The Unofficial History of the Baltimore Ravens

05/22/2022

Some items I've saved from the Ravens' inaugural game against the Oakland Raiders on 9/1/1996...

(If I can find my ticket from that game I'll edit this post to include that as well)

05/21/2022

September 1, 1996 - NFL Week 1
1:00 PM @ Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)

(0-1) Oakland Raiders 14
(1-0) Baltimore Ravens 19

After almost 10 months of controversy surrounding the relocation of the Cleveland Browns, it was finally time for meaningful NFL football to be played in Baltimore for the first time since December of 1983. A Memorial Stadium then-record crowd of 64,124 (aided by the construction of temporary bleachers in the previously open end of the stadium) witnessed the beginning of the Ravens franchise as they held off the Oakland Raiders in a 19-14 victory. The pregame ceremonies featured a number of old Baltimore Colts legends decked out in the black and purple of Charm City’s new team, but it was the appearance of Johnny Unitas at midfield, clad in his old Colts #19 jersey, that sent the crowd into a real frenzy. But once the opening kickoff landed in the hands of rookie return man Jermaine Lewis, it was time to focus on football. The Ravens would get on the scoreboard first, with QB Vinny Testaverde punctuating an 8-play, 85-yard drive with a 9-yard scramble up the middle of the field for the first touchdown in Ravens history. However, Oakland went into halftime with a 14-7 lead, as the Ravens offense bogged down in the 2nd quarter, and legendary Raiders WR Tim Brown caught a pair of touchdown passes from Billy Joe Hobert. The Ravens would claw their way back into the lead throughout the 2nd half, with two Matt Stover field goals in the 3rd quarter, and Earnest Byner’s 4th-quarter 1-yard dive into the end zone proving to be the game-winning score. The Ravens offense went into no-huddle mode during the 3rd quarter, which disrupted the Oakland defense and forced them into three penalties for having 12 players on the field. Meanwhile, Ray Lewis, in his first career NFL game, made an immediate impact, ripping the ball away from Oakland tight end Rickey Dudley in the end zone for an interception in the 2nd quarter, as well as making several key tackles throughout the game.

SIDE NOTE: NBC color commentator Bob Trumpy had been vocally critical of the Ravens in the summer of 1996, going on record to say these quotes: “I despise the whole concept of the Baltimore Ravens…This team will be hated everywhere outside of Baltimore…Art Modell’s actions were criminal…I see nothing but gloom and doom for this franchise…I wish the Ravens high winds and muddy fields; I wish them empty roads to and from the ballpark; I wish them cold hot dogs. I wish them nothing but bad.” It just so happened that Tom Hammond and Bob Trumpy were the announcing team NBC chose for this game. In response, Baltimore sports radio personality Nestor Aparicio had thousands of “DUMP TRUMPY” signs printed up and distributed around the stadium on game day. “Nasty” Nestor’s publicity stunt worked; the signs were ubiquitous around Memorial Stadium, were very visible on TV, and forced Trumpy to sheepishly backtrack on his previous comments during the telecast as one of the signs made its way up to the press box.

(Credit to YouTube user “InCharge DIY” for hosting the entire broadcast of the game, complete with commercials, and recorded from Baltimore’s WBAL; also, credit to the Russell Street Report website for the Bob Trumpy quote)

Raiders at Ravens original recording September 1st, 1996 . This was the very first regular season game for the brand new Baltimore Ravens.The club was estab...

05/18/2022

I am very excited to see the news that ESPN is working on a 30-for-30 documentary on the 2000 Ravens team and that incredible defense they had. I absolutely cannot wait until I get to cover that season on this page...stay tuned, and we'll get there. 👍

05/16/2022

Some odds and ends from my personal Ravens memorabilia collection as we head into the 1996 season...

05/16/2022

The 1995 CFL South Division playoff final took place at Memorial Stadium less than a week after the now-infamous Art Modell press conference in the Camden Yards parking lot, where it was announced that Modell was bringing the Browns to Baltimore. Immediately after that announcement, a bunch of entrepreneurial types went hard to work on making a bunch of unofficial "Baltimore Browns" merchandise, and as we fans walked out of Memorial Stadium after the Stallions' victory, we encountered tables upon tables of these items for sale right outside the stadium gates.

(Credit to my father Dan Konstans for this picture; this hat is from his personal collection)

05/16/2022

Some items from my personal collection of Baltimore Stallions memorabilia...

05/09/2022

1996 NFL Preseason

Sat. Aug. 3 - Philadelphia Eagles 9 @ RAVENS 17
Sat. Aug. 10 - RAVENS 37 @ New York Giants 27
Sat. Aug. 17 - Green Bay Packers 17 @ RAVENS 15
Fri. Aug. 23 - RAVENS 37 @ Buffalo Bills 14

One notable incident during the preseason occurred during the August 10 game against the Giants, when TV cameras spotted Ravens center Steve Everitt taking off his helmet on the sideline to reveal a Cleveland Browns bandana he’d been wearing. Everitt went on record as saying the bandana was his form of silent protest against the Modell family for relocating the franchise from Cleveland; for this breach of uniform protocol he was fined $5000 by the NFL.

05/08/2022

April 20, 1996
1996 NFL Draft

After selecting Jonathan Ogden with the 4th pick in the first round, the Ravens also carried the 26th pick, the result of a trade the Browns had made with San Francisco the previous year. Bringing a thin corps of linebackers with them from Cleveland (1995 1st round pick LB Craig Powell was well on his way to “bust” status already), the team had a definite need at the position, despite ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr.’s claim that the 1996 class of linebackers was weak. The Ravens would select University of Miami middle linebacker Ray Lewis, who was considered a quality player, but undersized to play middle LB at the NFL level. None of the initial prognostications came to fruition, as it was this pick that gave the Ravens their face of the franchise, the leader of their defense for years, and the heart and soul of the whole club. Lewis played 17 seasons in the NFL, all with the Ravens, being selected to 13 Pro Bowls and 10 All-Pro teams, winning 2 NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards, was named MVP of Super Bowl ###V, and eventually was nominated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. The Ravens, in their first year in Maryland, had achieved the feat of finding two Hall of Famers in one round of the draft.

Other notable draft picks for the Ravens in ‘96 were 2nd round pick, Univ. of Tennessee cornerback DeRon Jenkins, and 5th rounder, Univ. of Maryland wide receiver Jermaine Lewis, both becoming multi-year contributors for the team.

(Credit to YouTube user “NFL Legends” for hosting this clip of ESPN’s broadcast of the 1996 draft)

We would appreciate your support by subscribing to our channel! This way we can keep uploading awesome content which is sometimes rare to find.The 1996 NFL D...

05/08/2022

April 20, 1996
1996 NFL Draft

They had a name…the Ravens. They had a coach…Ted Marchibroda, hired coming off of a 1995 season where he led the Indianapolis Colts on an improbable run to the AFC Championship Game (Bill Belichick, the Browns’ coach in ‘95, was fired after finishing 5-11, although he would later reach legendary status as the New England Patriots head coach in the 2000s). Now it was time for the organization’s first draft as a Baltimore team. Art Modell reportedly had wanted the Ravens to select Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips with the 4th overall pick, believing that a skill position player was needed to be the new face of the franchise and sell tickets in a new city. Fortunately, Executive VP of Player Personnel Ozzie Newsome overruled the owner, and selected UCLA offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden as the first draft pick in Ravens history. Phillips would only go on to play in parts of three NFL seasons amidst a series of off-field issues that derailed his career and his life. Ogden would play 12 seasons for the Ravens and become one of the greatest left tackles in the history of the NFL, an 11-time Pro Bowl selection, a 9-time first-team or second-team All-Pro, and the first Pro Football Hall of Famer to play his entire career as a Raven when he was inaugurated in 2013.

(Credit to YouTube user “NFL Legends” for hosting this clip of ESPN’s broadcast of the 1996 draft)

We would appreciate your support by subscribing to our channel! This way we can keep uploading awesome content which is sometimes rare to find.The 1996 NFL D...

05/07/2022

March 29, 1996
Baltimore Ravens select team name

After months of legal wrangling between the Browns and the city of Cleveland, the relocation of the franchise was eventually approved by the National Football League. Cleveland would be granted a new or relocated team by the start of the 1999 season, and the Browns name, color scheme, and team records would all be allowed to carry over to the new Cleveland club, effectively making Art Modell’s Baltimore franchise the equivalent of an expansion team for 1996. Virtually all Baltimore football fans saw this as positive; still seething over the loss of the Colts and their identity 12 years ago, and not having any emotional attachment to Jim Brown, Bernie Kosar and other Browns legends, Charm City relished the chance to start anew. So, on 3/29/1996, after two months of researching possible team names and putting the matter to a Baltimore Sun phone vote, Modell announced at the Inner Harbor that “Ravens” had won in a landslide over “Americans”, “Marauders”, and several other choices.

05/07/2022

LB O.J. Brigance…the only player in professional football history to win an NFL title and CFL title in the same city

05/07/2022

November 19, 1995
1995 CFL Grey Cup Final

Baltimore Stallions 37
Calgary Stampeders 20

While the soon-to-be “Baltimore Browns” were losing 31-20 to Green Bay to drop their record to 4-7 in a season that was quickly spiraling out of control, the existing team in town was in Regina, Saskatchewan finishing up a historic season with a victory over Calgary in the Grey Cup championship game. The Stallions’ win would prove to be their final game as a franchise; despite a glimmer of initial hope that the CFL and NFL teams could co-exist in Baltimore, all parties involved soon realized that was wishful thinking. Stallions owner Jim Speros would have no choice but to take his franchise to Montreal, Quebec and rebrand it as the revived Montreal Alouettes, while the CFL disbanded all four of the other American teams and rebranded itself as “Radically Canadian” for the 1996 season. Meanwhile in America, Cleveland city officials were frantically trying to prevent the Browns’ relocation through the legal system, ultimately to no avail.

(Credit to YouTube user belcherman for hosting this video of the Grey Cup final, as well as local news coverage from WBFF, WJZ and WMAR of the Stallions’ victory. Side note: those announcers for ESPN2 you may recognize…Gus Johnson and Mike Mayock have gone on to illustrious sports broadcasting careers with CBS, FOX, NFL Network, etc.)

With the Baltimore Colts gone and no NFL football team, Baltimore got a CFL football team named the Stallions in 1994. The team played only two years but won...