Newsome Takes Road Less Traveled to Super Bowl

Ozzie Newsome couldn’t get to the Super Bowl as a player with the Cleveland Browns. John Elway kept him out once; a surreal fumble kept him out another time. So, he has come here now by taking the harder route: as the primary architect of the Baltimore Ravens, the man charged with the responsibility of drafting, signing free agents, negotiating contracts. It’s a roster that glitters with first-round draft picks and is buttressed by free agents acquired at moderate prices. “His execution,” Ravens owner Art Modell testified Thursday, “has been remarkable.”

Both pride and relief seemed to break over Newsome’s face during a Thursday morning conversation. “I’m no longer the Ernie Banks of professional football,” he said of the baseball Hall of Famer who has become the patron saint of players who never played in a championship game or series. “I’m at the Super Bowl, and I had something to do with the team getting here too.”

Unlikely as it may be, Newsome, the vice president of player personnel, has had a bigger impact on the franchise than he did as a Hall of Famer who caught more passes than any tight end in NFL history. In 1996, his first draft produced Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis.

His first six first-round draft picks, including cornerbacks Chris McAlister and Duane Starks, running back Jamal Lewis, and linebacker Peter Boulware, will all start against the Giants today in Super Bowl XXXV. A seventh first-rounder, wide receiver Travis Taylor, would start, but he is injured. Newsome signed safety Rod Woodson three years ago after he’d been released by the 49ers. He had his eye on Shannon Sharpe for months, figuring Denver would let him go, and was proved correct.

Newsome could have become offensive coordinator some years ago, but saw the potential for longer-term fulfillment handling personnel, so he chose the executive path. “Every day I go to work I’m doing something exciting,” Newsome said. “From evaluating players to negotiating contracts to dealing with players, every day has a mix that’s new and exciting.”

Since Modell is likely to sell his 51 percent stake in the Ravens to Maryland business whiz Stephen Bisciotti within the next three to five years, the issue of whether Newsome will remain with the club long term has come up once or twice this week. And to that end, Modell said Thursday: “Ozzie Newsome is my guy. He’s my son. I love him dearly. (But) if he can better himself, I’ll negotiate the contract myself. He’s given me 22 years of great, great service.”

Newsome certainly has made the personnel calls that have given Modell, 40 years an owner, his first Super Bowl team. Coincidentally, Newsome’s opposite number in this Super Bowl is Ernie Accorsi, the Giants’ vice president and general manager who did essentially the same work for Modell in Cleveland from 1985 to ’92 when Newsome was a player, then an assistant coach before becoming a personnel man. The only key figure from the near-misses in Cleveland who is not involved in this game is Marty Schottenheimer, the new head coach of the Washington Redskins.

Schottenheimer has signed on to coach and be responsible for personnel matters in Washington, a double-dip that has vexed almost everybody who has tried it. I asked Newsome how many hours a day he worked this past season. “Six days a week, 12 to 14 hours per day,” he said. So how can Schottenheimer effectively do both jobs? “Marty is going to have to hire someone he trusts, and someone who is very good to give him information,” Newsome said. “He can process the information, but he’s got to hire someone to give it to him. Your lieutenants have got to be very loyal and very good. . . .

“Ernie Accorsi and Bill Belichick exposed me to everything (in Cleveland). They were never paranoid. They never felt threatened about having me around at the end of my playing career.”

Newsome is Modell’s No. 1 lieutenant in football matters. Newsome’s lieutenants are Phil Savage; James Harris, the former Bills and Rams quarterback; and rising star Earnest Byner. (Yes, the same Byner who had the ball poked away from him at the goal line in Denver on the fluke play that sent the Elway and the Broncos to the Super Bowl--again--instead of Modell, Newsome, Byner and the Browns.)

But it was the Browns’ crushing defeat, which came after “The Drive,” the mesmerizing 98-yard march orchestrated by Elway in 1986, that still gets to Newsome. “ ‘The Drive’ was the first time I had ever watched an opposing offense play an entire series,” he said. “Most of the time you kill yourself before you can go that far with penalties or mistakes. . . . I’m thinking, ‘No way these guys can go 98 yards,’ and he did it. I never watched an offense a whole series again.”

Watching is about all Newsome has to do here. His work putting this year’s team together was done months ago. “We’re already planning now how to be in New Orleans next year,” he said of the 2002 Super Bowl venue.

Two models of what not to do stand out in Newsome’s mind as he prepares for next year: the Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars. “Jacksonville is $30 million over the cap,” he said. “I’m watching them closely. They’re going to be a blueprint for a lot of teams. We’re saying, ‘You can’t do it that way. We’re not just going to re-do, re-do, re-do contracts. We’re going to pick and choose which ones we re-do, and who we can retain. There are certain players we won’t be able to have on our team anymore. . . . Tennessee’s got a similar problem coming this year.

“We’ll have a tough time retaining some of our players (14 free agents). And we’ll replace some of those who might leave through the draft. It’s really our responsibility to replace them, and to spend wisely when we have to go into free agency. With the salary cap, the coaches have to take a good player and make him great, and an average player and make him better.”

The Ravens have the second-largest payroll in the NFL this year, after the Redskins, in part because of the signing bonuses that must be paid to two first-round rookie draft picks (Jamal Lewis and Taylor). The Ravens don’t have two first-round draft picks this year. And Modell says he and Newsome won’t give into the temptation of making free agents the No. 1 priority. “It’s not going for broke and buying everything in sight. It’s very daring to spend but it doesn’t always work,” Modell said, before citing the Redskins’ Daniel Snyder.

Modell knows he has what Snyder doesn’t, a veteran vice president adept at personnel matters who has proven he can draft well and find good bargains in free agency to fill in. “I felt, instinctively, Ozzie had a brilliant future in the front office,” Modell said. “He may be the best pro football director in the NFL today.”