Cleveland had the 12th overall pick and the Ravens were at No. 13. Savage dangled the 12th pick around the NFL knowing that the Ravens wanted Ngata. The Ravens knew the Browns wanted Kamerion Wimbley. Savaged feigned interest from other teams to try to get value out of Newsome and most in Owings Mills resented the power play after the years of relationship. Newsome eventually blinked on the clock and gave Savage a 6th round pick to move up one spot. Wimbley played for three teams and was a first-round bust, never fulfilling his promise. Meanwhile, Ngata anchored the Ravens line, signed a 5-year, $61 million deal in 2001 and won a Super Bowl XLVII ring in Baltimore. Oh, and the Browns used that extorted 6th rounder, pick No. 181 on a defensive tackle named Babatunde Oshinowo from Stanford, who was in six NFL camps over four seasons and played in six games. The Ravens used pick No. 203 in the same draft on Nebraska punter Sam Koch, who helped them go to five straight playoffs and was a factor in winning Super Bowl XLVII.
Koch is a classic case of the Ravens scouting working. Koch wasn’t just a punter, he was a football player, a real athlete. He played tight end, fullback and on the offensive and defensive lines in high school in football-mad Nebraska. He also played baseball, basketball and soccer. When he got to Baltimore, he found a mentor in Matt Stover, who had spent nearly two decades in the NFL. Koch also became a central clubhouse figure in organizing cornhole tournaments – an indoor beanbag toss game made famous in football tailgate lots around the country – and creating the kind of bonds and relationships within the locker room that John Harbaugh was looking for in 2008 when the team was so divided internally.
In 2007, the Ravens wanted tackle Joe Staley from Central Michigan in the first round, but the San Francisco 49ers traded into the spot in front of them. Instead, Newsome netted a pair of quality guards in the draft, selecting five-year starting guard Ben Grubbs in the first round and his long-time counterpart Marshal Yanda in the third round. They became the best of friends. In the summer of 2011, the Ravens signed Yanda to a five-year, $32 million deal. In early 2012, Grubbs signed a five-year, $36 million deal with the New Orleans Saints. The night before the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Grubbs was with his old teammates in The Big Easy rooting them on, even though he wasn’t a part of the team anymore. It’s once a family, always a family when these friendships and bonds form in the NFL. It’s truly a brotherhood in many respects.
One more time, Newsome lost a great contributor, a great teammate and solid first-round draft pick in Grubbs to another NFL team. Once again, Newsome saved the money against the salary cap and took the compensatory draft pick in 2013.
Flacco and Rice came on the same day in 2008. That changed the offense and opened all doors for the Super Bowl runs in five consecutive years and the eventual championship in February 2013.
The 2009 draft was a case study in selecting players who had dealt with adversity and battled back. The Ravens targeted tight end Brandon Pettigrew from Oklahoma State, but he was scooped up the Detroit Lions with the 21st pick so the Ravens traded up from No. 26 to 23 to select tackle Michael Oher from Mississippi.
The Ravens liked Oher so much there’s no way they thought he’d still be on the board into the 20’s so they considered it a value pick and worth the fifth rounder they had given the Patriots to move up three spots.
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Once again, their scouts loved the football focus of Oher, who was versatile and was among the most popular guys on the 2012 team. He practices hard, plays hard and fit the mentality of what the Ravens wanted when they scouted “football character.”
He was a bit of a Runyanesque character whose life story was more famous than he really wanted it to be. His mother was an alcoholic and crack addict. His father was often in prison. He was held back in elementary school twice. He attended 11 different schools in nine years as a student. He was placed in foster care at the age of 7 and spent stretches of time homeless and on the street. He was a survivor. And if you want to know the rest of the story, just see the movie “The Blind Side” and you can learn more about Leigh Anne Tuohy and her family’s adoption of Oher and their role in his life. It’s an amazing story, but too long for our pages. Let Sandra Bullock tell you the story.
Needless to say, the Ravens liked the football character of Michael Oher and have never been disappointed, despite shuffling him between left and right tackle.
The Ravens landed three solid starters in the ’09 draft by adding Paul Kruger in the second round and Lardarius Webb in the third.
At the age of 13, Kruger almost died in a jeep accident while with his uncle. At Utah, while in college, Kruger was stabbed 16 times by a gang member in a random attack of violence on the street while he protected his sister. He suffered a 6.5-inch wound that nearly took his life. He had a lacerated spleen as the attack was carried out with a screwdriver. He was a survivor.
Webb, who was an absolute favorite of the scouts, started his college career at Southern Mississippi and transferred to Nicholls State after running afoul of team rules in Hattiesburg. The Ravens did a ton of homework on him, and he had run the fastest time of all players at the combine with a 4.46, 40-yard dash. Webb showed his ability to battle back immediately as he tore his ACL after a fantastic rookie training camp and still came back to win a starting job in 2010. He signed a six-year, $50 million contract with the Ravens in 2012. As a third-round pick, he became a well-compensated starting cornerback before his injury in October 2012. He is expected to be the team’s No. 1 defensive back in 2013.
In 2010, the Ravens gambled on Texas linebacker Sergio Kindle with the 43rd pick and lost. Several days before the start of training camp, Kindle allegedly tripped down a flight of stairs at a party and suffered a fractured skull. He was never the same.
But the remainder of the 2010 draft class – Terrence Cody, Ed Dickson, Dennis Pitta, David Reed, Arthur Jones and Ramon Harewood all suited up over three seasons and were key contributors to the Ravens’ Super Bowl XLVII title.
Instead of getting Pettigrew in 2009, the Ravens wound up with a pair of tight ends in back-to-back picks the following year. When the Ravens picked Pitta in the 4th round, they took a call from another NFL team who wanted to deal two picks to get him. Another team called just to tell the Ravens that it was a great pick. Pitta has been an emerging weapon for Flacco over his first three campaigns and caught a touchdown pass in Super Bowl XLVII. Pitta and Flacco have also become the best of friends.
