If there was ever an event that was indicative of the butterfly effect, it is the NFL Draft. Many franchises have been built and destroyed by draft night decisions, with more teams proving to make the wrong decision than not. Thankfully for the Baltimore Ravens, the butterfly’s wings cast a favorable headwind in 2018.
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In a gutsy move that could have proven to be the end of the John Harbaugh era in Baltimore, the head coach and the team’s majority owner, Steve Bisciotti, decided to trade up into the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft to select Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson with the 32nd overall pick.
Now seeming like geniuses on the back end of their decision, the two sat down for an interview team insider, Garrett Downing, to discuss the details behind their motivations that day. In admitting that “Lamar was not the top rated guy,” Harbaugh explained that,
“That was a different kind of year because there was a bunch of quarterbacks that year. We had the conversations about Lamar in the draft meetings all the way through, on the phone, how many times did we talk? But, we didn’t want anybody to know… The conversations kind of came back around and it ended up being ‘Can we build an offense around Lamar Jackson?’ …And we decided that we could.”
Suffice to say, their gamble paid off in a huge way. However, the long-tenured NFL play-caller explained that it wasn’t as simple as he had made it sound.
In fact, there was no certainty about the Ravens being able to land Lamar on the first night of the draft.
“That wasn’t the end of it because we still had to get him. I remember draft day… I had stepped out because we had made the pick of Hayden and still Lamar was kind of in the back of everyone’s mind… I come back in and their buzzing… He looks at me and he whispers “Lamar.”
After weeks of secret phone calls, it finally culminated into a franchise-altering decision: Baltimore got that guy. Since then, Jackson has taken the NFL by storm, much like a hurricane.
Harbaugh and Bisciotti draw parallels between drafting Lamar Jackson and Joe Flacco
Easily the two most recognizable signal callers in the history of the franchise, Lamar Jackson and Joe Flacco may have a bit more in common than some fans have realized. After Harbaugh noted that the team was in need of a quarterback upon his initial hiring, Bisciotti recalled how Flacco came at a much similar time to that of Lamar.
“I’ll never forget it… I had taken over in 2004 and then Kyle Boller didn’t work out like we had hoped he would. And then, Steve McNair comes in and his body breaks down and then 2.06 turns into a terrible 2.07 which leaves us with the eighth pick in the draft… You’ve got to have the quarterback…We went back and got Joe and Cam said that this guy has as much upside as Matt Ryan… We can do just as well with Joe.”
No matter which perspective you view it from, the Ravens couldn’t have gotten any luckier in their last two QB draft selections. With one having produced a Lombardi trophy and the other an AFC Championship appearance, it’s safe to say Bisciotti was right to trust the instincts of his personnel.
Considering that all other 31 NFL teams passed up on the opportunity to draft Jackson for themselves, the Ravens continue to stand tall as one of the league’s premiere examples of how a small conversation on a pair of stadium steps can transform your franchise into the home of the next athletic sensation.
