Miami sports talk radio host and original Raven Leroy Hoard recently described the rags-to-riches transformation of the Ravens franchise from 1996 to now.
Hoard was a running back who spent the first five years of his career in Cleveland. His best year with the Browns came in 1994, when he ran for 890 yards. He moved with the team to Baltimore but only played in two games with the Ravens before he was cut. He spent the last few years of his career in Minnesota.
Hoard recalled that as the newly formed Ravens were first settling into Baltimore, the fans gave him and his teammates a warm welcome, but what confused him and the guys a fair bit was why all the Baltimore fans would say congratulations to them.
“They were real nice to us when we came in — all the local establishments, everybody,” Hoard said on Glenn Clark Radio Oct. 29. “But when we got to Baltimore, a lot of fans would walk up to us and say congratulations. And we were like, ‘For what?’ … The Baltimore Stallions won the Grey Cup [in 1995], and they were congratulating us for winning the Grey Cup — because they introduced us as the new Baltimore football team. We didn’t have a name yet.”
The ’96 Ravens would not reach the same championship mark in their initial year as a franchise, going 4-12 and finishing last in the old AFC Central. But that season was a stepping stone for future champions like Ray Lewis and Jonathan Ogden. The Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV four years later.
But it makes sense that it took the Ravens a little while to get things going. Hoard described how hard it was to pack up and move out of Cleveland, let alone establishing a franchise that didn’t have a proper facility, a uniform or even a name early on. Hoard said his whole life was in Cleveland.
“If your boss told you right now … ‘Your next check is going to be in Baltimore,’ guess where you’re going?” Hoard said.
It wasn’t hard for Hoard to tell what the franchise was capable of long term, though. Drafting Lewis and Ogden in the same draft brought star power. The team just needed the right veterans and time to develop. Hoard said the Ravens always knew they were capable of going the distance, especially since the Browns made the playoffs in 1994.
“We always thought that we were going to be good … but it was really hard moving like that,” he said.
Hoard shouted out his former teammate Ozzie Newsome, who went on to be the Ravens’ top football executive. Hoard noted that even though he and a lot of his teammates were shipped out of town by Newsome, there is nothing but love and respect for Newsome even after all this time.
“The way he did things, the way he handled himself, the way he made picks, the way he made decisions, it was always kind of in the background. He wasn’t the guy out there talking all the time,” Hoard said. “If there’s a guy who did more by saying less, it was Ozzie.”
For more from Hoard, listen to the full interview here:
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