If you want to be successful in sports, it always starts at the top. Having a good and competent owner is so important to the stability of an organization, and the Baltimore Ravens have been lucky to have two in their history.
It started with Art Modell in 1996 after the old Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore. In 2000, Steve Bisciotti became a minority owner of the team and was under the apprenticeship of Modell. That lasted until 2004 when Bisciotti became the majority owner.
Over the years, these two have set the standard at the top for the Ravens, and when it comes to Bisciotti, he's highly regarded as one of the better owners in the NFL. Bisciotti, like Modell, is determined to win, and Mike Jones of The Athletic agrees.
Based on every team’s actions this offseason, Jones wanted to find out just how much each owner wants their team to win this upcoming season. For Bisciotti and Baltimore’s offseason so far, he had high praise. Jones said:
"Re-signing Ronnie Stanley to ensure Lamar Jackson's blind slide remains well protected was big. And DeAndre Hopkins should help improve the depth of the wide receiver unit. Salary-cap restraints made it hard to do more, but Baltimore's front office always finds gems in the draft. When it comes to their belief in Steve Biscotti's commitment to building a winning team, Ravens players in the most recent NFLPA team report cards gave their owner the ninth-highest rating in the league."
Why Steve Bisciotti ranks among the NFL’s most respected owners
In those NFLPA report cards, Baltimore's owner got an A grade. Baltimore's policy of ownership is always to let the football people do the football work.
It's what allowed Ozzie Newsome, Eric DeCosta, and the entire front office to make the decisions to help the team win. In the locker room and inside the organization, Bisciotti has helped create a good atmosphere in the building—carried over from Modell.
Some might think Bisciotti needs to be more involved in the day-to-day operations—maybe to an extent like Jerry Jones in Dallas—but the resume says otherwise. Baltimore has won two Super Bowls, made it to five AFC Championship games, eight division championships, eighteen playoff wins, and sixteen overall playoff appearances since 2000 under Bisciotti and Modell. Not to mention three Hall of Famers in Jonathan Ogden, Ray Lewis, and Ed Reed—with potentially more on the way.
There are a lot of NFL teams with bad owners, like the New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Cowboys, for example. Those teams get held back year in and year out because of bad decision-making, and a lot of noise comes from it. Baltimore is one of the few that doesn't have that problem at the top. They've become a model of consistency, thanks in part to the quiet ownership of Bisciotti.