BALTIMORE _ Former Ravens coach Brian Billick, who led the team to its first Super Bowl championship at the end of the 2000 season, and star defensive tackle Haloti Ngata will be inducted into the team's Ring of Honor, owner Steve Bisciotti announced Wednesday afternoon.
Billick and Ngata are the 19th and 20th individuals honored as noteworthy contributors to the franchise. Safety Ed Reed was the most recent inductee before Wednesday, his name added to the display that encircles the M&T Bank Stadium field in November 2015.
Billick, 65, was hired as the Ravens coach in 1999 and took the team to its first Super Bowl in his second season. In his nine years with the team, he finished with an 80-64 record and led the team to the playoffs three more times after the Super Bowl victory. He was fired after the 2007 season, when the team went 5-11. Bisciotti called it at the time the "toughest decision I've ever had to make."
Ngata, 35, who officially announced his retirement as a Raven on Wednesday at the team's facility, was drafted by the franchise with the No. 12 overall pick in 2006. During his nine seasons in Baltimore, he had 25 { sacks and 445 tackles and was selected to the Pro Bowl five times and the All-Pro first team twice. He helped anchor a defensive line key to the Ravens' Super Bowl XLVII title.
Coach John Harbaugh once said the soft-spoken, 6-foot-4, 340-pound Ngata "kind of sets the personality" of the team's defense, which was headlined by bolder personalities like Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs. The Ravens traded Ngata to the Detroit Lions in 2015, and he finished his career last year with the Philadelphia Eagles.
