The Browns are on the clock with the 12th pick in the draft, and Bill Rees is on the phone. The team's player personnel director has nose tackle Haloti Ngata on the line, and he won't let him go. He is trying to make small talk, and Ngata is responding with one- and two-word answers. It is an excruciating 15 minutes, but Rees needs to maintain the impression Ngata is their man.
Flashback: It is February 23, nine weeks before the draft. Browns general manager Phil Savage is being interviewed by the NFL Network at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. He is asked about Ngata. Savage says he would take him if he were available at No. 12. Savage believes it, and apparently he is not the only one.
Sitting across from Rees, Browns coach Romeo Crennel is working another phone line, talking with another draft prospect who could help in the reshaping of the Browns' front seven. This conversation is less stunted, more natural. There is give and take.
Flashback: It is March 12, seven weeks before the draft. Savage has been negotiating with Kennard McGuire, the agent for Detroit free-agent pass rusher Kalimba Edwards. The Browns finished last in the league in sacks in 2005, and they are desperate for a pass rush. When they say goodbye at 3:30 a.m., Savage and McGuire are under the impression Edwards will sign with the Browns. But the deal goes sour later in the day when Edwards decides he wants to stay with the Lions. Savage walks into his office and ponders how to replace what he almost had.
With about 3 minutes left before the Browns have to pick, Savage picks up a third phone and calls Ravens G.M. Ozzie Newsome, with whom he worked for 14 years, mostly in Baltimore. Savage is offering to swap picks with Newsome and move down one spot in exchange for a fourth-round pick. Newsome, who wants Ngata, stalls. Ravens director of college scouting Eric DeCosta is in Newsome's ear, telling him not to give up the pick because he believes the Browns won't take Ngata.
Flashback: It is April 10, three weeks before the draft. The Browns' scouts and coaches are discussing linebackers in their draft room. Crennel often doesn't offer an opinion unless he is asked. But when he opens his mouth, it gets quiet enough to hear a magnet slide. After a long debate, Savage asks for Crennel's opinion about the three players the Browns are targeting. "I think we'll look better with Kamerion Wimbley as opposed to Ngata or (Brodrick) Bunkley because that's what we need: pass rush."
The clock is ticking down on the Browns. Scouting assistant Bobby Vega, representing the team at the draft headquarters in New York, writes "Haloti Ngata, DT, Oregon" on the card to be turned in to league officials. A Ravens representative sitting nearby sees what Vega has written and reports back to Newsome. What he doesn't see is the Browns' other rep in New York, salary cap assistant Ryan Seelbach, who had "Kamerion Wimbley, OLB, Florida State" written on a second card. In his pocket.
(DAAAAAAAAAAAMNNNN. Tricked those Rats)
Newsome offers Savage a sixth-round pick, and Savage accepts. The Ravens get their man, Ngata. The Browns get Wimbley, who was on the phone with Crennel. Later, Cleveland uses the sixth-round pick from Baltimore for another front seven piece, nose tackle Babatunde Oshinowo of Stanford.
Savage wasn't trying to fleece Newsome so much as he was trying to get value for a spot in the draft that a number of teams had expressed interest in acquiring. "The consensus across the league is Ngata was rated higher than Kamerion, so I wanted to have something to show for it," says Savage, who, shortly after the deal, set up a summer golf date with Newsome at Kiva Dunes in Gulf Shores, Ala..
Savage straight up shook Ozzie :chuckles: