TL: We all have our own mental images of what that war room looks like on draft day. You’ve said that it’s tense in there. Talk about an unusual or interesting story from that war room.
ED: Back in 2004 there were two players that we really coveted and we were trying to find a way to get Bob Sanders. We were working and working the phones. We got close. It’s hard to look now 3 or 4 years later and see the success that Bob Sanders has had and to imagine him with Ed Reed, however that would have played out. It’s intriguing. With Nathan Vasher we came in [to the war room] the night after the first day [of the draft] and said we’ve got to find a way to get Nathan Vasher because he was a player that we had really, really good grades on but he fell because of his 40 time but he was a great value. We felt that he was undervalued like a stock, not unlike Troy Smith. So we were trying to find a way to get Nathan Vasher and the Bears got him. He’s been to Pro Bowls and he’s played extremely well for those guys.
Those are the two players that I think we wanted, we tried to get them and we couldn’t get them. That’s what you’re dealing with on that second day or during the draft. Sometimes there are players right in front of you that you covet and you can’t get them and it’s frustrating, it’s not always in your control. That’s why the draft can be the most rewarding thing in the world or the worst thing in the world.
When you get a guy like Terrell Suggs who falls to you at 10 or you get a guy like Mark Clayton who you know is one of the top players in the draft at his position regardless of the fact that four or five other receivers in the draft get picked ahead of him. But on the flip side of that when you miss out on a guy like Nathan Vasher who’s picked right before you and then you end up trading that pick for I believe Kevin Johnson and you see what Kevin Johnson did, that’s frustrating. Fans don’t really understand how all that plays out. Had Nathan Vasher been there we would have picked him and we wouldn’t have traded for Kevin Johnson.
So there’s a lot behind the scenes and a lot that fans don’t realize we do. It’s elation, there’s desperation too. You play with the cards you’ve been dealt the best you can and hopefully you make the best decisions given the circumstances and hopefully it plays out for you on Sundays.
TL: You mentioned draft day trades. The trade value chart created by Jimmy Johnson is often referred to by fans and TV analysts covering the draft as a barometer for equity in trading picks. Is that chart something that you use or do you establish your own values based upon the then needs of the team?
ED: A lot of people don’t really understand that the trade chart is truly a guide. The point I want to make is that it’s hard to weigh what your value is on a player. So that if you think a player is a Pro Bowl player and you have high grades on him, that trade chart is…I prefer to use the trade chart more when you are talking about trading back.
When a team calls you and they want to move up, to me that trade chart is good because it establishes the floor [for a potential trade]. Ok, it’s a No. 3 and a No. 4 [fair trade according to the chart] but the team has a late No. 2 and an early No. 2. and they are trying to trade up – so let’s go after that 2 and 4 Ozzie instead of that 3 and 4 because they are trying to trade up, they covet a player, maybe we can get that out of them even though the chart says a 3 and a 4. They are the ones that initiated the phone call. There’s a player that they covet. Let’s try to get as much out of them as we can. So for me if you are a team trading back, that trade chart is just the floor.
Likewise, and I remember the Tony Weaver trade when we traded up to get Tony in the second round. We thought Weaver was a good player and we thought he was under valued and really a late first round type player and we gave up a little more to get him based upon what the trade chart said but because we knew the player, we weren’t too concerned about it. Likewise the Adam Terry trade which we’ve been criticized for, we could see the draft board and we could see the break in tackles, what was available and what wasn’t. Those tackles were picked clean. I think [Khalif] Barnes and Michael Roos were guys we liked. They were picked before we picked in the second round. And trying to address the tackle position we really felt like, and again this is need based…but we felt like trading to get Adam Terry based upon our team and what we were hoping to accomplish it was the right thing to do because we had the luxury of seeing what the tackle board looked like.
And that’s the thing. Each team has their own set of circumstances. They have their players ranked a certain way and a lot of these trades are based upon what the team thinks is available. What’s left? What can you get?
When we trade back it’s usually because there were 3, 4, 5 players that we still like. That’s a great situation and for me that’s the perfect storm. Trade back and get Yamon Figurs and Marshal Yanda on the first day when you would have considered both players at No. 61, why wouldn’t you do that? It’s a no brainer – slam dunk. I prefer to trade back and accumulate because I like to bank on the fact that other teams are going to take bad players and make mistakes. And I think 9 times out of ten that you can trade back and still get your guy because everybody’s list is different.
I think it’s easy and we do this, we sit in the draft room and assume that every team scouts the exact same way as you do and their list is exactly the same as yours. It’s not! There can be big differences on every team’s board when they are ranking players. Trading back and getting more players is great.
I go back to the year we drafted Mulitalo. He’s another player that we would have considered drafting in the second round. We traded out of there and gave up our second round pick for Jamal Lewis basically the next year. We still got Mulitalo in the fourth round. So if you want to look at it this way, we got Mulitalo and Jamal Lewis for a second round pick and history will show that that was a really smart move.
TL: I want to talk about some of the Ravens’ veteran players on the roster. Looking back upon last year, we hear oftentimes that Steve McNair being in his second year in the system that that should project well for him in 2007. Talk about that benefit to the player.
ED: Any time you have to learn something on the fly, you are never going to be 100% comfortable. I think Steve will have the benefit of having been around the personnel for a year. He knows his players. I think our offensive line is going to be better, better than last year’s and last year’s was pretty good. I think he’ll continue to work with Mark and Derrick and Demetrius. The chemistry between Steve and Demetrius, because Demetrius is going to improve his routes and his mental approach, that will improve. Any time you are not thinking about something you tend to play better. So I think Steve is going to be in a position where I think that is the case this year. I would expect him to step it up and play very well.
TL: One of the things that I believe is often overlooked is that Willis McGahee and Steve McNair really have to be factored in as part of the 2007 Draft Class. With McGahee one of the things I’m most excited about is his ability to run out of the single back set very comfortably and that provides more snaps for Demetrius Williams. I spoke with Bart Scott about the Ravens offense and as a defender he mentioned McGahee and the single back set leading the way to more time for Williams and more opportunities for Todd Heap to flank wide. Heap he says could present match up nightmares for Ravens’ opponents. Talk about that benefit that McGahee brings to the Baltimore Ravens.
ED: I think it’s actually pretty simple. Any time you present a defense with multiple things it makes them prepare for multiple things. And any time you have a defense thinking a lot then they are not playing as fast as they can play. So with more sets, more formations, more personnel groupings now that we have flexibility, it’s going to slow defenses down a little bit and that will help us be more explosive.
TL: One of the things often taken for granted is the dependability of Matt Stover. We’ve seen teams like the Jets burn a second round pick on a kicker and the Raiders burn a first rounder on Janikowski. How much longer can Stover go and would the Ravens ever invest a first day pick in a kicker like Oakland and the Jets have in the past?
ED: We’re very fortunate that we have a special teams coach like Frank Gansz. He does an awesome job of evaluating players. We got Sam Koch last year in the sixth round and people probably scratched their heads and criticized the pick but looking back on it, was there a better draft pick than Sam Koch last year?
Frank Gansz is awesome. He’s got a great way of communicating with the scouts. He values their input and we value his. We evaluate kickers every year and at some point we’re going to get to the point where a guy we think is worthy of being drafted and being groomed is going to be Matt’s replacement. Obviously we’ve thought about it. It would be irresponsible not to consider the notion that Matt might not be here forever. So we will look at players. There have been some that we’ve liked and we’ll continue to look at kickers.
You know it’s a sad truth at some point Matt’s not going to be here…I’m not going to be here, Tony you’re not going to be here at some point. Things change. We’ll try to address that in a responsible way so that we can hopefully bring in a guy who can learn from Matt. In my mind that’s a best case scenario and address it while Matt is still here.
Fortunately Matt will go down as one of the best field goal kickers in the history of the NFL. He keeps himself in tremendous, tremendous shape. He approaches his craft like a professional at the top of his game. I’m amazed by his discipline, his work ethic and by his consistency. He’s an original Raven, I hope he stays a Raven, I hope he stays with us forever and I think he will. I think the fans should expect at least a few more good seasons from Matt and when the time comes as we’ve been forced to do so over the years losing a guy like Jermaine Lewis, Dave Zastudil – let’s face it we’re going to have to replace Jon Ogden and Ray Lewis probably sooner than later.
These types of decisions are in the forefront of what I try to do, what Ozzie tries to do, what the coaches and scouts try to do and we take that responsibility very, very seriously.
TL: Last question Eric…one of the ways in which I measure the success of an offseason is how you’ve done relative to your divisional rivals because let’s face it, to successfully advance in the post season a team needs to focus on winning its division first. Talk about how the team looks now relative to last year and relative to the rest of the AFC North.
ED: Well that’s a good question. You never really know and I don’t think that most expected us to win the division last year based on Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and their improvement in 2005 and 2006. I think we feel good about it. We lost Jamal but I think we upgraded at that position. Obviously losing Adalius is tough but now we have a guy on campus in Jarret Johnson that we think can pick up some of that slack. Antwan Barnes and a Dan Cody if he can stay healthy, maybe one of those guys can pick up some of the slack. It’s probably foolish to think that we can get as much production out of that particular position this year. Based upon the salary cap and the climate in the NFL you can’t have good players at every single position. We may drop from being first in defense to third in defense or fifth. But hopefully guys like Demetrius Williams and Willis McGahee, Jason Brown, Chris Chester, Adam Terry elevate their games. Hopefully Steve McNair elevates his game so maybe we go from being 17th in offense to 10th in offense.
I feel good about the offseason. I think the draft went as well as it could have gone. I think the other teams helped themselves as they should. We know Phil Savage is going to do a great job drafting players. I thought he made some bold moves this year in getting Joe Thomas and Brady Quinn. I thought that Marvin Lewis really nailed his first round pick this year in Leon Hall who I thought was one of the best players in the entire draft at corner. So now they are looking at Jonathan Joseph and Leon Hall, two premier corners and that’s going to be tough for our guys.
Pittsburgh did a really nice job this year addressing the pass rush with Lawrence Timmons and Lamar Woodley, two of the better pass rushers in the draft this year.
So you know what, the pressure is always on and that’s what makes the NFL so great. You can go from outhouse to the penthouse in one year or as we saw from Pittsburgh from the penthouse to the outhouse in one year. That’s why people love the NFL. That parity that the league wants is evident every single year. There’s going to be a team that went 8-8 last year will emerge as 12-4 this year while there might be a 12-4 or 13-3 team that is 10-6 or 8-8. Hopefully that won’t be us.
We feel that pressure. Hopefully we respond well to that pressure. I think George and Ozzie, Vince Newsome and myself we recognize the pressure and hopefully thrive. I think our coaches will do an awesome job. I love the changes on our staff. Our coaching staff is as good as it’s ever been going back to 2000. I’m exciting by Rick Neuheisel and his role as offensive coordinator. I think Brian’s involvement in the offense is critical and important. Rex Ryan is arguably the best assistant in all of football right now – his staff returns in tact.
It’s a great time to be a Ravens fan. I think this team will be very competitive. I don’t know that there’s any team with more talent than us. I think we’re in position to say we’re one of the best teams in football. There is an age thing with some of our players but again we have some younger players who haven’t played yet and when they do I think they’ll play well.
I’m excited by the opportunity. Personally I’m thrilled to be part of this organization and I think we are in position again to contend for the AFC North Title.
