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I think this proves what I believe about Bisciotti


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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/throwback/201408/flying-high-baltimore-ravens-jamison-hensley-joe-flacco-steve-bisciotti

How Baltimore Ravens Drafted Joe Flacco Rather Than Trading Up For Matt Ryan

From Art Modell's founding of the franchise in 1996 to the decision to draft Ray Lewis and Jonathan Ogden, to victories in two Super Bowls the past 15 years, the Baltimore Ravens' short history has been full of highlights. Jamison Hensley has covered much of that history, first as a Baltimore Sun reporter for 11 seasons before moving to ESPN. In this excerpt from his new book Flying High: Stories Of The Baltimore Ravens, Hensley describes how the team got quarterback Joe Flacco even though owner Steve Bisciotti had pushed hard to draft Boston College star Matt Ryan.

Long before winning the Super Bowl in February 2013, the Ravens realized the extent of Joe Cool's calm demeanor at a cold and windy pre-draft workout at the University of Delaware.

Joe Flacco showed up with a bag of footballs and a few of his Delaware receivers. To see how Flacco would react, Ravens officials arrived with brand new NFL balls along with three other collegiate receivers that the team wanted to work out.

Flacco didn't blink. He smiled and asked how they wanted him to start. The throwing conditions were poor. The footballs were slick. Flacco was unfamiliar with the receivers. And only five of 150 passes hit the ground.

The Ravens wanted to confuse Flacco, and instead, they came away with more clarity about the future of the quarterback position.

Team officials walked to their cars in silence. They didn't even look at each other. With just a month left before the draft, the Ravens didn't want to give anyone watching a hint that they were so impressed with Flacco.

"It was there that we all looked at each other and kind of said the same thing: ‘Do you believe what we just saw?'" said Cam Cameron, the Ravens' offensive coordinator at the time.

So, imagine the Ravens' surprise when owner Steve Bisciotti challenged them to draft a different franchise quarterback -- Matt Ryan.

"I told those guys that if they had Matt Ryan listed as the best quarterback in the draft, then I'm willing to give up the whole damn draft for him," Bisciotti said. "I told them there is nothing worse for an owner or for them to be managing a business without a franchise quarterback. I said, ‘I don't care what we have to pay for him to trade up. We're getting Matt Ryan.'"

The Ravens, who were drafting No. 8 in 2008, knew they would have to jump six spots to No. 2 (and ahead of the Atlanta Falcons) to get Ryan. Baltimore called the St. Louis Rams, who had the second overall pick, and they wanted two first-round picks (2008 and 2009) along with the Ravens' picks in the second and third rounds.

Team officials convinced Bisciotti the smarter play was to trade back, acquire more picks, and take Flacco. The Ravens had Ryan rated as the No. 3 player in the entire draft and Flacco at No. 15. There wasn't much separation between the quarterbacks in the Ravens' opinion.

The team's scouts thought Flacco had a lower floor than Ryan, but he had the higher ceiling.

The Ravens dropped from a top-10 pick to near the bottom of the first round, which proved too far down to Bisciotti's liking. He started getting antsy that Flacco wouldn't drop to the Ravens. He didn't want to get stuck with a quarterback like Chad Henne or Brian Brohm, who weren't rated anywhere close to Flacco on the Ravens' board.

Bisciotti wanted the Ravens to trade a third-round pick and move up, but Eric DeCosta, the Ravens' director of player personnel at the time, didn't think the team should do it. DeCosta told Bisciotti that Flacco would be there at No. 26. Bisciotti then looked across the table at DeCosta and told him, "And what if he isn't? What if somebody takes him? Is it going to be worth an extra third-round pick? We have three of them. So, stop being a pick whore. Let's give up a third, and go back and get him, and be done with this."

The Ravens gave up a pick in the third and sixth rounds to Houston in order to go to No. 18 and take Flacco. At the news conference, general manager Ozzie Newsome essentially delivered the coronation of Flacco, calling him "the guy to lead our football team into the future."

ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. questioned the pick, saying Flacco was a second-round talent. The biggest criticism with Flacco was he played in Division I-AA against Towson and New Hampshire instead of national powers like Alabama and Texas.\

"I had to go down to the minor leagues of college football to prove who I was," Flacco said. "I'm going to carry that with me for the rest of my life and use it for the best."

Flacco provided a glimpse of the future in his first practice with the Ravens, hitting wide receiver Mark Clayton on target with a pass that soared 50 yards in the air.

Middle linebacker Ray Lewis, who watched 15 quarterbacks start for the Ravens from 1996 to 2007, couldn't hide his excitement.

"We've got ourselves a quarterback," Lewis told a team official.

The Ravens, though, wanted to bring Flacco along slowly. The plan was to sit him for his entire rookie season. The hope was for Troy Smith to win the starting job.

But, by the third game of the preseason, Flacco went from third string to starter after Smith came down with a serious tonsil infection and Kyle Boller suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

"I didn't want to sit," Flacco said. "If you're going to say I'm your guy, then you should play me. I don't see any benefit of sitting and watching."

Flacco won over fans as quickly as he did the Ravens' organization. In his first career start, he surprisingly scored with his feet instead of his arm, running for a 38-yard touchdown in a 17-10 win over the Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium.

In the first half, fans waved purple placards that read, "Wacko 4 Flacco." In the second half, the crowd chanted, "Let's go Flacco," something no other Ravens starting quarterback before him -- from Vinny Testaverde to Troy Smith -- had ever inspired.

"I kind of thought I heard it, but I wasn't really sure. I thought, ‘Why would they be doing that?'" Flacco said with a laugh. "Hey, if I can keep them on my side like that, it will be a good time."

 

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I always heard Oz traded up to 18 because he heard that Jets and Gruden wanted Joe. Jets had worked

him out for 4 days in NY. TB needed a QB so Oz moves in front of Gruden to grab Flacco and Gruden

is out of football for lack of QB.

 

I told everyone that Joe was Ozzie's guy all along and even said it to Aaron Wilson when he spoke to our

club. I said if everyone is picking us to take Matt Ryan if he drops, then it means he's taking someone

else and it ain't gonna be Henne or Brohm. Aaron said usually that's right but you're not in the same room

as Ozzie to see his eyes light up when he talks about Matt Ryan.

 

A week after the draft, DeCosta told our club that I'm not exactly sure we would have drafted Ryan even

if he dropped because of all the work my staff did on Flacco. BINGO!

 

Hell, he didn't even know about Flacco and neither did Oz until their east coast scout called and said

Joe is the real deal and you gotta come up here to see him. DeCosta said, hell, I didn't even know anyone

in Delware. You don't know how hard it was for me to go to such a tiny school and give him an A. He

waited for Joe to play Towson State and he didn't want to go then. He just returned from a long road

trip of scouting and wanted to spend the day with his family but he went.

 

He saw a giant of a man walk on the field before the game, pick up a football and throw it 50 yards and

laid it on a dime. Flacco knew he was there and DeCosta said, damn, I gotta see this kid play.

 

Then he took all his scouts to see Joe bring Navy from behind looking like Unitas in the 2-min drill

to beat Navy at the end. They all went back to OM and submitted grades to DeCosta in sealed

envelopes and they were all As.

 

HARBs and hired and brings in CAM so DeCosta wanted CAM to work Joe out at Delaware. Here's

CAM trying to find a home for his family and I drag him all the way up to tiny Delware. CAM loved

his arm and especially how fast he changed his mechanics when instructed and told DeCosta to

get him but he said, I'm the only one who talks to Joe. Enter Zorn and Zorn departs, sic, sic.

 

We almost became the first team to send a rookie QB and rookie head coach to the Super Bowl.

We just missed it that year.

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And while I always said that Joe was the guy Oz wanted, people said why did he try to trade up

for Ryan.

 

Well now we now. Bisciotti was sticking his big dick into the picture. Just think, we wouldn't have

had Joe or Ray Rice had we traded up and Matt Ryan gets blown out of the playoffs early every

year except the year we went to SB47. I wanted SF in that SB and was scared to death to get Atlanta's

fleet wide recievers on that fast indoor track.

 

The SB would have been a blowout if the lights hadn't gone out.

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When he bought the team he said he was gonna be a "hands off" owner but hasn't been. Of course when you spend close to $1B for a team and you're

the 2d youngest owner ever, you do what you want. He threw his weight around in that draft and could have cost us Joe and Rice and we probably

don't go to the SB.

 

Also, at the end of last season he put HARBs and Oz on notice. They better not have another mediocre season or else. I really don't think he'd ever

fire Oz and if he was stupid enough to there'd be 31 teams line up with open check books to sign him at any cost.

 

He is also over-paying DeCosta who makes more than most of the GMs in all pro sports. I fear for when Ozzie retires because none of his

assistants that left did well except for the current GM in KC who was also the GM in NE and helped Bellicheat with all those players including

Brady when no one else in the world wanted him. Phil Savage was fired and then his replacement was fired even faster and Ozzie's pal The Shack

was fired in JAX and after Oz flleeced him for all those picks for Flacco. The guy Shack wanted, a pass rusher to stop Manning and tHE Dolts

wasn't good, a guy name Harvey, I think.

 

So who's to say DeCosta will do any better? He's the one who pimped Oher on Oz and Kruger who did nothing til his last season and only 1/2

of his last season after Suggs comes back. He left town bitching about lack of playing time in SB 47 after making a good stop or 2 but he

would have lost the SB had he stayed in. Teams ran all over him during the season and SF just might have won if Kruger stayed in. Oher

was a dumb as could be and is gone too.

 

I told DeCosta that he f******ed up the Oher draft when he spoke to our club. It got me kicked out the club too-lol. Well that and the

Anita Marks joke I played on Scott Garceau who was the MC at our Scholarship Banquet. Anyway, He could have had Nicks who led the

Giants to their SB trophies and was the go to guy in the end. We wouldn't have had Lee Evans dropping that ball with 25 secs to the SB to

play the Giants and we would have won it. That was our Sb..

 

He said Nicks wasn't as good a player as Oher. Well Oher was run out of town and the didn't even try to sign Kruger, opting for Ellerbe

instead but couldn't close the deal but then Dooooom fell into their laps. Kruger gets $45M for 1/2 a good season and promptly gets his

entire coaching staff and front office fired for such a dismal year. Anyone associated with trying to sign Kruger was fired. ILMAO.

 

You could say that Webb salvages that draft like Suggs salvaged the Boller draft but we won the SB w/o Webb who was out most of the year - AGAIN, and guess who is out now and hasn't played since training camp started.

 

All that said, we're damn lucky to have Bisciotti. They're bitching about Boy Wonder down the road right now and we could have had him. Well, we had Irsay all those years who stole our team. I think Biscut learned to stay out of the draft although he still might fired HARBs if he goes 8-8. That won't upset me but if he fires Oz I'm getting Issis on him. Make that Issis and the Hamas-lol. I have contacts in the White House-lol.

 

 

 

WE GOT OUR BOOKENDS - ERIC DECOSTA :thumbup:

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He might say it but I disagree.

Regardless, I think we can agree he's definitely improved to some degree since 2008. I believe it would be naive to say otherwise. Someone as intelligent and business savvy as Bisciotti, he has made his very successful career in professional staffing, putting the best guys in a superior position to succeed. Looking at our front office, scouting department, and coaching staff, it would be hard to argue there is anyone better that has assembled their organization (not including players) from top to bottom with as much talent, and resources available, as the Ravens.

 

Now if you want to argue he doesn't have the football instinct of a Rooney or Kraft, that's valid. However, Bisciotti has been very reasonable, and even in situations, as above, where he wants to intervene, he is able to be reasoned with. As a businessman, he realizes he has invested significantly more resources in his executive staff, who are experts in their fields, than his competition. Ultimately, he knows he must trust them.

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Giving new contracts to his coach right away like he did to Billick says different to me.

I guess we'll have to see how this works out but it could prove to be irrelevant as Bisciotti has already proven he's willing to eat a contract if he wants to fire someone. I could take your same example and say Bisciotti is paying for stability, and if it doesn't work out, it's his money spent and doesn't set back the franchise one bit.

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Why eat a contract? Leave a coach on somewhat of the hot seat as much as possible.

You do that at the risk of locker-room dynamics and players more willing to not listen to the coach. Also, look at the Browns and Jim Harbaugh. If the Browns were willing to trade two first round picks for Harbaugh, imagine what they would pay him on the open market. It's the same with your philosophy of players, if you don't lock them up early they'll leave for big money on the open market.

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