With the 20th anniversary of the Baltimore Ravens’ first Super Bowl win — Super Bowl XXXV — happening last week, former Ravens quarterback Trent Dilfer reflected back on Baltimore’s abrupt turn in the offseason.
Following the Super Bowl XXXV victory, Dilfer was set to hit free agency. Surely Baltimore would want to re-sign their Super Bowl-winning quarterback? Unfortunately for Dilfer, no. The Ravens had Dilfer as their third option, according to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley, and eventually signed Elvis Grbac to a five-year $30 million contract.
“You know, I’ve been through a lot in my life and I try not to be bitter about anything,” Dilfer said, according to ESPN’s Jamison Hensley. “I’d say that’s one I’m still harboring a little bit of bitterness because of the why. It was so poorly evaluated on their behalf. They knew I was hurt.”
Now the head coach of a high school in Nashville, TN, Dilfer agreed that he hadn’t played well but said the Ravens knew it was because he was hurt.
“There’s legendary stories of how bad I was in practice, and they’re all true,” Dilfer said. “I had some of the worst practices in the history of football for a quarterback. If my high school quarterback practiced like I did sometimes that year, I wouldn’t play him. But I was hurt. There was a reason for it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying. I didn’t suck. I sucked physically.”
Regardless of whether Baltimore’s decision to let Dilfer leave was unwise, their decision to sign Grbac turned out to be a bust. Grbac was dreadful in 2001, throwing just 15 touchdown passes to 18 interceptions and finishing with a 71.1 passer rating on the season. After refusing to rework his contract and being cut Grbac retired from the NFL with offers on the table from other teams, according to the Associated Press.
Dilfer’s bitterness seemingly extends beyond the team as well for what he says was Grbac not having enough mental or physical toughness.
“I’ll take a shot at Elvis because it doesn’t bother me at all,” Dilfer said. “The core value of that team was toughness. And Brian didn’t realize that. It wasn’t their coaching. It wasn’t their talent evaluation. It wasn’t all the things that they think it was. The core value of that team was mental and physical toughness, and that’s who I am and that’s the opposite of who Elvis is. They set their identity back light years by getting it wrong.”
Baltimore would make the playoffs in just two of the next six seasons before owner Steve Bisciotti fired coach Brian Billick, hiring John Harbaugh to replace him. Dilfer signed as a backup with the Seattle Seahawks, starting just 12 games over four years before fizzling out with one-year stints with the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers.
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