Of course, Manning never winged a football through goal posts from midfield while on one knee, which I imagine made Boller an even more attractive prospect in Billick's mind. Whatever, neither Boller nor Billick worked out in Baltimore and now one is the backup quarterback for the Rams and the other is an in-booth NFL analyst for Fox.
St. Louis will face Manning and the Colts this week, and Boller, for the first time in his career, looks like a Pro Bowl quarterback. Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
NFL Coaches Fight Club: the Tournament. Because we have nothing better to do than predict what might happen if head coaches started punching each other in the face.
It happens every year at training camp, yet every year seems worse than the ones that preceded it: players get injured, sometimes seriously, and an offseason worth of plans suddenly become meaningless.
And on Sunday, the Ravens' No. 2 wideout, Mark Clayton, strained a hamstring that will keep him out 2-3 preseason games. Compared to Bradley or Douglas, that's good news, but Baltimore also doesn't have much depth at receiver. More than that, quarterback Joe Flacco is just in his second season. Spreading the offensive burden seems like the best strategy to build on the success he had last year, but that becomes problematic if Flacco doesn't have anybody to throw to. Or maybe it doesn't.
On Tuesday I noted that some NFL executives aren't sold on Brandon Marshall. At least to the point that they would give up a high-round pick to have him. Marshall is still a member of the Broncos, the team that drafted him, but he's made it clear throughout the offseason that he'd like to get traded.
Despite some apprehension around the league, the Ravens could be interested in Marshall. That's what happens when your best receiver retires, another does the same two days after signing a free-agent contract, and there are still questions if 2005 first-round pick Mark Clayton can ably fill the No. 1 role.
The Minnesota Vikings finished the 1998 season with 15 wins. The offense averaged almost 35 points a game (best in the league) with a 35-year-old Randall Cunningham under center, two big-play receivers in Cris Carter and Randy Moss, and a steady run game led by Robert Smith and Leroy Hoard.
And Brian Billick was the brains behind it all. He would parlay his successes as the Vikes' offensive coordinator into a head-coaching gig with the Ravens. Billick's offensive philosophy in Baltimore never produced anything approaching what he was able to accomplish in Minnesota, and by the time he was fired nine years later, he was known as much for his inability to develop a franchise quarterback or find a deep threat at wide receiver as he was for the organization's 2000 Super Bowl win.
So it is with some irony that the man behind Kyle Boller weighs in on the Vikings' current stable of quarterbacks now that Brett Favre has temporarily* announced his retirement.
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.
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.
This is what Brian Billick had in mind when he traded back into the first round of the 2003 draft to take Kyle Boller: the next Peyton Manning. 
It happens every year at training camp, yet every year seems worse than the ones that preceded it: players get injured, sometimes seriously, and an offseason worth of plans suddenly become meaningless. 
On Tuesday I noted that 
The Minnesota Vikings finished the 1998 season with 15 wins. The offense averaged almost 35 points a game (best in the league) with a 35-year-old 
Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 
SI.com's 
NFL Network's 
In 2001, 
