With Art Modell selling the team it was apparent that David Modell would be leaving the Ravens upon the family exit in 2004. Bisciotti, using his five years of research and contacts within the NFL, had known for quite some time that he wanted Richard “Dick” Cass, a Washington, D.C. attorney who got his start in the NFL when he represented Jerry Jones during his acquisition of the Dallas Cowboys in 1989, to lead the Ravens. Cass was deeply rooted in almost every aspect of the league’s interests and had been involved in two franchise transactions in his home state of Maryland: he represented the estate of Jack Kent Cooke in the sale of the Washington Redskins to Daniel Snyder and oversaw Biscotti’s purchase of 49-percent share of the Ravens in 1999. When Biscotti became the majority owner of the Ravens in 2004, he installed Cass as the President of the franchise.
Cass, who played freshman football and rugby at Princeton and later attended law school at Yale, had seen over his two decades near the league just how different the NFL was from most businesses because of the public scrutiny it endures and the community pride it can inspire. And from the legal side, and his work in the collective bargaining space beginning in 1992, his vast experience gave him great insight into league matters that sometimes confused the “C student” in Bisciotti.
Routinely at the early owners’ meetings then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would have “one per team” roundtables and it was quietly expected that these two-hour summits were just the 32 primary owners. Bisciotti, however, would insist that Cass be in the room instead of him because — as his is his leadership style and ideology — he wanted the most effective person to be in the room when the most complex issues were being discussed and a vote from the Ravens was needed to pass new rules or by laws. Eventually under Commissioner Roger Goodell many of those affairs became “two per team” summits.
And while most traditional companies in any business space in our society operate solely from a bottom-line profit center as a barometer of success, the Ravens’ mantra is far different. Cass and Bisciotti concur that the Ravens are more of a community trust than a traditional business.
“We don’t run the Ravens to maximize profit,” Cass once told The Baltimore Business Journal. “We run the Ravens to win football games.”
Cass had spent a lifetime in the world of corporate law in Washington, D.C. and had been with the same firm, Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, for 31 years and became a partner there in 1979. His was a life of a world-class attorney serving as the chairman of the firm’s Business Transactions Section and a member of its Management Committee. His initial work was as a general corporate and securities practice, representing companies and entrepreneurs in complex corporate partnership and securities transactions. When Jerry Jones was interested in purchasing the Dallas Cowboys in 1988 Cass advised Jones on a variety of matters, including sponsorship contracts, the CBA and salary cap, broadcast arrangements, internet policies, stadium financing, estate planning, local broadcast partnerships and the NFL substance abuse programs. He served as an NBA counsel when the Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002 and also worked with the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2003.
It is very difficult to find a more qualified leader in the league and when Tagliabue stepped down as Commissioner of the NFL in 2006, Cass was mentioned as a candidate for that post until he withdrew his name very early in the process because he was committed to the Ravens and happy being in Baltimore working for Bisciotti.
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Then in 2007 with the Ravens in the midst of a nine-game losing streak, Cass was consulted on the temperature of moving forward with head coach Brian Billick and was a key part of the search committee that landed John Harbaugh in early 2008.
Clearly, Bisciotti felt as though he and the franchise were in their element in being prepared to hire a head coach even after the initial offer to Jason Garrett was turned down. “I told Ron Shapiro and my wife, ‘We had a good third choice as well,’ ” Biscotti said at the time.
“It’s tough to hire because it’s so public,” Bisciotti said. “It’s not because intellectually it’s over my head or emotionally over my head. Doing something in public like this — having to fire a friend and then pass on other quality candidates is not easy. In my (other) organization we don’t parade around the ones who don’t get the promotion to Executive Vice President. They’re worthy or they wouldn’t get the interview, and I have to pick one. And I feel sorry for the ones who don’t get the job and that’s what makes it hard on me. I have to live with my decision. No matter what I do, I’m going to disappoint people in my decisions.”
Therein lies the constant double-edged sword and the rush that comes with owning and operating the Ravens – everything is up for public debate and by-and-large the public knows less than anyone about what’s really happening inside the framework of the franchise. Generally, the media sets the barometer and gauge for the public conversation and most of the scribes who hang around the locker room wouldn’t have the first clue about running a lemonade stand let alone the decisions being made with a $300 million per year organization with a network of revenue streams, media and business partners that’s a tangled web of influence, hospitality, and intense passion and scrutiny.
Clearly, when Bisciotti and his seven-person selection committee turned the team over to Harbaugh, there were many questions in regard to his “outside-the-box” thinking and hiring of a career special teams coordinator. Bisciotti stayed open-minded and eventually gravitated toward the outlier pick in Harbaugh, who he bonded with spiritually as well as in ideology and vision for the franchise.
“What I kept getting from people around the game who knew the game was, ‘Don’t underestimate the value of a special teams coach. He understands every aspect of the game.’ Why special teams guys don’t get more attention, I’m not sure? You’d have to ask the other owners. It certainly peaked my interest when Belichick is taking note of it.
“I’m a glass half-full person. Things happen for a reason. I really believe that. If (Harbaugh) turned me down, I’d be down to my 3rd choice. I believe the six coaches we interviewed could’ve all helped us get to where we wanted to go.”
