The Exit 52 Podcast presents: “Season in Between”

Hey guys, Jake here, proud and excited to present something a little different for you all starting on our podcast feed next Friday. It’s called “Season in Between” and it’s been a brainchild of mine for a long time now. People familiar with my work on the Baltimore Beatdown Podcast may remember “Forgotten Dynasty,” the six-part narrative exploration of the history of the Baltimore Colts, that released in 2021. As I’ve teased a bit in the few years since it’s release, the enjoyment I got out of pursuing and producing a project like that was so strong, it was a guarantee that I’d be following it up with something similar. My only question in the immediate wake of that high, was what would it be? 

There were a few obvious things to jump to right off the bat. The Ravens becoming the Ravens following the move from Cleveland; their quick ascension to the top of the league by winning the Super Bowl in 2000; following all of that up with a regime change, and then another Super Bowl in 2012. All of these were very interesting stories to me, and I even started some groundwork on different variations of what my version of those stories would look like. But for some reason, my desire to seriously pursue them never stuck. It was after some thinking on it following the scrapping of these various iterations of new projects that I realized there were a few key reasons why they weren’t resonating. 

The first, and to me most key, were that these were stories that had already been told. From “A Football Life: Cleveland ‘95” which covers the last days of the original Browns and Ozzie Newsome’s ascent, to both America’s Game documentaries covering the seasons of both of these Super Bowl teams, plus the recent release of “The Bullies of Baltimore” which gave us yet another look at the 2000 Ravens, it felt like these tales had already been told (and very competently, I might add) by true professionals in the industry. So what could I, a part time podcaster with a shoestring budget, and decidedly less free time on my hands bring to those stories that hadn’t already been explored? There may be a concrete answer to that question, but for the time being, I stopped looking for it. 

Another significant reason that I did so is because as I’ve gotten a bit further into adulthood, I’ve come to realize that stories of failure resonate with me just as much – if not moreso sometimes – than stories of success. While great achievements are always fun to explore, they can’t be examined without plumbing the depths of the failures that preceded them, unless you want a pretty one note narrative. In the case of the Ravens two Championship success stories, there was one pretty big failure that sat smack dab in  between the two of them. I had always been fascinated by the 2006 Ravens and their stellar regular season record, and the fact that it hadn’t amounted to anything. My initial question of “why didn’t they win a championship?” was the driving force in deciding to take a look back at them, and served as a catalyst to answering what’s a more important question: what made them an interesting team? 

There’s plenty of ways to answer that, including their crushing defense, which engenders plenty of current day hipster (but potentially correct) takes about how they were a superior unit to the 2000 squad. Even more interesting to me was that this season proved to be the penultimate one of the Brian Billick era, and how when you really contextualize it against all that had happened, winning another Super Bowl very well could’ve been his last real shot to save his job. And maybe the most fascinating subplot was that in a bid to live up to Championship expectations, and cool down a seat that had become warm pretty much from day one of a young new owner’s tenure, Billick turned to a man who needed the Ravens and their ready-made roster just as much as said roster needed him: Steve McNair. 

I was 11 years old in 2006, and it was our first full year living back in Baltimore after a four-year stint in South Carolina we’d done for my Dad’s career. My Ravens fandom was less developed in the early 2000’s considering they were tougher to find on TV, and my friends at school all tended towards Clemson, or SC Gamecocks fandom (you’d get the occasional Panthers loyalist, but they were a state away, and we were firmly in CFB territory). When we returned to the area, and I started following the Ravens more in earnest and was actually able to bond over them with my friends at school, the ‘06 team displayed a level of week-to-week regular season consistency I had never seen considering I was too young to remember 2000’s regular season. McNair was a huge part of that. 

While it’s nothing personal against Kyle Boller, being invested in his success as a young fan trying to get into football was (in a word) a tough scene. The great Ravens defenses of that era were always a joy to watch, and Ed Reed in particular brought a flashy, offensive-esque flair to a team that desperately needed it. But over and over again, it was the Ravens inability to figure it out at quarterback that made them a bit less watchable to a young fan like me, and cost them in the win column in important situations. So when McNair (who by that time I was only familiar with in a broad sense) came to town, and helped bring winning football to Baltimore in a way that I hadn’t seen, it was hard not to become a huge fan of his. 

Older fans who’d been there through the AFC Central days and remembered just how much of a pain in the ass McNair was to the Ravens seemed to welcome him (and his ailing, rapidly aging body) in with a begrudging respect. For someone like me, there was less of a sense of history between the two parties, and I was all the way in. His cool nickname, easygoing Southern Charm, career resume, and (of course) his steady hand on the field that year made it an easy proposition. It was a tough pill to swallow when the next year didn’t work out for him in the same way and he announced his retirement, and an even bigger shock to my system when just a few short years later, he’d tragically lost his life. 

As an early disclaimer, that’s an element of the story I won’t be covering much out of respect for Steve and his family – “Fall of a Titan” produced by Tim Rohan for Sports Illustrated is a good listen on it if you’re curious. What I was curious about was the idea of the potential within a guy like McNair, and how he succeeded in fulfilling it despite many of the obstacles he faced over the course of his career. After weathering two moves through different cities, winning multiple playoff games, and winning an MVP award all while sustaining a litany of injuries thanks to his leave-it-all-out-there style of play, the only box left to check was winning a Super Bowl. Making his way to the Ravens to join up with Brian Billick who by then was desperate to save his job is a spaghetti Western type twist to a guy’s career that I find endlessly fascinating to explore. 

So, it was 2006 - the year that sits smack in the middle of two other championship seasons in which the last gasp of one regime gives way in devastating fashion, setting up for the next group of franchise brass to come in and make their own name - that I decided to explore. And rather than just exploring the season itself, I’ll be providing plenty of color on the who, what, why, and how the 2006 team wound up where they did. Without spoiling any more for you, I’ll just say that I found it to be every bit as rewarding an experience as I did the first time around, and yes – there will be more to come. It’s just a matter of time. 

To everyone who already listens to the Exit 52 Podcast, and to everyone who may be a newcomer to us due to your interest in this project, I want to offer up some sincere appreciation for helping make what’s been me and Spencer’s first year with this already great team of guys an awesome one. Without any listeners and followers to engage with, this wouldn’t be nearly as rewarding a pursuit as it is. We’re not quite where we want to be with our long terms goals yet, but without the support we’ve gotten along the way, we may have given up a long time ago. 

So thanks, and I hope you enjoy Season in Between over the next few weeks, and all of our other offerings beyond that. We’ll see you for the Episode 1 premiere next week.