What if the business model of the Ravens is wrong?

I know the Major League Baseball lockout is drawing all the attention in the sports world these days, but I can’t stop thinking about football and last month’s Super Bowl. The Rams’ victory over Cincinnati did more than finally deliver the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Los Angeles; it may have upended long-standing beliefs of how to construct a championship team in the NFL.

For years if not decades, the plan to build a Super Bowl-contending team was to draft wisely and build a team cheaply around these picks before your “Super Bowl window” closes. That happens when this young talent mature and become free agents. Under the NFL salary cap, teams cannot hoard too many free agent signings. This formula leads to parity, and a ton of 8-9 teams like the Baltimore Ravens.

In fact, the Ravens are following this formula now. With nine picks among the first 90 selections in April’s NFL draft, Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta is clearly stockpiling for the future.

But as some of Baltimore’s recent top draft picks have inevitably flamed out, this process clearly is nothing but a crapshoot. Injuries occur, draft picks are overrated, sleepers are missed. Things happen.

What if that future happens to be now?

The Rams proved it. In the process, they rediscovered that the time to win is right here and right now. In the past year, the Rams traded draft picks for 34-year-old quarterback Matthew Stafford from Detroit, 29-year-old wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. from Cleveland and 32-year-old and linebacker Von Miller from Denver. They even added 37-year-old Eric Weddle, an ex-Ravens safety who was out of football before signing with the Rams shortly after Thanksgiving. Weddle started and finished with five total tackles, including four solo tackles in the Super Bowl. Then he retired. Again.

Some of these players were around the same age as their 36-year-old coach Sean McVay. As Sun columnist Mike Preston correctly pointed out, Mr. McVay’s job of melding all this aging talent wasn’t an easy one — but he succeeded.

That is a problem for another day. The issue is gathering enough talent, in this case veteran talent, to compete in the playoffs. It’s not for every team. But for those who look solid around Thanksgiving, why not go all in to win it that season.

In fact, this restocking of rosters late in the year reminds one of the way baseball teams do it just before the Major League Baseball trading deadline of Aug. 1. If an MLB team gets off to a fast start and is in contention in late July, they become “buyers” in an attempt to secure a “two-month rental” to catch lightning in a bottle and capture a championship. Everyone else is a “seller.” It’s worked in baseball.

Could this now become the new normal in the NFL? Why not? If a team is, say, 7-3 or 8-2 after 10 games, why not go all-in on this year? Forget stockpiling draft picks. As the late Al Davis was fond of saying, “Just win, baby.”

Maybe after that 8-3 start, GM De Costa and the Ravens brain trust could have gone all in for this year. Add a few veterans and see what happens. No matter what, it could not have finished any worse for the Ravens. After that 8-3 beginning, the team lost its final six games. No playoffs, no Super Bowl, no parade.

So while the Ravens’ brass is mulling over the draft statistics of that awesome-looking defensive tackle while beating the bushes to find that sleeper out of Northwest Southeastern Valley State, Rams fans are frolicking in the limelight of a Super Bowl victory parade.

But we still have those draft picks! The problem is, so does nearly everyone else. Except the Rams, who have no first-round pick until 2024. They will have gone seven years without a top pick. But so what? They won the Super Bowl.