“A”—that’s the grade the Dallas Morning News gave the Arizona Cardinals’ 1998 NFL Draft class. In 2001, the Arizona Republic accorded the Dolphins the same grade. In 2005, Florida Today gave the Packers a “D.” But the Cardinals never called home to brag. The Dolphins never posted the grade on the team refrigerator. The Packers didn’t bring back a signed copy and beg for extra credit. These grades don’t count. They have never counted. In truth, they don’t mean anything. What counts is winning. After the 1998 Draft, the Cardinals had one winning season out of its next ten. From 2001 to 2022, the Dolphins have been one of the league’s least successful franchises. The year they got a “D,” the Packers selected Aaron Rodgers in the 2005 Draft. As of 2022, he is still Green Bay’s starting quarterback, and because of him, the Packers have been perennial contenders for the majority of the time.
The annual ritual of grading NFL Draft results as soon as the draft is completed is popular but nonsensical. It would be much more reasonable to wait a few years to see how the selections perform. However, since sports fans have an insatiable appetite for analyzing everything about their team in real time, it has become tradition for hordes of draft analysts and “experts” to immediately grade each team’s draft class as if they were scoring an elementary school paper.
For a prime display of imprecision in the draft grade process, consider the grades given to the Baltimore Ravens and the St. Louis Rams after the 1996 Draft.
THE INAUGURAL BALTIMORE RAVENS SEASON (1996)
The Baltimore Ravens’ first season in the NFL was 1996. The year before, the team was located 400 miles north, in Cleveland, Ohio, and were known as the Cleveland Browns. But at the end of the 1995 season, Browns owner Art Modell was frustrated in his failed attempts to convince the City of Cleveland to build a new football stadium that he relocated the organization, including its staff, and its players to Baltimore and started anew as the Ravens.
The 1996 NFL Draft was also the first in which Ozzie Newsome, then the Ravens’ director of football operations, was the final decision maker. Newsome played tight end for the Browns from 1978 to 1990 and set franchise records in both receptions and touchdowns. In 1999, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When his playing career ended, he became an executive in the Browns front office and moved to Baltimore with Modell in 1996, where he eventually became the first Black general manager in NFL history.
THE LAWRENCE PHILLIPS CONUNDRUM
The Ravens held the fourth overall pick in the 1996 Draft. Newsome had his eye on a handful of players, including University of Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips. For three years, Phillips had been one of the most prolific and electrifying running backs in college football. Many thought he had “can’t miss” superstar talent. Some experts believed he was the best overall player in the draft. However, Phillips came with baggage. Based on a few serious incidents during his tenure in Nebraska, many teams had significant concerns about his character. He was enough of a risk that a few teams said they would not select him in any round.
Going into his junior year in 1995, Phillips was considered a Heisman Trophy candidate. However, after an early September game, Phillips was arrested for breaking into backup quarterback Scott Frost’s apartment and assaulting Phillips’s ex-girlfriend, who was there hanging out with Frost. Phillips proceeded to drag her by the hair down a flight of stairs. It wasn’t his first run-in with the law during his time at Nebraska, but it was certainly the most troubling.
After the arrest, Phillips was suspended by the team indefinitely. Eventually, he pled no contest to a misdemeanor, received probation, went to counseling, and apologized to the victim. After six games without Phillips, Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne made a controversial decision and lifted his suspension. Later, in the Fiesta Bowl in January 1996, Phillips ran for 165 yards and scored three total touchdowns as Nebraska blew out Florida 62–24 to win its second straight National Championship.
While everyone marveled in the Cornhuskers’ dominant performance that night, many expressed disappointment that Phillips was allowed to play. “Shining moment is tainted,” was the headline on Jason Whitlock’s column in the Kansas City Star the next day. Baltimore Sun staff writer Don Markus called the Huskers’ title the “the worst story of the year” and wrote that Nebraska was “the feel-bad” team of the season. But despite all the dissent surrounding Phillips’s participation, the Fiesta Bowl turned out to be a great showcase for Phillips for the upcoming NFL Draft evaluation season. Going into the 1996 Draft, one of the Ravens’ biggest needs was at running back. In 1995, as the Cleveland Browns, the team had only five rushing touchdowns.
JONATHAN OGDEN AND RAY LEWIS: THE BEST PLAYERS AVAILABLE
While Phillips was high risk, UCLA’s Jonathan Ogden was the polar opposite. The 6-foot-8, 318-pound behemoth offensive tackle, who won the 1995 Outland Trophy (awarded to college football’s best lineman), was the best offensive line prospect in the draft. His senior season had been sensational. He did not give up a single sack, and had no character concerns.
Before the draft, the Ravens did not expect to have a chance to pick Ogden. Most mock drafts had him going third to Arizona, with Phillips falling to Baltimore at fourth. The Ravens were preparing to choose between Phillips and Illinois defensive lineman Simeon Rice, but, surprisingly, Arizona drafted Rice. The Ravens then made a stunning decision. They passed on Phillips and selected Ogden: They felt he was the best player available.
Perhaps the pick should not have been so stunning. On paper, Ogden was the safest pick in the Draft and he was almost certain to be great. However, there was one problem: Ogden had played left tackle at UCLA, and Baltimore already had a left tackle, Tony Jones. Jones was one of the premier left tackles in the league, having started 99 consecutive games for the Browns. But, after they made the pick, the Ravens announced that Ogden had agreed to move to guard, a position on the offensive line that he had never played, and that Jones would stay a left tackle.
Apparently, part of the reason the Cardinals passed on Ogden was that he insisted he wanted to play left tackle (if true, it was a stance he must have dropped instantly after he was drafted by Baltimore), and the Cardinals already had a left tackle, veteran Lomas Brown.
The Ravens also had acquired the 49ers’ first-round pick from a trade between the two teams before the 1995 Draft. That became the 26th overall pick in 1996. There, Baltimore snagged University of Miami linebacker Ray Lewis. Lewis was the runner-up for the 1995 Butkus Award for college football’s best linebacker. While he was a well-respected prospect, Lewis’s “flaw,” and the principal reason he was available when the 26th pick came around, was his size. “He didn’t have the ideal measurables,” Phil Savage, then the Ravens’ director of college scouting, recalled years later. At just 6-foot, 235 pounds, he was a bit on the small side for a linebacker, and scouts were skeptical. “There’s a feeling that if a middle linebacker isn’t 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds, they can’t do it,” said Marvin Lewis in 2018. Lewis was the Ravens’ defensive coordinator in 1996.
“[PHILLIPS] WOULD HAVE BEEN A CLASS-A CITIZEN… BALTIMORE WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD”
Although he was happy with Ogden, Modell had been set on selecting Phillips. He admitted that the Ravens would have picked the running back if the Cardinals didn’t throw the curveball and pass on Ogden for Rice. Even after Arizona took Rice, Modell was still pushing for Phillips, but Newsome overrode him and picked Ogden, avoiding the onslaught of negative publicity the team would have faced for drafting Phillips.
The St. Louis Rams ended up taking Phillips with the sixth overall pick. Their front office was ecstatic. According to Hank Goldberg, who was reporting from the Rams’ headquarters on ESPN’s draft broadcast, when the Ravens selected Ogden, a loud roar of excitement arose from their draft room.
If the Rams had any concerns about Phillips’s legal issues, owner Georgia Frontiere wasn’t showing it. “If it helps our team,” she said soon after the pick was announced, “that’s all I care about.”
Despite passing on him, Modell was quick to defend Phillips from critical comments by the press. He made sure to point out that if the Ravens would have drafted Phillips, he would have been confident in the selection:
I had no qualms about taking [Phillips], because I felt, based on our investigation, that he was subject to quick and complete rehabilitation and that he would have been a class-A citizen and a man the City of Baltimore would have been proud of.
The Ravens owner even went as far as to make it clear that he believed that Phillips’s ex-girlfriend, the victim of his assault, shouldered at least some of the fault for the running back’s actions. According to Modell, she “provoked” Phillips’s attack on her. “That doesn’t excuse his behavior but you’ve got to understand [Phillips’s] background,” Modell said. “This was the love of his life. Someone he could cling to. He had no mother, no father… and she turned out to betray him.”
Modell’s victim-blaming comments were met with a fair share of criticism, but there was no significant fallout and the words were essentially forgotten within days. This is a prime illustration of how the NFL community’s perception and understanding of domestic violence has evolved. If an NFL owner made similar comments today, he or she would likely face substantial backlash and significant damage to his or her reputation.
“WE THOUGHT ART MODELL WAS SMARTER THAN THIS. PHILLIPS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE PICK”
The post-draft rankings for the Ravens were not complimentary. Tampa Bay Times NFL reporter Rick Stroud included the Ravens in his list of draft “losers,” decrying the fact that they “plan to try and move Ogden to [guard]—a position he’s never played.” Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote gave the Ravens’ draft a “C-minus” and called the Ogden pick “odd” because the offensive line was already a Ravens strength going into the draft.
The Ravens were also skewered for passing on Phillips. The Chicago Sun-Times asked, “How could the Ravens pass up Lawrence Phillips and take OT Jonathan Ogden with the intent of playing him at guard?” Len Pasquarelli, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution NFL writer, gave the Ravens a “C,” reasoning that the team “passed on the draft’s best player [Phillips],” while also wondering, “Where does Ogden play?” Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke listed the Ravens as one of the teams in the draft that “stumbled.” “We thought Art Modell was smarter than this,” Plaschke wrote. “Phillips should have been the pick there.”
It wasn’t just the Ogden pick that was criticized. Randy Lange, a reporter for the (North Jersey) Record, wrote that Ray Lewis was the Ravens’ “worst buy” of the draft. “Lewis,” Lange wrote, “like [linebacker] Craig Powell [the Browns’ first-round pick in 1995, who only lasted one season with the franchise] a year ago, was forced into Round 1.” Stroud wrote in his next-day draft column that “after the [Ravens] failed to address their running back needs, they drafted smallish LB Ray Lewis.” Plaschke was also lukewarm about the Lewis pick, questioning why Baltimore would take the linebacker when Texas A&M running back Leland McElroy was available.
“I REALLY BELIEVE THAT [ST. LOUIS] IS THE PERFECT SPOT FOR LAWRENCE PHILLIPS”
Anchored by Phillips, the Rams’ 1996 Draft class was critically acclaimed. Former NFL quarterback Joe Theismann, one of the main analysts on ESPN’s draft broadcast, loved Phillips’s fit in St. Louis. “I really believe that this is the perfect spot for Lawrence Phillips,” Theismann said. “I still believe that this is the kid that we’re gonna be talking about a year from now as being a sensation in the National Football League.”
ESPN’s draft expert Mel Kiper Jr., broadcasting with Theismann, slammed the pick. The Rams needed a revamp of offensive talent, but Kiper didn’t think that a risk like Phillips was worthy of being the sixth pick when there were other quality running backs in the draft pool. “It’s too deep a year for running backs. You can get an [Ohio State running back] Eddie George…” he said. Theismann did not share Kiper’s opinion. He told Kiper:
I don’t agree with either of your points to be honest with you Mel… I think, as we’ve said and most people have conceded, take the problems off the field away, everybody’s called him the best player in the draft, you have to sooner or later let the talent go. This is not a league of angels. There are people that have had problems but they’ve gotten over them. I think this is a young man who will put this behind him and will be a better football player.
Rams head coach Rich Brooks felt the same way as Theismann. “We obviously don’t think this is a major risk,” he said. In addition to Phillips, the Rams traded down to 18, and selected wide receiver Eddie Kennison. A speedster from LSU, Kennison was expected to be drafted later in the first round. One pick later, the Indianapolis Colts selected Syracuse wideout Marvin Harrison 19th. Harrison spent his entire career with the Colts, set numerous NFL and team receiving records, and, in 2016, was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In the second round, St. Louis chose Tony Banks, a quarterback from Michigan State. Banks was thought to have the size (6-foot-4½, 220 pounds), mobility, and arm talent, but he was a questionable decision maker. He threw 15 interceptions to only nine touchdowns his senior year. Nevertheless, Brooks saw him as the quarterback of the future.
The Rams front office received very high marks for their picks. If this was grade school, they certainly would have made the honor roll. Pasquarelli gave the Rams an “A-plus.” Stroud listed St. Louis as one of his “top bananas,” mostly for drafting “arguably the best player in the draft [Phillips],” and wrote that “if personal demons can be exorcised, Phillips could be one of the best running backs in league history.” Stroud also added that “at least the Rams got rid of one headache by unloading slumping running back Jerome Bettis to Pittsburgh.” Bettis ended up having a Hall of Fame career for the Steelers.
Plaschke added to the compliments. Like many others, he lauded St. Louis for choosing Phillips and dumping Bettis. Plaschke also gushed that the Rams acquired the draft’s “most promising quarterback” in Tony Banks. Mike O’Hara, in USA Today, also had fine things to say. “Instant offense with RB Lawrence Phillips and WR Eddie Kennison, and a QB of the future in Tony Banks in the 2nd round,” he wrote. “Grade: A-minus.” Vinny DiTrani, in the Record, gave the Rams an “A,” because their “offense was upgraded 100 percent.” The Buffalo News’s Milt Northrop listed the Rams as one of his “big winners” of the draft. “St. Louis had the nerve to take Lawrence Phillips,” Northrop wrote, “and didn’t have to trade up to get him.” The Dallas Morning News called the Rams the “kings of their draft class.” “Could a team have done any better?” asked the Chicago Sun-Times about the Rams. “They got the best player in the draft, RB Lawrence Phillips, with the sixth pick, [and] a potentially great receiver in Eddie Kennison… The Rams should get impact that is immediate and long term.”
THE RAVENS STRIKE LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE. TWICE
So, what actually happened? For the Ravens, they struck lightning in a bottle—twice. Both Ogden and Lewis had Hall of Fame careers. Each started immediately for the Ravens and made instant impacts. Ogden played at guard his rookie season, after which the Ravens traded Jones to Denver and Ogden was able to move back to tackle, his more natural position. In 12 seasons, he was a four-time All-Pro, and was selected to the Pro Bowl 11 times. He is now considered by many to be one of the greatest tackles ever to play in the NFL.
Ray Lewis became one of the premier defensive players in the league and is regarded by most to be the best linebacker of his era. In his rookie season, he led the team in tackles; in his second season he led the NFL in tackles. In 2000, he won his first of two NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards. That same year, the Ravens won their first Super Bowl, and Lewis was named MVP of the game. Lewis retired after the 2012 season. His final game was in February 2013, at Super Bowl XLVII, where the Ravens won their second championship.
THE RAMS’ PICKS UNDERWHELM, AND PHILLIPS FLAMES OUT
The Rams’ selections didn’t fare nearly as well, despite the team’s supposedly magnificent draft. They posted losing records the three seasons following the draft. Banks was their starting quarterback for most of that period, and while he occasionally put up nice numbers, he turned the ball over far too much, took a ton of sacks, and generally became a huge liability. After the 1998 season, the team traded Banks to none other than… Baltimore. He never became a star and retired in 2005.
Kennison had a tremendous rookie year but fell off the next two, after which the franchise traded him to New Orleans. He eventually went on to play for a total of five teams throughout a solid 14-year career. Ironically, the Rams won the Super Bowl the year after Kennison and Banks were traded.
Phillips did not reach his potential. He played only one-and-a-half seasons in St. Louis, scoring 12 touchdowns in 25 games. After repeated instances of misconduct, he was released in November 1997. Soon after, he was signed by the Dolphins but only lasted two games in Miami—he was cut after he was involved in an incident in a South Florida nightclub, to which he eventually pled no contest. After he put up a productive season in Barcelona in the now-defunct NFL Europe, the 49ers took a flier on him in 1999. But after struggling on the field and openly denouncing his coaches and authority figures off it, he was released by the Niners after only a few months. He went on to play a few seasons in the Canadian Football League, and by 2003 he retired.
After Phillips’s football career ended, he started to get into more significant legal trouble. He went to prison in 2006, eventually being sentenced to a total of 31 years for crimes including assault with a deadly weapon, assault with great bodily injury, and false imprisonment. In 2015, he was charged with killing his prison cellmate. Before his trial, he committed suicide.
“WE FACTOR WHO’S THE BEST PLAYER”
The 1996 Draft was the beginning of a stellar executive career for Newsome. By the time he stepped down as general manager after the 2018 season, Newsome oversaw 192 picks in all. As of 2020, 15 of those picks became first-team All-Pros, 31 became Pro Bowlers, and three were inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. One of those Hall of Famers is Ogden, a 2013 inductee, whose selection was announced in February of that year, one day before the Ravens won Super Bowl XLVII. Newsome introduced Ogden at the induction ceremony that August. He was the first Ravens player to be inducted. Lewis followed in 2018. Free safety Ed Reed, the Ravens’ first-round pick in 2002, was inducted in 2019.
The fact that Baltimore drafted Ogden when it already had a solid left tackle and that it chose “smallish” Ray Lewis, in lieu of its major “need” for a running back, foreshadowed Newsome’s draft strategy during his tenure. “We do not—especially on the first day of the draft or the top four picks—factor in ‘need,’” Newsome said in 2007. “We factor who’s the best player.” This policy helped turn the Ravens into solid contenders throughout Newsome’s tenure as general manager.
Ozzie Newsome stepped down as the Ravens’ general manager after the 2018 season. As of 2022, he is still an active part of the franchise but with a lesser role in the front office. “Ozzie is the foundation of the Ravens,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said in 2013. Although there is a sentiment from some fans and experts that his draft results had declined toward the end of his tenure, Newsome is still one of the most important and impactful general managers of the past thirty years. He has earned that respect even though he began his front-office career with a mediocre draft grade average. He gives hope to C-students everywhere.