughingstock. They compete with each other in a talent pool familiar to both, and statuses are being challenged, not on the field but behind the scenes.