Leadership Is Overrated

With the departure of Ray Lewis and Ed Reed there has been a flood of posts relating to the matter of whether or not the Baltimore Ravens will have the ability to succeed without their leadership. Honestly, my feelings on this issue are that it has been overly publicized and people are making a much bigger deal of it than it is actually worth.

Now I'm not here to downplay the leadership of Ray Lewis, because what he meant to this franchise in terms of ability in personality is simply unquantifiable, but the truth of the matter is that as long as all men on the field are doing what they are paid millions of dollars to do in the first place we won't need to have a "rah-rah" type of player in order to win games. Sure it's nice to have guys rally on the words of a guy like Ray Lewis, but just because we no longer have a guy dancing out of the tunnel and giving fiery speeches to his teammates doesn't mean the Ravens are suddenly inept at football.

People in the NFL are paid millions of dollars a year because they are good (nine time out of ten, anyways) at what they do. If everyone just steps up and performs like we all know they can, then the Baltimore Ravens will be just fine.

Leadership is like desert; sure it's nice to enjoy if you have it, but when it comes down to it you will be just as full after dinner with it as you would be without it, it's a luxury. On that note however, I still think the Baltimore Ravens should retire #52.