What has happened to this once proud, respected franchise. The Baltimore Ravens have had a whirlwind offseason as both past and current players have come out and criticized management in the midst of Lamar Jackson’s contract dispute.
What happened to the days when the Baltimore Ravens were the most coordinated, tight-lipped, and professional organization in the NFL? Three words: Ozzie Newsome retired.
Over the last few years, the Ravens have had nonstop leakages, outburst, conflicts, controversies, and contract disputes with some of its key players, such as Lamar Jackson, Hollywood Brown, and now Rashod Bateman.
For those who haven’t seen Bateman’s now-deleted tweet, the WR publicly and vocally called out Ravens GM Eric DeCosta for not taking responsibility over Jackon’s contract dispute and lack of playoff success and for throwing the wide receiver core under the bus instead.
Now, this really shouldn’t be too controversial when I say that this isn’t a good look. Actually, I’m underselling this situation as its actually one of the most volatile things I’ve ever seen come out of the Ravens organization.
In former GM Ozzie Newsom’s long and successful 22-year reign (which saw two Super Bowl wins in 2000 and 2012) over the club from 1996-2018, I can’t think of a single instance when current players on the Baltimore roster openly disparaged and criticized the sitting GM or management staff.
Even when he was dealing with the contract negotiations with NFL and Ravens legends, such as Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Shannon Sharpe, Terrell Suggs, Jonathan Ogden, etc., there was no animosity or bitterness reported regarding Newsome and the party he was negotiating with.
In fact, I don’t think there was ever even the slightest hint of controversy or discontent with the Ravens roster over Newsome’s managing style as the Hall of Fame TE and soon-to-be GM (hopefully) was one of the most respected general managers in all of North American sports, let alone the NFL.
Simply put, Ozzie Newsome is and will always be a legend in Baltimore…which is not something Eric DeCosta is setting himself up for with these controversies.
But, before I get into that, I should point out DeCosta didn’t just take a stray shot from Bateman as he did bring this situation upon himself.
In a press conference a few days ago, DeCosta said, “If I had an answer, that means I would probably have some better receivers, I guess. We keep trying. I think there’s a lot of things that go along with that position…We’ve never really hit on that All-Pro type of guy, which is disappointing, I would say. But it’s not for lack of effort,” when asked about why the Ravens have failed to get better help for Jackson at the wide receiver position.
What a diplomatic, unproblematic response, right? It’s not like Rashod Bateman, Devin Duvernay, Demarcus Robinson, Sammy Watkins, James Proche II, and even TE Mark Andrew (to a certain extent) would take no issue with their own GM calling them not good enough and failures.
Yes, some of what he said is true as the Baltimore receiving core (aside from Andrews) has been woefully poor and has not helped Lamar Jackson in any meaningful way, but you don’t say that in front of a herd of media members. That’s basic GMing 101.
Do you see what I mean when I say that DeCosta is always putting his foot in his mouth on practically every question and problem given to him? And why Rashod Bateman was a little upset at his comments? Not only has he muffed up an easy opportunity to resign one of the Top-10 best (at least) quarterbacks in the NFL to a long-term, relatively manageable contract, but he has also disparaged his own draft picks and roster players.
Who does that?
Essentially, everything DeCosta has said and done these last two offseasons should be compiled into a book of “What Not To Do When Being An NFL GM”.
For the sake of all Ravens fans, I hope DeCosta can get his head out of his behind and lockdown Lamar Jackson to a long-term contract or else Baltimore will be set back 5-10 years as a franchise.
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