The Redskins and Ravens don’t typically provoke a whole lot of mutual admiration. You won’t hear Redskins fans envious of Baltimore’s purple Zubaz or Seven Nation Army chants. And not a lot of Ravens fans wish they had Washington’s stadium, or record, or owner.
Ignore the sniping, though, and consider the guts of what the Ravens have built. As the Redskins continue perhaps their most sincere attempt at a football-centric reboot in two decades, it might help to have a few role models. And the best one might be perched up I-95.
The Ravens have a close-mouthed, sharp-eyed career personnel man as their general manager. They have a head coach whose last name was made famous by his much louder brother. They have a big-money starting quarterback who provokes endless debates about whether he is elite. They have a philosophy to build through the draft and to take the best player available, even when they infuriate fans by passing over an obvious need.
The Ravens also have one thing the Redskins have almost never demonstrated: faith in continuity and patience. That’s why the Ravens could falter so badly last season — going 5-11 during an injury-marred mess — and then brag about their commitment to stability.
“If you go through the league, the winning teams are the ones that have the least turnover in their front office and their coaching staffs,” Baltimore owner Steve Bisciotti said during the offseason, while explaining that no major changes were in store. “You can’t just turn things over based on your record. I think that just sends you down. … One thing that I’m proud of is that we all view continuity as a strength. … Continuity doesn’t stem from laziness, it comes from confidence.”
In Washington, bad seasons lead to chaos, which is why so many fans were ready to panic after this year’s 0-2 start. In Baltimore, last year’s failure led to…not all that much.
Now, do the best front offices produce winners because they enjoy stability? Or do stable organizations remain winners because they employ the best front offices?
Either way, it’s hard to argue with Bisciotti’s results. His coach, John Harbaugh, has been in Baltimore since 2008 — longer than any Redskins coach since Joe Gibbs, and longer than all but five of his active peers. How have those six coaches held up? They’ve earned a combined 23 playoff appearances in the past five seasons, and are off to a 14-9 start this season, with the Ravens sitting at 3-1.
GM Ozzie Newsome has been in Baltimore even longer than Harbaugh: as the general manager since 2002, but as a top personnel man since the franchise arrived. And while the team has suffered blips in that span, and its philosophy has shifted occasionally, Newsome is most famous for successfully mining the draft, and for following his board even when it spits out surprising recommendations.
Such as in 1996, when the Ravens were desperate for a running back, and Newsome’s staff instead took offensive lineman Jonathan Ogden with the No. 4 pick, and played him for a year at guard. Everyone knows you don’t take a guard with a top-five pick. That’s personnel malpractice. Except Ogden soon shifted to left tackle, became a six-time All-Pro and the rock of Baltimore’s offense, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“From that point on, we’ve never taken a need over the best player,” Newsome once told the Associated Press. “Jonathan was the first true acid test for that.”
Can you think of any other GM who recently spent a top-five pick on a guard as his fan base erupted in amazement? Oh right, Redskins GM Scot McCloughan did that during his very first draft in Washington. His pick of Brandon Scherff remains controversial, even as the second-year player has shined. But the best-player-available stuff works only if you’re committed to slow growth, not if your idea of patience is switching from scratch-off tickets to roulette.
“Most everyone in the league would say it; [Newsome’s] got a track record of actually doing it over the course of two decades,” said Phil Savage, the former Cleveland GM who worked with Newsome for years.
That’s why it’s far too early to castigate McCloughan for taking receiver Josh Doctson in the first round last April, despite Doctson’s disappointing few months and Washington’s glaring needs elsewhere. You can’t ask your architect to slowly build something the right way, and then frantically take a sledgehammer to his frame after four weeks. If you’re judging draft picks by the month, you’re not actually preaching patience.
But Baltimore also might serve as a model for the Redskins in a more pressing way. The Ravens made quarterback Joe Flacco the NFL’s highest-paid player in 2013. They renegotiated his contract this past offseason, reducing his cap hit in 2016 while also awarding him the largest signing bonus in league history. Can you win consistently while pouring such a high percentage of your funds into a quarterback who might be above-average but isn’t among the NFL’s best? Can you build around a home-grown quarterback whose salary is among the game’s highest, but who can’t always satisfy his critics or convince the world he’s worth the money? Does that multi-year investment hurt more than it helps?
The Ravens decided they had no choice but to ride Flacco, despite the costs. The Redskins haven’t yet made up their minds on Kirk Cousins — hence this year’s $19.95 million franchise tag — but if they do invest in Cousins long term, he likely won’t come cheap. Why would a contending team make such a move?
“If Joe Flacco’s not your answer, then who is? If Kirk Cousins is not the answer for the Redskins, then who is?” as Savage put it. “It’s the price of the known vs. the fear of the unknown — not knowing what the answer is going to be long-term — and that’s why you see these teams do it. … You have to remember, from Vinny Testaverde forward, we rifled through a lot of quarterbacks [in Baltimore]. There was total instability at the position. They had a chance to stabilize it.”
The Ravens won before Flacco, but they never had peace of mind at that position. The Redskins have had the same issue. GMs “all dread the day when they don’t have a quarterback, and what you do to have to go and get one,” Newsome said while announcing Flacco’s latest extension. That dread should feel familiar at Redskins Park.
Newsome told Savage before the 2012 season that he couldn’t imagine paying what Flacco wanted. Six months and one Super Bowl victory later, the Ravens paid him more. And they’re now trying to prove that stability at coach, general manager and quarterback can mask other flaws — including a salary-cap hole.
The Redskins have never tried to prove that. They haven’t tried to prove much of anything, other than that change is good, and that stability is for party decks, not front offices. Continuity doesn’t always work, of course; the Saints seem likely to ride stability to the bottom of the sea.
But if the Redskins wanted a model of what their new approach might achieve, they could do worse than looking north. Just ignore the Zubaz.
