So the end has officially come for Jonathan Ogden. WNST was reporting it early this morning and it has been confirmed by everyone including the Ravens that Ogden will officially end his career tomorrow at 11:30.

When I was leaving the Ravens complex this evening, Ogden had just arrived and was headed upstairs to speak with Ozzie Newsome. It appears that Edwin Mulitalo is flying into Baltimore to be here for Ogden tomorrow and there are possibly other former players that will be in attendance.

 

I only had the pleasure of covering J.O. for the last couple of years. He was one of the more interesting guys in that locker room. He was the guy who was not the biggest fan of having to deal with the media, but would give you what you were looking for and the sooner he could say it and be done with it the better.

You would be hard to find anyone in the building at 1 Winning Drive or anyone who ever played with Ogden to say a bad word about him. Everyone speaks very highly of him and have the utmost respect for him not only for what he did for the Ravens, but how he will go down in the history books as one of the greatest to ever play the position.

 

I wrote earlier that one of the final images I will remember of Ogden is of him on the sidelines holding his son in his arms and watching the final moments of his career tick off the clock.

Let’s be honest, Ogden had a lot of great moments on the field, but a lot of people will remember his Gebco commercials.

There are a lot of battles that he had with guys like Michael Strahan, Shawne Merriman, and many, many others. The way he used to laugh at guys like Joey Porter when all they did was talk trash the whole game. Ogden would just smile and laugh at him.

I consider myself fortunate to have seem him interact with his teammates and watch him walk to his locker and grab a book or two and want to go somewhere where he could go and read his books and be alone.

Listening to how guys like Mike Flynn and Orlando Brown talk about how tight Ogden was with his money and how he would take them out to eat and then tell them he need money from each one of them to help pay for the bill was classic.

All the times he would come out and do a show every season with Nestor on a Monday night and the times getting to sit and just talk with him about a Cover 2 defense or how he liked Lionel Richie’s music were fun.

It was a lot of fun getting a chance to sit and talk with him this past Super Bowl in Arizona as well. The videos are in wnsTV's vault under Super Bowl.

 

Although the NFL is not that big on retiring player’s numbers any more, I don’t think we will ever see anyone else wear the number 75 in Baltimore. I am sure that at some point this year he will be inducted into the Ravens Ring of Honor. It was a joy to cover Ogden the last couple of years and will look forward to seeing him head to Canton in five years.

 

I'm innterested to hear what your favorite memories of Jonathan Ogden memories are...

Post them and I'll get them up here...