I am a huge Baltimore Ravens fan. I was saddened and shocked to hear the news that on Dec. 31 that coach Brian Billick was fired and I was thrilled when we hired coach John Harbaugh a few weeks later. During that process no one knows what goes through an organizations thinking process, all we have is speculation on what is going on.

Kevin Byrne has been in the NFL for over 35 years with the Cleveland/Baltimore franchise and was part of the process of firing the old coach and hiring a new coach. He writes a blog on the Baltimore Ravens web site cleverly called The Byrne Identity . In his latest blog post he takes us through the entire process of finding a new coach all the way from the firing of the old coach. If you are a fan of the Ravens or just a football fan this is a great read.

Here is an exert,

Brian was fired on New Year’s Eve. That day, Steve, Dick and Ozzie met with the media announcing the dismissal. Steve announced that Ozzie would head the search for the new head coach. Joining Ozzie on this hiring committee were Steve and Dick, of course, along with George Kokinis and Vince Newsome, our pro personnel director and assistant director of pro personnel, Eric DeCosta, the Ravens’ director of college scouting, Pat Moriarty, our VP of Football Administration, and me.

Both Ozzie and I have made presentations at NFL meetings about the process we used to hire Coach Billick. It is such a thorough exercise that the league recommended using it, especially to make sure minority candidates are getting a fair opportunity for these jobs. The day we started the process, I was walking to Ozzie’s office, which is next to mine, with the notes from the seminars we presented when he was coming to my office to give me a copy of the same thing. We laughed and noted that it had been a long time since we’ve had to do something like this for our team. Oz shared copies with the rest of the selection group.

Rest Here