Bart Scott wears his heart on his sleeve and it was clear as the dawn of free agency approached that all things being equal, he would love to finish his career in Baltimore. But as we now know, that won’t happen.
Last year while hosting The Hot Sauce with Bart Scott on Baltimore’s ESPN Radio, I often discussed free agency with him while trying to gain some insight into the mental and emotional part of the process. As fans and observers of the team, we are guilty at times of reducing these players to pawns in a chess match and overlook the human element of the decision making equation.
I know that Bart harbored a dream of ending his career as a Raven. He said proudly many times how unique it would be for an undrafted free agent – a “slacky” as he often described himself, starting and finishing a lengthy career with one team.
The dream is over.
Bart is now a New York Jet.
On the surface, those who paid attention to the events leading up to Bart eventual signing with Rex Ryan’s merry band of green and white characters must have concluded that Scott struggled mightily to leave Baltimore and held tight to that dream, or that he was using the two teams against each other to entice both to ante up.
Now I must admit that while watching this drama unfold, I was a bit ticked off at Bart. When I noticed that he had agreed to terms with the Jets but did not sign the deal, I assumed that he was coming back to give the Ravens one last shot to match the offer – the right of refusal if you will.
Then it was reported that the Ravens had trumped the Jets deal of 5 years and $40 million with a $42 million figure which was then trumped by the deal that was finally accepted, the 6 year, $48 million deal, $22 million of which is guaranteed.
This was not the behavior of a player I thought I knew. How could he use the team that took a chance on a Southern Illinois Saluki labeled by some as a troublemaker? Why would he kick to the curb the club that helped to elevate him from depths beneath that of Mr. Irrelevant 2002 to Pro Bowler?
Say it ain’t so Bart!
As it turns out, “it ain’t so.”
When Bart and his agent Harold Lewis ended discussions with the Ravens front office on Thursday, the sides were close to a deal but not close enough in the mind of Harold Lewis. With free agency mere hours away, Bart decided to test the market. And from what I’ve been told since, the team knew then that they had seen the last of Bart Scott in a Ravens uniform.
The alleged poker match between the Jets and the Ravens never happened. The Ravens never countered the Jets offer. All of the NFL Network talk and all of the radio talk and all of the breaking news updates were nothing more than masterful strokes by Harold Lewis. Lewis used the speed of information via the internet and handheld devices to carefully plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of Rex Ryan and 37-year-old Jets’ General Manager Mike Tannenbaum and took the later to school. Tannenbaum blinked and he got a little twitchy and at the end of the day he essentially bid against himself as Bart and Lewis spread their arms and collected a few more million chips from the bargaining table.
The signing reverberates here in Baltimore and raises some probing questions:
Is Bart worth that much money and had he agreed to a similar deal in Baltimore, would you actually be happy about it? After all this is a player who is solid yet hardly a playmaker (1.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 0 interceptions).
What does it say about Ray Lewis’ market value when arguably his biggest supporter (Rex Ryan) chose to pay Bart $5 million more in guaranteed money than the Ravens have offered Lewis ($17 million)?
If Bart is worth a guaranteed $22 million and DeAngelo Hall $22.5 million, what is Terrell Suggs worth? Suddenly that Dwight Freeney contract that is the measuring stick for Suggs ($30 million guaranteed) is shaping up as a relative bargain.
Clearly there are challenges ahead for Ozzie Newsome and the rest of the Ravens’ front office. Anxious fans will prematurely conclude that the team is asleep at the controls and that the roster is already much weaker given the losses of Bart and Jason Brown. But an offseason can’t really be measured until the 53 man roster is set in September.
Until then fans should be happy that guys like Ozzie and Eric DeCosta are at the controls and that the Ravens have an owner who knows a bit about negotiating, particularly for job openings. They should find comfort knowing that these men won’t be duped by agents such as Harold Lewis unlike the wet-behind-the-ears front office of the New York Jets.
Excuse me Mr. Tannenbaum, Jim Leonhard’s agent Mr. Valentyn is holding on Line 1…
