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Newsome shows that actions trump words

David Steele
September 29, 2008

It's one of life's funny coincidences that Matt Millen finally got fired by the Detroit Lions the same week Ozzie Newsome's Ravens got ready to take a 2-0 record into Pittsburgh to face the Steelers. (And the same week Jerry Reese's defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants took their bye at 3-0. But that's getting ahead of the story.)

Millen, of course, made a strong case for being the most criticized and vilified team executive in NFL history, if not in all of pro sports - and he deserved every syllable of it. Newsome never had heat on him the way Millen did (you know, because he won a Super Bowl). But he has gotten more than can be rationally understood.

Stranger still, it came before this season's Ravens ever played a game that counted. Right up until the opener against the Cincinnati Bengals, a small but very vocal contingent of fans flooded the talk shows, e-mail accounts and message boards wondering when Newsome was going to get a taste of what Brian Billick got, when his turn would come to pay for the team's decline.

When are you gonna quit protecting him? When are you gonna hold him accountable? went the refrain, fueled by a pretty horrid preseason that raised legitimate questions about how the Ravens intended to field an offensive line, quarterback, wide receivers and cornerbacks.

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Two games in is early for evaluating it all, but the Ravens' start does indicate that reports of Newsome's loss of all cerebral functions were greatly exaggerated. It appears, after all, that the Ravens do have a quarterback, an offensive line and cornerback depth. Wide-outs, maybe not so much. But it does seem that an awful lot of draft picks are populating those areas that Newsome supposedly had let dry up.

Thumbs-up, then, for the guy with the unexpected bull's-eye on his back, who has been doing his job reasonably well for 13 years and long ago justified Art Modell's faith in him way back when.

Which brings us back to Millen. His legendarily lousy tenure in Detroit came about simply because he never deserved to get the job in the first place. His very presence in a seat of such power, from straight out of the broadcast booth, was a slap in the face to people like Newsome, who ran the risk of never seeing the dues he paid get rewarded, because most owners then and now would rather hire characters like Millen than any African-American.

The same went for Reese, who never hesitates to praise Newsome for his pioneering role, and who spent years beating the bushes as a scout before hooking on under Ernie Accorsi and eventually succeeding him.

The miserable Millen tale would have a happy ending if it persuaded NFL teams to forever bury the hiring model that elevated him and to open their searches up to everybody - ideally, without having to devise a version of the Rooney Rule for coaching hires to apply to front-office jobs. But if that's what it takes to uncover the next Newsome or Reese, so be it.

An even happier ending would be for all great candidates to get their shot, to be recognized and rewarded for their abilities. There are eight years worth of talented front-office heads, of all colors, who had portions of their careers and futures stolen by Millen and Lions owner William Clay Ford.

Next time an opening comes up, maybe some owner will use as his guide not the biggest talker in the booth, but the man who put together the unbeaten team playing at Heinz Field tonight.

Listen to David Steele on Fridays at 9a.m. on WNST (1570AM).


Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun

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