OWINGS MILLS http://www.broncoscheapauthenticstore.com/dre_mont-jones-jersey-cheap , Md. (AP) — In his new role as general manager of the Baltimore Ravens, Eric DeCosta has no intention of filling the shoes of his highly successful predecessor, Ozzie Newsome.“I have size 10½ feet and I think Ozzie is a 13, so there you go,” DeCosta said Wednesday, standing alone in front of a gathering of the media and team employees at his first news conference since taking the job on Jan. 11.Newsome, who held the post since the franchise moved from Cleveland in 1996, will stay on as an adviser. The first African-American GM in NFL history, Newsome drafted wisely and shrewdly combed the free agent market to build the Ravens into a perennial contender and two-time Super Bowl champions.DeCosta was there for all of it. As an intern, DeCosta’s duties included taking then-coach Ted Marchibroda’s car for oil changes. The coach gave him $100 and told him to keep the change, so DeCosta found a place that charged $9.99.“Sometimes people would think that maybe I’d be embarrassed that I started off as an intern now that I’m a GM, that I want to forget that,” DeCosta said. “To be honest with you, I cherish the fact that I could start out as a young person and really do a lot of different things.”DeCosta moved up the corporate ladder to become assistant general manager in 2012. He began to attract the interest of other clubs, so owner Steve Bisciotti promised him a promotion after the 2018 season. Now that the job he long coveted is his, the 47-year-old DeCosta is already hard at work trying to improve a team that won the AFC North before being eliminated with a first-round playoff loss.He has overseen personnel meetings, huddled with top team officials in Florida, attended a couple college all-star games and given plenty of thought to the draft.“There are times I look at the challenges and they are daunting. But I’ve been blessed that I’ve had a lot of time to think and prepare for this,” he said. “Had I had gone to another team, with all new faces http://www.eaglescheapauthenticstore.com/shareef-miller-jersey-cheap , new organization, new people, that would be a little more challenging.”This job has plenty of obstacles to clear, most notably a tight salary cap and some important pending personnel decisions. Pro Bowl linebacker C.J. Mosley is a pending free agent, the status of safety Eric Weddle and guard Marshal Yanda for 2019 is uncertain and quarterback Joe Flacco is almost certainly heading elsewhere.“If there’s one team interested, yeah, we’ll probably trade him,” DeCosta said of Flacco. “If there’s nobody interested, we’ll have to make another decision.”Having Newsome on his side will make those kinds of choices a whole lot easier.“I am extremely happy that Ozzie is going to play such a significant role moving forward for this organization,” DeCosta said. “It just gives me immense joy that I can still mess around with him like I do.”Having learned so much from Newsome, DeCosta has no intention of straying from the lessons provided by his mentor.“We’ve done a lot of really good things in the past, and we would be foolish to change things overnight,” he said.DeCosta revealed that Bisciotti actually broached the subject of his ascension to general manager in 2007. Eleven years later, it finally happened. Along the way, DeCosta spurned several opportunities to land a GM job in another city.“Did I have chances? Yeah. Did I have a lot? Yeah. Did I ever really consider it? Not really,” DeCosta said. “Every time I’d go to bed, thinking that maybe I would consider something, I’d wake up and say, ‘What are you crazy? You know you’re going to have the job someday that you’ve dreamed about, so just wait and make it perfect.'” INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indianapolis Colts coach Frank Reich leaves nothing to chance.He and his staff spend hours meticulously poring through game tapes Zach Brown Jersey , crunching numbers and plotting strategy each week. There’s a meeting every Friday with the team’s two analytics experts where everything from over-under projections to weather conditions come into play.Together, they try to plot out every conceivable game situation in hopes of simplifying the split-second decisions Reich makes each weekend.“They factor what’s the expected point total of the game, what’s the output of the other offense,” Reich said, explaining some variables used to create the charts. “It’s like there is a sliding scale and those things are adjusted. Really, they are quite sophisticated, quite complex and run off of literally millions of iterations.”Reich isn’t the only NFL coach to use analytics, but he might rely more heavily on the projections than other coaches — regardless of the results.Three times last weekend the Colts (6-6) found themselves facing fourth downs in field-goal position with Adam Vinatieri, the league’s career scoring leader, ready to kick. Three times, the charts indicated Reich should go for it. And all three times, Indy came up short.The resulting 6-0 loss at Jacksonville ended the Colts’ five-game winning streak, complicated their path to the playoffs, and dealt Andrew Luck his first shutout as a pro.Reich had been here before, though.On Sept. 30, he also opted to go for the win in overtime against Houston. A failed fourth-down attempt allowed the Texans (9-3) to kick the winning field goal as time expired — giving them their first victory in a nine-game winning streak they’ll put on the line in Sunday’s rematch.Houston can clinch the AFC South title with a win and a Tennessee loss.Indy (6-6), meanwhile, lost two more games before rebounding with a five-game winning streak that put it back in the playoff mix and had some outsiders openly questioning whether the Colts would have been better off playing it by the book and going for the tie in the first Houston game.But inside the locker room, there is no debate.“It told us he believes in his team, he was not going to allow us to lay down Devin Bush Jersey , and we would fight till the end,” rookie linebacker Darius Leonard said. “Yeah, we lost the game. But when he said we’re going for it, everybody on that bench was behind him.”Players embrace Reich’s aggressive philosophy in large part because they understand the rationale for his decisions, and they know the former NFL quarterback does his homework.He asks the analytics specialists not just to contemplate the Colts’ potential game-day situations but also to break down tape of every other NFL game and plot how the Colts would handle those decisions. Then Reich and Luck discuss the charts to assure everyone works from the same playbook.As a self-described nerd who runs his own book club, Luck understands what Reich’s philosophy is all about.“You play this game to win and he’s going to coach the game to win,” Luck said. “I think as players we obviously didn’t execute that one (against Houston), but I think that gave us a glimpse into how he coaches and his approach. We appreciate that. We want to go out there and win the game and he gives us a chance to do that.”Not everyone adheres to the charts quite like Reich.“I think you have to have a great feel for what’s going on in the game. How is that game going? How did the opponent decide to play you? Are they playing you in this type of defense or that type of defense or are they trying to attack your defense with these certain plays?” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said. “I think charts are great and they help you prepare, but at the end of the day, how is that particular game being played on game day is what’s most important.”Reich understands, even acknowledges, that sometimes coaches need to play a hunch or rely on their gut instinct. He’s done it, too.Even so, Reich believes there is power in numbers.“This is preparation, thought and detail that go into it. It’s not robotic” Reich said, citing his decision to punt on fourth-and-1 Sunday when the chart said to go for it. “What the analytics tell us is that historical coaching philosophy has been a little bit conservative and that there are reasons to consider being more aggressive. Then you have to have the maturity and wisdom to interpret the chart the way that you think is best for your team. That’s the art of it.”