In 2011, the Ravens gambled again in the first round on a player that many teams had dropped down their draft boards in Colorado cornerback Jimmy Smith. Almost all of Smith’s transgressions were tied to marijuana usage. After droves of research, the Ravens personnel team felt a comfort level with him and assumed the risk with the 27th pick. Initially the Ravens had the 26th pick, but because of a botched trade by Chicago Bears general manager Jerry Angelo, the time ran out on Newsome and Smith became the 27th pick after the Kansas City Chiefs jumped on the clock and selected Pittsburgh wide receiver Jonathan Baldwin with the 26th pick.
Angelo had agreed to a swap with Newsome on the 29th pick that the Bears held and a 4th round pick (No. 127) in exchange for moving up three spots. The NFL never got the trade in time, and Bisciotti blasted the Bears in the media and blistered the league offices regarding the Ravens getting penalized for the Angelo snafu. If you chat with him today, he’s still angry about it. The Ravens just don’t do business that way.
Those draft picks are gold, and there’s no telling who the Ravens would’ve picked with that 127th pick.
Jimmy Smith struggled with injuries and had trouble getting onto the field in a crowded Ravens secondary in 2011, but by the end of 2012 he was on the field in a myriad of key situations and was the defender involved in the disputed final defensive play of Super Bowl XLVII, breaking up a Colin Kaepernick pass to Michael Crabtree at the goal line allowing the Ravens to escape with the Lombardi Trophy.
Despite Smith’s lack of early productivity, the 2011 draft netted a starter and budding star in the 2nd round with the 58th selection of Torrey Smith, a wide receiver from the University of Maryland. Again, this Smith was a father figure to his siblings and showed his leadership and poise when he was introduced alongside Jimmy Smith the day after they were both drafted in Owings Mills.
Jimmy Smith was getting peppered with questions about his character and off-the-field issues and acknowledged early on that he was under the microscope.
“I want people to know that I don’t have any character issues,” he said. “I made bad decisions when I was a young kid, just like most Americans. I don’t want them to think that I’m going to come in here and try to make this organization look bad. These two gentlemen [Head Coach John Harbaugh and General Manager Ozzie Newsome] are putting their necks on the line for me, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure they look good at all times.”
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Torrey Smith chimed in at one point during the questioning of Jimmy Smith: “Going off what he said, I’ve had an opportunity to know Jimmy myself,” Torrey said. “He’s a great guy. The way the media tries to portray him, I feel like that’s not him. He’s a great guy, he’s down to earth. Like he said, his things are in the past so I feel like people should focus more so on what he’s going to do from this day forward.”
The Ravens felt like Torrey Smith, whose birth name is also James, just like Jimmy, would be a perfect compliment to another offensive player that they had selected and fallen in love with in 2008: Ray Rice. They felt like each had similar outgoing personalities without being cocky or arrogant. And like Rice, they wanted Torrey Smith in their building every day.
Later in the 2011 draft the Ravens selected offensive lineman Jah Reid, defensive back Chykie Brown and defensive end Pernell McPhee, who all contributed to the Super Bowl XLVII run. Like all late-round draft picks, McPhee carries a chip. He remembers watching the 2011 draft with friends in his hometown of Pahokee, Florida. He seethed at going undrafted in the early rounds, and he was still mad when Newsome called. “They could tell in my voice,” McPhee said. “I was upset. I’m still upset. I’m always going to be upset. But it was probably a good thing for me. It opened up my eyes.”
The Ravens love motivated and mad draft picks with something to prove.
The 2012 draft class is still fresh, and the jury is out but all eight drafted rookies remained with the organization. The Ravens traded out of the 29th pick into the second round where they selected both linebacker Courtney Upshaw from Alabama and offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele from Iowa State. Both saw considerable playing time with Osemele starting every game in 2012 at two different positions.
In the third round, Newsome selected running back Bernard Pierce from Temple, who came on strong as a change of pace to Ray Rice in the backfield late in the season during the Ravens’ Super Bowl run. Center Gino Gradkowski, whose brother Bruce has been a backup quarterback in the NFL for seven seasons and is a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, was picked in the 4th round from Delaware. He is expected to be the starting center on the 2013 Baltimore Ravens following the retirement of Matt Birk so the Ravens will have a local-flavored, Blue Hen battery.
