Baltimore?s most successful professional football coach will be drawing up X?s and O?s through the next decade.
The Ravens announced Wednesday that the contract extension they signed head coach Brian Billick to last month was for four years, starting next season.
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Originally, the team declined to release contract details of the new deal for Billick when it said Jan. 17 that it had extended his current deal. A few weeks later, a published report in The Sun said Billick was extended for one year. Billick, who is entering his ninth season with the team, challenged the story?s details in a radio interview saying he was locked up in a multi-year agreement.
On the team?s Web site Wednesday, an article written by a team employee said Ravens president Dick Cass wrote a Feb. 12 e-mail to team employees that read: “You may have seen or heard media stories that the Ravens have extended Brian Billick?s contract for only one year. Those stories are incorrect. We have entered into a new, four-year contract with Brian that begins with the 2007 season.”
Ravens president Dick Cass could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The team?s secrecy about Billick?s contract first came about at the end of the season when Billick told the media that he did not want to discuss specifics of his contract. When he joined owner Steve Bisciotti and general manager Ozzie Newsome for a news conference Jan. 30, Bisciotti said it was team practice to not publicly discuss contracts.
“[It is] just a tradition here at the Ravens,” Bisciotti said. “They just didn?t think that it was a subject of concern. So I?m just picking up where [former owner] Art [Modell] left off. These guys had those rules when I came in; I?m just playing by the rules. We are comfortable going forward. I told you a few years ago I wanted Brian to be my coach for the next 15 years, and we put a good chunk of that on the table, and I think he?s capable of being that coach.”
Billick is the team?s second coach in the 11 years the Ravens have been in Baltimore. At the start of the 2007 season, he will have the third longest tenure among current NFL coaches. He has a 75-53 record with the team and guided it to a win in Super Bowl XXXV.
Thomas to be tagged? The Ravens now face another big decision. The odds of linebacker Adalius Thomas remaining with the team will lessen if it does not apply the franchise player tag on Thomas for the 2007 season by 4 p.m. today.
It is believed that the team will not apply the tag, which would give Thomas $7.2 million next season, in line with what the top five linebackers are paid in the NFL. The Pro Bowler and All-Pro selection will be a free agent starting March 2 and is expected to fetch a lucrative contract.
