The View From Here

A friend of mine who happens to root for a far less successful team than ours sent a very interesting text after the Dickson pick:

'getting Ozzie from the Browns may have been worth a couple decades without a team'

It's possible that the Colts leaving in 1984 was the best thing that ever happened to Baltimore. Would you rather have the team that went from Art Schlichter to Steve Emtman to the countless other Colt busts or Newsome? Yes, the Colts have a ring and are perennial contenders, but they've really only made one great choice in Peyton Manning, who's just that good. But they almost took Ryan Leaf!

Then, if you recall, we got screwed over by the league again when Jacksonville took the team that was supposed to be ours. That front office just took Tyson Alualu tenth overall. How are we looking now?

Phil Savage was the genius and he left. Then George Kokinis. So many "guys behind the guy" and we forget there's really only one "guy." Ozzie Newsome is worth 12 years of suffering. Maybe double that.

It was a near perfect draft: We got two boom-bust projects in Art Jones and Ramon Harewood. A sure-handed route runner in David Reed, two receiving tight ends (only one has to pan out), and two first-round defensive starters who get to learn under veterans.

Admit it: Thursday night you were bummed out.

We were THIS close to getting Dez Bryant, but got jumped by the Cowboys. Then we passed on Kyle Wilson because the deal was "too good." Just getting Wilson seemed like a good deal, didn't it? Here's what Ozzie was thinking:

The Ravens' Achilles heel last year was their corner play. Pass defense. Teams were going vertical on us and there wasn't much we could do about it. Wilson fixes that problem immediately. But that wasn't the problem. Don't get me wrong, if Lardarius Webb takes his sweet time getting back on the field, we're not going to have the best back end in the league. But the problem was the pass rush. The Ravens had 32 sacks last season. Compare that to the 60 in 2006 and there's a bit of a discrepancy. We gotta shorten the amount of time these guys have to cover.

Enter Sergio Kindle.

If Kindle, projected as an even higher pick than Wilson, is as good as the aforementioned corner, and either Dickson or Ditta catches a touchdown pass this year, it's a win. Rather than fix one need (pass defense), Ozzie fixed two (pass defense and tight end).

There are a lot of teams who wouldn't mind a dozen years in football purgatory to have Ozzie at the helm. Allow me to be the first to ever say this:

"Thanks, Bob Irsay. We wouldn't be here without you."