Sad news: The Baltimore Ravens have just Fired one of their best players
Soon after Cleveland’s last NFL title, “96 Tears,” a song with an odd name, captured the nation’s attention. The band was called The Mysterians.
From the perspective of the Browns, the song would have made a suitable soundtrack for Ray Lewis’s NFL debut.
On Christmas Eve of 1995, the Browns’ 50th season in Cleveland came to an end, and the team began the arduous task of moving to Baltimore.
The Browns’ Berea headquarters remained the home of head coach Bill Belichick, player personnel director Mike Lombardi, and rising scout Ozzie Newsome. They escorted a group of prospects from Berea to Indianapolis for the 1996 combine, where they initiated interviews with them on behalf of the Baltimore? team, which did not yet have a nickname.
On Valentine’s Day, Modell fired Belichick and Lombardi at the combine, substituting Newsome for Lombardi immediately. He was given two months to plan his strategy for the No. 4 and No. 26 overall picks.
Jonathan Ogden, a tackle from UCLA, was the No. 4. Miami linebacker Ray Lewis was selected with pick number 26 in 1995 as a result of a draft-day trade.
Lewis went through a traumatic period at the same time as Cleveland. On draft day, Marlin Barnes, a fellow linebacker for the Hurricanes, was buried. He was killed in the apartment where he lived with Lewis, as well as teammates Earl Little and Trent Jones.
Lewis drove to a surreal draft party at Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium after attending Barnes’ funeral in Miami at one in the afternoon on draft day. The Dolphins would select him at No. 20, he had been informed.
According to Lewis, this was their last conversation: “He said, ‘Hey, boy, the only thing I can say is I’m happy.'” I’m glad that at least one of us will survive. “I love you,” he said. “I love you, too,” I said.
History, meanwhile, is adept at throwing a curveball.
Both Ogden and Lewis were players for the team that left Cleveland for the entirety of their careers. In their first year of eligibility, both were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Newsome, the Hall of Fame tight end who selected them, spent his whole playing career in Cleveland.
A year before Ogden and Lewis were All-Pros for the Baltimore team that won Super Bowl XXXV, Newsome was elected to the Hall of Fame in the year the Browns returned as an expansion team.
Butch Davis, the new head coach at Miami, had hired Lewis for his collegiate career. At the Hurricanes’ pro day prior to the 1996 draft, Baltimore scout George Kokinis mixed with an NFL fan base.
“Even then, you could sense that leadership,” Kokinis remarked. “The manner in which he carried himself, the professionalism.
“The topic of his slight undersize would come up during the discussions. Our group had been more of a height, weight, and speed scouting group. ‘He’s just a football player,’ said Ozzie.
The Browns under Belichick were one of a select few teams that employed “the box drill.” Kokinis had contacted Lewis ahead of time to arrange for the drill.
“When the day came and I was just a young scout with all these coaches looking at me, I thought there was no way he was going to do my workout,” Kokinis recalled. However, he approached me and said, ‘You’ve been phoning me all this week. Let’s finish this up.
