FanHouse BrianBillick

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

Jonathan Ogden retired last summer, leaving the Ravens with a young but deep group of offensive linemen to protect rookie quarterback Joe Flacco. Not surprisingly, Ogden's replacement, Jared Gaither (a former supplementary draft pick) was inconsistent, but occasionally flashed glimpses of big-play potential.

Everyone makes mistakes. But when those mistakes are magnified by intense scrutiny of the NFL draft, well, they become much more embarrassing than, say, my typical Friday morning, mustard-stain-on-khakis incident.

Which is why the NFL FanHouse braintrust got together to determine who is the biggest bust for each NFL team. They're not listed in terms of stupidity -- they're all stupid relative to a team's total draft performance. Meaning, of course, some teams "bust" is much different than another organization's; we did it this way to avoid just linking you to DetroitLions.com.

Instead, we're putting it in current draft order, sans trades, and allowing this list to serve as a reminder of each's team's ability to properly execute a fail. The "bust factor" was based primarily on three things: statistical production (or lack thereof), position in the draft and other available options during that year's draft.

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SI.com's Peter King, the distinguished longtime football writer and recent defector from the great state of New Jersey, does us the favor of emptying out his pre-draft notebook on this dreary Monday here in the northeast.

I, a short-time football writer and New Jersey loyalist, hereby do you the favor of picking through Peter's notes and offering my own thoughts on them, for what those thoughts are worth. (Insert nasty crack here.)

Peter introduces his notes "in no particular order," so we'll go ahead and do the same:

NFL Network's Charley Casserly and Brian Billick talked to the media today about the upcoming NFL Draft. Choicest nuggets below.

On the news that B.J. Raji didn't fail a drug test as reported by SI.com and NFLDraftBible.com...
Brian Billick: "This is of great concern to me, as I think it is to the league and a number of different people. The vetting process that these rookies go through, particularly at the combine, and to have the misconception, or the rumors or the innuendo about some of these young people ... it sounds like there has been some misinformation put out there.

In 2001, Jim Fassel led the Giants to the Super Bowl. He was fired three years later, eventually found his way to Baltimore, and served as the Ravens' offensive coordinator until Brian Billick canned him during the team's bye week.

That was two seasons ago. Fassel has been out of football since, though not from lack of effort. He was in the running for the 'Skins job last spring, and even sent Al Davis a handwritten letter about the Raiders' gig. Oh, and he also blamed bloggers for his plight. But that, as they say, is all water under the bridge.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Fassel's back. Sort of.

The 2008 Ravens exceeded everybody's expectations, including their own, I'd imagine. After winning just five times a year ago, Brian Billick was canned, and the front office wasted little time in their search for the next franchise quarterback. Hello, Joe Flacco.

So while the offense -- for the first time since coming to Baltimore last decade -- is headed in the right direction, the defense could be totally revamped next season. And that's a disconcerting thought since they're the unit primarily responsible for this organization's success.

It usually takes weeks or months to find out the real reason why a player gets traded or a coach gets fired. Sure, some PR hack will undoubtedly trot out some version of "Player X was looking for a change," or "Coach Y wanted to spend time with his family," but nobody actually believes such statements, no matter how vehemently they're delivered.

With Jon Gruden, it only took a few hours to find out why the Glazers decided to, as they say, go in another direction: everybody hated him. It was that simple, apparently. And in the new, touchy-feely world of the NFL, there isn't much room for and in-your-face, coach-doesn't-have-to-respect-his-players approach.

Guys just don't respond to the Bill Parcells-types like they once did. That's not an indictment of Gruden so much as it highlights the fact that, like most things, coaching styles are forever evolving.

As has been the case since, well, the Ravens relocated from Cleveland back in '96, this team is only as good as its defense. That was never more evident than during the 2000 Super Bowl run. Eight years later, Baltimore is 60 minutes away from the championship game thanks largely to its defense. Shocking, I know.

Unlike the '00 team, this year's version has some semblance of an offense. Trent Dilfer was game-manager-tastic, and one of Brian Billick's biggest mistakes as head coach was releasing Dilfer to bring in Elvis Grbac. But new offensive coordinator Cam Cameron has done a fabulous job of protecting Joe Flacco (did you know he's the first rookie to ever win TWO playoff games!?) with a punishing running game and play-action passes.

Flacco isn't easily rattled, and that quality has served him well. But he's also benefited from the knowledge that the Ravens can score 14 points a game and win. The defense held opponents to fewer than two touchdowns 10 times during the regular season, and have allowed just nine and 10 points in two playoff games. Not too shabby.

Willis McGahee -- of recent Cowboy-destroying fame -- was kind enough to sit down with FanHouse and talk about Brian Billick v. John Harbaugh, Guns n' Roses, Joe Flacco, bounties on players and how the Ravens got ready for the Cowboys.

Will Brinson: Willis, what's up man? How you doing today?

Willis McGahee: I'm alright, how you doing?

WB: Good man, good -- thanks for taking the time to talk to FanHouse today. First off, how'd it feel to beat the Cowboys in the final regular season game in Texas Stadium?

WM: Ah, it felt good, you know. I know their plan was to have a homecoming in the stadium, but our plan was just to go there and play Ravens football and that's what we did -- play Ravens football.

WB: Right on, right on. Hey, I heard a rumor that Jerry Jones petitioned the league to play you guys in the last home game in that stadium. Did you guys hear about that beforehand?

We say it every week, but this time it's legit: this is the biggest game of the year. The Cowboys host the Ravens tonight and the postseason is on the line. The Steelers-Titans and Panthers-Giants get-togethers will determine playoff seeding, but whatever happens, all four teams will be playing in January.

There's a very real chance that the loser of tonight's Baltimore-Dallas affair will be on the couch with the rest of us in two weeks.

The Ravens are coming off a tough loss to the Steelers that wasn't without controversy. Still, at 9-5, rookie head coach John Harbaugh has done more with this outfit than anybody expected, and the other rookie, quarterback Joe Flacco, has been everything the too-numerous-to-count "franchise QBs" of the past decade (courtesy of Brian Billick!) weren't. And, of course, there's the defense, which, as always, is dominant.

The Cowboys managed to weather a month of Brad and Brooks, and now that Tony Romo is healthy, they've reassumed the role of NFC playoff contender. There's the ongoing Terrell Owens sideshow, but I'm convinced that that's more a media creation than a divisive locker room issue. That said, it's probably in everybody's best interest if Romo only throws T.O. the ball from now on.