It’s been said that some of the best moves you make in life are the ones you don’t make.
The Ravens may come to find that one of the best moves they made heading into the 2013 season is one that was made for them. General manager Ozzie Newsome, whose “right player at the right price” philosophy has usually served him well, went out and signed linebacker Rolando McClain –from the Oakland Raiders. At 23 years old, McClain may have served as a long term plug into their sizable linebacking gap. And at $700,000 for one year, he certainly came at Newsome’s right price. However, on Wednesday, just 10 days after signing the new deal, McClain abruptly retired from football. And, in so doing, he saved Ozzie Newsome from embarrassing himself and the franchise.
In three short years since leaving the University of Alabama, Rolando McClain’s life has careened from one mess to another. On the field, McClain, the eighth overall pick in the 2010 draft, has been largely unsuccessful. His playing time this season was cut dramatically by the talent challenged Raiders, and he was kicked out of a practice. But the Raiders let McClain go after last season because for as badly as he had played on the field, his conduct off the field was even worse. McClain has been arrested three times in the last 16 months, with all the arrests coming in his hometown of Decatur, Ala. He was charged with assault and firearms violations in December, 2011, charges that were dropped when the accuser decided not to pursue the case. One month later, McClain was arrested again in Decatur after he wrote a false name and an obscenity on a traffic ticket. And last month, 10 days after signing with the Ravens, McClain was arrested – again in Decatur – and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, after he allegedly yelled an obscenity at police in a park. After all this, McClain abruptly put his career on hold, saying he needed to get his life together. And that may be the one wise decision that Rolando McClain has made in a while. But McClain’s retirement doesn’t absolve Newsome from questioning about just what it takes not to get a contract offer from this team.
Let’s not forget that two years ago Newsome and the Ravens gave a one-year contract to wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth. Stallworth was fresh off a 30-day jail term and one year league suspension for vehicular manslaughter after he struck and killed a Miami construction worker with his car. And there are many who still have concerns about how the Ravens embraced Ray Lewis after he pled guilty to obstruction of justice in conjunction with the death of two men in Atlanta following the Super Bowl in 2000, not to mention the number of players with arrest records who have donned the purple and black.
Look, Ozzie Newsome shouldn’t pick a roster full of choir boys, but occasionally, he should add right amount of character to the mix of right player, right price, as a condition of being a Baltimore Raven.