CBSSports.com Ranks Ravens' Front Office As Best In NFL; Newsome, Bisciotti Cited As Keys

CBSSPORTS.com's Jason La Canfora ranked the top 11 front offices in the NFL, and he chose the Ravens as No. 1 because they have a "legend pulling the strings" in GM Ozzie Newsome, and someone who "immediately grasped the delicate line he walks as decision maker and delegator" in team Owner Steve Bisciotti. Bisciotti "knows when and where to stick his nose in, with the signing of Joe Flacco to a record deal the latest example." Newsome's "eventual successor," Assistant GM Eric DeCosta, is "already in the building and the future should be bright for quite some time." That continuity is "huge when you are trying to evaluate organizations and their ability to maintain." La Canfora based his rankings on a "wide range of how the team has drafted and signed players, if they know when to cut the cord and when to stop overpaying their own veterans." La Canfora: "Have they been able to win with different people at the helm and have they avoided any lengthy stays at the bottom?" La Canfora wrote he is "weighing things as well on the degree of success over the past 36 months, which is why a team that just might understand this whole management and ownership thing better than any other, the Pittsburgh Steelers, comes in a little lower than perhaps they deserve to be." The chart below lists La Canfora's rankings (CBSSPORTS.com, 5/14).