Clemson Football: The Perfect College Football Playoff Committee

Ozzie Newsome

One of the pearls of wisdom in sports is that sometimes great players make great coaches, but sometimes they don’t. Sometimes great players and coaches make great executives, but sometimes they don’t.

Vice versa, some of the greatest coaches weren’t as special as players, and some of the best executives didn’t excel as either a player or a coach.

Whether talent in one respect translates to another discipline in football often has to do with personality more than with intellect or ability. When you do find someone who can bridge more than one discipline, that’s someone who has not only a special ability but a ton of experience, knowledge, and perspective.

Ozzie Newsome is one of those people. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994. Both of those achievements happened before he won his first Super Bowl as an executive with the Baltimore Ravens in 2001. He won his second in 2013.

Not only is Newsome one of the first African Americans to serve as a general manager of an NFL Football team, but he has been one of the longest-serving as well. He has taken a step back from the general manager role but is still an executive with the Ravens.

Most of his experience is at the professional level, but you can't be a good general manager if you can't be a good scout and understand how to evaluate talent.

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