If you'll recall, late in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, there was a bit of a controversy when it came to the selections of the Baltimore Ravens and the Chicago Bears.
What it boils down to is that the Bears thought that the Kansas City Chiefs wanted Wisconsin offensive tackle Gabe Carimi, and as a result Chicago thought they had to get ahead of the Chiefs in order to make that selection. They worked out a deal with the Baltimore Ravens, in which the Ravens and Bears would switch first-round picks, and the Bears would send the Ravens an additional pick for that.
It turns out that the Bears failed to call the trade into the league office, and Baltimore's allotted time ran out. In the meantime, the Chiefs. . .who the Bears, remember, were trying to get ahead of. . .quietly walked their card up to the podium, at which point Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the selection. . .
. . .of Pittsburgh wide receiver Jon Baldwin.
Baltimore then ran to the podium to get their selection in, as they chose Colorado cornerback Jimmy Smith. The Bears wound up getting Carimi without having to move at all.
Apparently, this angered the Ravens a little bit, as they demanded that the Bears give them their fourth-round draft pick as compensation. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't help but think that this sounds familiar from somewhere. Let me see here. . .team has a trade in place with Baltimore. . .one team fails to call in trade. . .time on the draft clock runs out. . .other teams jump in with their selections. . .where have I seen that happen before?
Oh, yeah! I remember now! That's exactly what happened back in 2003 when the Vikings had the whole "running out of time" fiasco that resulted in the selection of Kevin Williams after not one, but two teams were able to jump the Vikings. The Vikings had a deal in place with the Ravens to move up down (sorry, had my picks confused) a few slots to get the player they wanted, but Ozzie Newsome and company just couldn't quite be bothered to call their part of the deal in to the league office.
If you'll recall, our compensation from the Ravens for their transgression fell somewhere between "jack" and "squat."
It turns out that the Ravens won't be getting any extra draft picks from Chicago, but I wouldn't have minded if they had. . .provided that they would have immediately passed the pick on to us. It would have been only fair, after all.