John Maroon: The Value Of Building Equity
The beloved Baltimore Ravens have had a challenging start to the off-season with the loss of several key free agents including Ben Grubbs, Jarret Johnson, Cory Redding and Tom Zbikowski and the unsuccessful pursuit of Evan Mathis. Under normal circumstances or with other unnamed teams in the market this would cause panic and angst for fans of the franchise but that doesn't seem to be happening…why?
Because Ozzie Newsome and the rest of the Ravens front office brain trust has built tremendous equity in this community through years of success and the unending ability to make fantastic draft picks. The Ravens are also a perennial playoff team, incredibly active and present in the community and since their move to Baltimore have become entrenched in the hearts and minds of Baltimoreans.
The bottom line is that it is hard to stay on top in the National Football League, by design. The system is set to build up the weaker teams and weaken the stronger teams and only those run in a highly effective and well thought out manner, like the Ravens, Patriots, Giants and Steelers, can pull that off.
The draft will be interesting as always and I believe that the team will utilize their 29th pick in each of the first three rounds like they always do…wisely. Their picks might not represent household names but more likely than not we will get to know them in 2012 and beyond.
In sports the saying "what have you done for me lately" gets used so often but that doesn't apply as staunchly to the Ravens because they have earned the trust and confidence of all of us. If you ever get to thinking that remaining elite is easy just find fans of the Redskins, Dolphins, Bengals and other teams across the league.
In the Ravens we trust.
Written by John Maroon.
