Bart Scott said if the Ravens had come closer to the contract he signed with the Jets, he would have stayed in Baltimore, but he did not pit his old team against his new one to get more money.
“I want to first clear all these things up. I wasn’t causing a bidding war,”
Scott said today during his introductory conference call.
“(Throughout the process) I was getting calls from my wife. She was stressed out saying that she’s packing, she’s unpacking. What’s going on? I let her know it’s a done deal and everything was fine.”
Today’s media call, which took the place of a full press conference cancelled by the snow, came after a report in which Scott told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King that Baltimore was his first choice.
“I owe a lot of loyalty to the Ravens. They’re the ones who gave me my chance seven years ago,” Scott said. “And I was going to have to uproot my family, and we love Baltimore. If it was close, the home team would win.”
It almost did.
Scott signed a six-year, $48 million contract with the Jets on Friday evening after reportedly agreeing to a five-year, $40 million deal earlier in the day. Scott and agent Harold Lewis got the Ravens to increase their offer to five years, $42 million, but the Jets added a sixth year and extra cash to convince the 28-year-old linebacker to reunite with Jets coach Rex Ryan.
“It’s an urban legend you know,” Scott said of his negotiations. “There wasn’t anything going on so you have to build something of it. I guess it builds for suspense for all the watchers out there.”
NJ.com reported that “The additional year that Scott received, however, is said to be full of incentives and escalators and it’s money Scott might not ever see. It’s also an option year.”
Scott will get $22 million guaranteed to be the new leader of the Jets defense.
“One of the biggest problems people have when they have to make that decision in switching teams is the trust factor with the coaches and the people that he has to work with,” Scott said. “There was no trust issues or problems with anybody that I had to work with at all because I already knew them and I already knew how much responsibility that they were asking me and how much they were responsible for my career to begin with.”
Scott signed with the Ravens in 2002 as an undrafted free agent from Southern Illinois. But he also told SI.com he had another reason to leave
Baltimore: He wanted to get out of Ray Lewis’ shadow.
“It would have been great to walk back into that locker room, but in a way, I would have had training wheels on the rest of my career,” Scott told King.
“I’d always wonder if I could have done it by myself, if I could have actually been the leader of a good defense. In a lot of ways, our defense was like the Bulls, and Ray was Michael Jordan. We had a lot of Craig Hodgeses on our team, but we had a few Scottie Pippens, too.”
The Jets have been talking to two of those “Craig Hodgeses,” with Ravens defensive backs Corey Ivy and Jim Leonhard coming in for visits but leaving unsigned.
Scott said today, “I am actively trying to get those guys.”
“Trust me, when Rex left, a lot of guys wanted to come with him. He has that type of personality,” Scott said. “We played last year to get Rex a head coaching job. That is what one of the goals was over on the defensive side.
Let’s play so good that they have no choice, but to recognize our defense, but then recognize the man that’s pulling the trigger.”