Baltimore Ravens Ozzie Newsome is consistently consistent

Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome built a career as one of the best tight ends in football history, and he should be considered one of the best executives in NFL history.

We’ve talked about how crucial this offseason is for the Baltimore Ravens, but in all honesty, the offseason is a crucial point for every NFL franchise.

Every team is 0-0. Each team is building towards the ultimate goal of holding that Lombardi Trophy come February. In the past, I have seen franchises rise and fall through various influences.

Only a handful of teams have remained as consistent as teams such as the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. Being consistently good, there has to be some sort of rock that holds it all together and is the driving force behind the franchise.

With the Steelers, it comes from the Rooney Family, the owners of the franchise. As with the Patriots, it comes from the long-standing duo of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

With the Baltimore Ravens however, they’ve changed owners since moving from Cleveland, hired two head coaches, and have gone through gluttony of quarterbacks. One thing has remained constant: their general manager Ozzie Newsome and I truly believe Newsome to be the greatest example of how a general manager should be.

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Newsome was one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history when he played for the Cleveland Browns. When Bill Belichick was first hired in Cleveland in the early 90s, he had wanted Newsome to come back for one more year and play but Ozzie had repeatedly stated he was retiring.

So Belichick, being the savvy football person that he is, wanted Ozzie to stay on in some capacity, so he convinced Newsome to become part of the Browns personnel department. Newsome learned how to find talent, learned how to run a team during his time as an executive.

Newsome went with the Browns to Baltimore and first started his claim to becoming a great executive by being one of the driving forces behind drafting Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis in the 1996 draft.

Many wanted running back Lawerence Phillips with their first pick, but Ozzie was sold on Jonathan Ogden and knew you had to build through the lines. Many considered Ray Lewis too small to be an impact player, but Newsome saw the intangibles that Lewis had and knew size wouldn’t matter.

Those were early examples of how Newsome was able to impact the Ravens, and how he would eventually help construct their 2000 Super Bowl team.

Ozzie Newsome was officially named the team’s General Manager in 2002, becoming the first African-American to hold the title for an NFL team. Since then, he continues to do what he does, build a competitive football team, year in and year out.

He continues to be the driving force behind the Ravens success. He has laid a successful blueprint of how to build a contender. Ozzie Newsome knows how to play the game on and off better than anyone and should get more recognition than he does.

One of the more creative and extremely smart things he does, is manipulating the compensatory picks in the NFL Draft. The Baltimore Ravens always seem to get a few comp picks every year from the NFL.

Let me rephrase that: they are given free draft picks anywhere from the 3rd to 7th round of the draft pretty much every year. How do you make a good football team? You build through the draft and Newsome knows this and is able to get a few extra picks every year which is clearly an advantage.

How does Ozzie manage this? He knows how to play free agency better than anyone. You gain comp picks by losing your own players in free agency, but are also awarded better picks if you don’t spend money to replace them.

If you lose a player in free agency to a big deal but also sign a player to big deal that’s not your own, then you wouldn’t receive a pick. Ozzie will always prefer to retain his own players and not really sign big time free agents.

This also shows how effective Ozzie is at drafting. He drafts so well he knows can’t retain all of his good players and hence loses them in free agency to big deals, such as losing Kelechi Osemele last year for example.

He will usually sit out the first wave of free agency then go bargain shopping, and he always seems to find some gems that work out which making a few small signings wouldn’t disrupt getting a comp pick for losing a player to a big contract.

But that doesn’t mean Ozzie will not go after big time players, specifically in the case of veterans released from a team do not count against getting those picks.

That’s why you see him wait to sign guys, because a team might release a vet later in the off season and could be picked up without hurting the idea of getting comp picks.

Signing Steve Smith, for example, was a great move not only because it provided much-needed help at wide out and a veteran presence, but it also did not affect whether they would receive compensatory picks, since Smith was released from Carolina later in the offseason in 2014.

It’s just what Ozzie does, which is making smart football decisions that effect the here and now.

Ozzie Newsome has proven time and again he can run an organization. He knows how to draft, how to run a personnel department and how to create stability.

He’s proven all of this by the results of his drafts and by the results on the field. He’s provided the city of Baltimore with two Super Bowls. He has been the architect of those teams. He was a hall of fame player, and he should be considered as a hall of fame executive too.

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He continues to be the driving force behind the Ravens success. He has laid a successful blueprint of how to build a contender. Ozzie Newsome knows how to play the game on and off better than anyone and should get more recognition than he does.