“Billick & Bisciotti”

The leader in the clubhouse for an alternative title to this project probably would’ve been “The Rise and Fall of Brian Billick.” While Billick isn’t the only main character in the mix here, (there are a few more to come, of course) he’s a figure that I am, and always have been, endlessly fascinated by. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that I’m a bit young to really remember his tenure in earnest. If I had to live through some of the inconsistencies in results his teams yielded year-to-year, I’d probably look back upon him with less of a mystic awe, and more of a sense of simple, congenial appreciation.  

But what can’t be lost here is the fact that the man was more than just a good soundbite... although he’d offer up some pretty damn good ones on the regular. Really, it was everything that made Billick such a good quote, and camera-friendly presence that made the Ravens as a franchise what they ultimately became, and still are to an extent. All due respect to Ted Marchibroda and Memorial Stadium, but by the mid to late 1990’s, they were relics of a bygone era. While it was great to build some connective tissue between the old and new testaments of Baltimore football, it couldn’t be much more than a soft launch into a whole new era, one in which the Ravens would find their own identity beyond what the Colts had done decades earlier. 

And by mere luck – and the happenstance of missing out on their first choice in Mike Holmgren – they found the perfect man to form, and mold that identity in the glib, and relentlessly self-assured Billick. As he’s since explained, his mentality was to come into the organization and take a team that was already stocked with some solid talent, and develop it into a cohesive team. This went beyond X’s and O’s, and OTA installs. Billick was driving at something much deeper. 

Old but timeless pieces of footage of him patrolling training camp sidelines in his trademark straw hats and white reebok shoes are a delight to watch, as are the creases on his catcher’s mitt of a ruggedly proportioned face pulling into a scowl or smile as he’s about to rebuke a player, crack an inappropriate joke, or both in one sentence. More than anything he did in Minnesota with Randall Cunningham and Randy Moss, it was the defiant, “take no bullshit” culture that he instilled into a franchise that was looking for some direction that will stand the test of time, and would’ve been invaluable to the Ravens even if it had never amounted to a Championship. 

Which is the other thing I find extremely fascinating about Billick. In the span of two seasons, he came, he saw, he conquered... and then he had to spend the rest of his tenure trying to live up to the impossible expectations he had set for himself in just his second year on the job. Funny enough, he even quips about heightened pressure moving forward to Ozzie Newsome on the sideline of Super Bowl XXXV as the clock is winding down towards the Ravens victory. Always ahead of the curve, and at times too smart for his own good, there were some things even Billick wasn’t going to be prepared for. 

Trying to figure it out at quarterback after getting lucky with Trent Dilfer’s hot hand was one of them. Elvis Grbac would prove to be a certified whiff, and a flyer on Chris Redman, and then an eventual all-in move to get Kyle Boller never made up for it. And as it became clear that the former offensive guru had less of an idea of what he was doing with quarterback development than he had let on, he certainly wasn’t prepared for the fact that he was about to meet his intellectual match, someone who was every bit as accomplished and confident as he was. Unfortunately for Billick, this man was his new boss, Steve Bisciotti. 

While Art Modell had been serving as more of a figurehead over his last days as majority owner, his successor in Bisciotti came in ready to take the franchise to new heights. His humble upbringing as a middle-class Baltimorean belied his exceptional business savvy, as did his red-hot temper that was reserved for sparing few moments that this Master of the Universe (who insisted on being called “Steve” despite his high station) considered important enough to let it rip. Let it rip he did early and often with Billick, who he took to be a brash, egotistical, and condescending figure in some respects – this bore out in a heated series of exchanges in the first few weeks of Bisciotti’s tenure, when the newly minted owner had to let his head coach know who was really boss. 

But neither men were fools, and they were able to get on the same page enough to see that they were more alike than different. This was good in the sense that it meant both would demand success, and ideally get the best out of each other, but could get touchy when the two had a difference of opinion. Not that Bisciotti was, or would be a meddling owner, and not that Billick would be downright insubordinate; but it was going to be a delicate high wire act for both of them moving forward from 2004 if they were going to make their partnership work. 

This push-pull dynamic is at the heart of Episode 1 of Season in Between, and is something I find to be incredibly interesting, reminding me a bit of Johnny Unitas and Don Shula’s inability to see eye to eye for little better reason than the fact that they were both hardheaded type A football obsessives. While Billick would fall more into that latter bucket, and Bisciotti came from the business world, the conflict was a similar one, and it would prove to be a defining juncture in the history of the Ravens franchise. We explore that, and more on this week’s episode, which I hope you guys enjoy the hell out of. Feel free to get at me on twitter @jakelouque with your thoughts, and be sure to stay tuned to the podcast feed for next week’s episode! Thanks for listening.