By Joe Platania, PressBox Staff 

For years, Ravens running backs have taken handoffs and disappeared into piles of humanity. Sometimes they came out, sometimes they didn't. The point is, you knew where they were going and it was up to the defense to stop it.

The Ravens feel that predictable scenario is going to change with the acquisition of former Buffalo Bills tailback Willis McGahee, who was introduced late last week at the team's Owings Mills practice facility.

"I'm happy to be here," the soft-spoken, 6-foot, 228-pound five-year veteran said. "I can run, block, either one, whatever they want me to do."

Early last season, the Ravens experimented with a one-back set, but quickly abandoned that as fullback Ovie Mughelli's talents developed. Jamal Lewis -- the franchise's all-time leading rusher who signed with Cleveland last week -- went on to post his fifth 1,000-yard season in seven years.

This year, Mughelli will be replaced at fullback by Justin Green, who is recovering from offseason knee surgery. 

However, one-back looks -- not to mention draws, screens and sweeps that were often absent during the Lewis era -- might be more frequent, considering McGahee's versatility. 

But the newest Raven does not want to compare himself to Lewis.

"It's going to be hard," McGahee said. "[Lewis] did a lot of things for this organization. I watched him run and I'm a big fan of his. It's a privilege just to be running here, period. They had faith in me to bring me here. 

"I'm going to try my hardest to fill his shoes, but I run differently than Jamal. I can just try to do my game."

"[McGahee's] multiplicity is something we feel we can tap into," coach Brian Billick said. "He has the size and physicality to be [in a two-back system] as a downhill runner, with an explosive [style]."

General manager Ozzie Newsome agreed. 

"He's a complement to the three receivers we have now (Demetrius Williams, Mark Clayton, Derrick Mason)," Newsome said. "With our tight ends, our quarterback and the changes coming on the offensive line, he'll be a complement to all that."

For his career, McGahee has rushed for 3,365 yards and 24 touchdowns and has also caught 68 passes for 503 yards.

"What's jumped out at me was that he's a legitimate single-back runner," Billick said. "He's also a legitimate two-back with a fullback in front of him. We're confident he can fill either role."

The Bills exhibited a lot of confidence in McGahee when -- with Travis Henry already on their roster -- they drafted him in the first round with the 23rd overall pick in 2003. That was a mere three months after he suffered a gruesome multi-ligament knee injury in Miami's Fiesta Bowl overtime loss to Ohio State.

"My knee is stronger and it's better than ever," McGahee said. "I didn't really feel comfortable with it until last year."

The 25-year-old McGahee is similar to Lewis in that he came back from a major knee injury, but Lewis had also torn ligaments in his right knee in college before missing the 2001 season with left knee trouble suffered in training camp. Lewis is also two years older at a position where the average career lasts roughly four years.

McGahee's contract is for six years at an estimated $40 million dollars. The $7.5 million signing bonus he will get this year, combined with the five-year veteran minimum of $595,000, gives him a 2007 salary cap number of just over $8 million.

Despite their initial infatuation with McGahee, the Bills eventually grew weary of him after three paternity suits and an ill-timed remark on a radio show. McGahee insists he is not being made to pay child support in any of the cases, and his radio gaffe -- in which he was quoted as saying the Bills should move to Toronto -- was, he says, taken out of context.

"They asked me what I thought about the team being moved to Toronto," McGahee recalled. "I said, 'Toronto is a nice place, I wouldn't mind playing there.' It came out in a story a couple months later that 'McGahee wants to leave.' " 

But on Tuesday, Feb. 27, as Newsome prepared to leave Indianapolis -- where he had been evaluating draft-eligible players at the annual Scouting Combine -- he ran into Buffalo general manager and former coach Marv Levy at the airport and broached the idea of a trade for McGahee, who had already been on the Ravens' radar.

"We found [Levy] was amenable [to a trade]," Newsome said.

After roughly a week of negotiations with McGahee and agent Drew Rosenhaus, the Ravens dealt this year's third- and seventh-round draft picks and next year's third-round selection to the Bills for McGahee. 

The transaction -- coupled with the 2006 deal that sent this year's fourth-round pick to Tennessee for quarterback Steve McNair -- leaves Baltimore without a third-, fourth- or seventh-round pick in this year's draft. Newsome, seemingly not bound to draft a player at any one position, still feels comfortable "taking the best player" with the team's 29th overall selection in the first round.

Besides, the Ravens could very well get back those fourth- and seventh-round selections, as well as obtain additional picks in later rounds, when compensatory draft selections are assigned later this month. 

Also, the lack of cap room the Ravens have this year could come back to help them next year. 

Even though the team has been unable to sign any free agents from other teams due to their lack of cap room, they could obtain several compensatory selections in the 2008 draft as well.

No matter who the Ravens draft, it wouldn't be a surprise if it is a player from the University of Miami. That high-profile program has supplied the Ravens with plenty of standout players over the years, such as Ray Lewis, Duane Starks, Ed Reed, Kipp Vickers and others.

"You take it to another level when you have that 'U' on your helmet," said McGahee, a college teammate of Reed's. "Ed Reed is my boy, we go way back to college. We were always doing things together, hanging out, just kickin' it."

"We've had good luck with guys from 'The U,'" Billick said.

McGahee has been criticized in the past for not staying with his team and working out in Miami instead. However, he will reportedly be in Baltimore and remain here for the start of the team's offseason workout program later this month.

McGahee did exhibit the brashness associated with a lot of big-name Miami stars, again proclaiming himself the best back in the league, just as he has done in the past.

"That's how I think," McGahee said. "I'm not going to sit here and say I'm second to last in the NFL. If I think I'm the best and that's my mentality, that's how I'm going to approach things. 

"That's just my opinion."

However, one predictable part of any former Hurricane's personality has already been debunked: McGahee will not approach cornerback Chris McAlister about wearing his familiar No. 21. "I'll have to find a new number," McGahee said.

That's the kind of flexibility the Ravens will surely like.  

Issue 2.11: March 15, 2007