Ted Marchibroda was fired Dec. 28, 1998. Billick wasn't hired until Jan. 19, 1999. In between, team officials made a push for George Seifert, salivated over Mike Holmgren and gave thought to Marty Schottenheimer. Nothing panned out there, so they conducted interviews with Emmitt Thomas, Jim Haslett and Chris Palmer - all coordinators at the time - while they waited for the Vikings' postseason run to end.
Minnesota fell out of the playoffs on a Sunday, Billick was in Baltimore on Monday and accepted the job Tuesday. But the process was hardly a two-day whirlwind. Before team officials spoke with Billick, they conducted more than two dozen background interviews. By the time they finally met face-to-face with Billick, they were mostly seeking confirmation of all the rave reviews they had been hearing.
Even though the Ravens have a different owner and largely a different group heading the search this time around, expect the same meticulous and thorough approach.
There's really very little that should force the Ravens into a hasty decision. When they nabbed Billick in 1999, there were seven other teams conducting head coaching searches. This time, the Ravens are competing only against the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins. Both are less attractive jobs, and that could prove to be a luxury for the Ravens.
The landscape is different today, and the new media culture has spoiled us. Because we have access to news at all hours of the day, we too often expect news to exist at all hours of the day.
For fans, a single week of a coaching search can feel like a year, and repeatedly clicking "refresh" on your favorite sports news site is a quick path to carpal tunnel syndrome, not a new head coach. When you're measuring progress every five minutes, reports of a potential candidate bowing out of a search or another team taking aim at the same target feel much worse than they ought to.
With a long list of bad hires, history might suggest that hiring an NFL coach is akin to a coin flip, but the process is anything but. Finding the right coach takes time, and with an aging cast of stars, the Ravens' hopes of success in the near future hinge on team officials making the perfect choice - not the quickest.
rick.maese@baltsun.com
Ravens Inside
Of the three NFL head coaching positions available, the Ravens' appears to be the most attractive because of quality facilities, rabid fans, a wealthy owner hungry to win, a general manager who has a history of drafting well, a talented group of veterans and other factors. PG 12D
