FanHouse Jake Plummer

Retired NFL quarterback Trent Green is the first-ever guest columnist of MMQB, filling in while Peter King is on vacation. Green provided an interesting read on subjects relating to the league's personal conduct policy, concussions and the expanded season. And of course it wouldn't be a MMQB without a healthy dose of Favre thrown in for good measure.

What jumps out of Green's article is his prediction that 10 quarterbacks will have over 4,000 yards passing this season. He says six are a lock to do it (Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Kurt Warner, Phillip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers), and seven have the potential to do it (Jay Cutler, Matt Cassel, Carson Palmer, Matt Schaub, Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Matt Hasselbeck).

Let's put this prediction in context:

Josh McDaniels' honeymoon as the Broncos new head coach was a short one. As soon as Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler commenced with the whinging, fans, for the most part, blamed the 32-year-old McDaniels. He has no prior head coaching experience, and obviously inherited his people-person skills from mentor Bill Belichick.

The confluence of all this eventually led to the Broncos trading Cutler to the Bears for two first-round picks and Kyle Orton. And it was hard to make the case that Denver was better without Cutler, despite the extra draft picks and the steady-but-hardly-spectacular Orton.

Sad news out of Tempe where Arizona State has announced that former football coach Bruce Snyder has died at the age of 69. Snyder was diagnosed with cancer last June. Snyder coached nine seasons with the Sun Devils (1992-2000) and 20 overall. His 58 victories at ASU are second only to Frank Kush's 176.

Snyder also coached at Utah State and California before joining the Sun Devils. His signature season was in 1996 when ASU held a 17-13 lead over Ohio State in the Rose Bowl before surrendering a last-second touchdown that spoiled their chance at a national championship. He left after 2000 but was remembered for coaching a slew of NFL players, All Americans and ASU greats Pat Tillman, Jake Plummer and Terrell Suggs.

Kyle Orton doesn't have Jay Cutler's franchise quarterback pedigree. He was taken in the fourth round of the 2005 draft, two years after the Bears had invested a first-round pick in Rex Grossman. And, from the beginning, his role was clear: a raw, strong-armed talent, who would spend the first few seasons on the bench learning the nuances of what it means to be an NFL quarterback.

That lasted up till the moment Grossman broke his ankle in a 2005 preseason game. At the time, head coach Lovie Smith told the AP that "I don't know exactly who there is out there but we like the guys we have right now ... Chad Hutchinson is a good player, we feel comfortable starting him, and Kyle Orton continues to shine as far as we're concerned."

The Jerry Jones Cowboys are in the midst of an offseason makeover. Assistant coaches have been fired, big-named players have been released, and others have been signed to replace them, all in an effort to put the 2008 debaclement quickly in the rearview.

You might've heard that Dallas hasn't won a playoff game since 1996, and if that doesn't change next season, SI.com's Ross Tucker thinks quarterback Tony Romo should take the fall. Not Wade Phillips or Jason Garrett or Jones -- Jessica Simpson's boyfriend.

Sorting the Sunday Pile looks back at the NFL weekend that was. It's also an unofficial Mittens blog.

Six weeks ago, the Eagles headed into a Thanksgiving night game against the Cardinals without much to be thankful for. They had tied the sad-sack Bengals and been obliterated by the Ravens in back-to-back contests, and at 5-5-1, there was a better chance of Freddie Mitchell making his triumphant NFL return than Philly qualifying for the postseason.

There's still a lot of football to be played, as they say, but from the vantage point of a fifth NFC Championship game appearance this decade, the Eagles might look back to their 48-20 Turkey Day whuppin' of the Cardinals as the turning point in a topsy-turvy '08.

The 0-13 Lions have many believing that a winless season is not only possible, but probable. This is 0for08, FanHouse's eye on the Detroit Lions and their quest for a winless season.

As the Lions continue their march to sweet, inglorious perfection, we should take a moment to recognize that Detroit fans, while they have a strong case, aren't the only ones suffering. The players aren't exactly enjoying the 2008 season, and are facing the very real possibility of earning one of those scarlet "0-16" patches.

In fact, things have reached such a low point that Lions center Dominic Raiola makes no apologies about giving the finger to less than supportive fans.

But asked if he regretted giving the fans the business, he said he didn't. "I don't take one thing back," Raiola said Monday. "I'll say the same thing to a fan that I see in the street. I wish I could give my address out to some fans. I'll do that.

"But, you know, I can't. Nobody plays with fists. Everybody wants to play with metal. So I can't. I'm so frustrated. I'm tired of being a doormat for people to just talk to us how they want to talk to us. I'm just not going to put up with it anymore."

Raiola's right, of course. Sure, the players are partly responsible -- they are playing, after all -- but head coach Rod Marinelli also deserves much of the blame, along with since-departed Matt Millen, the brains behind the current roster. (In fact, word the street is that Millen is still running the show. I'd be more shocked if you told me the Lions wouldn't bungle their first-overall pick in April.)

The last time the Cardinals franchise won a division title, they played their games in Busch Stadium. They were the Saint Louis Cardinals. Coincidentally, they pasted the hapless current St. Louis team today at home to clinch the NFC West.

While it was no surprise the 2008 Cardinals easily handled the 2008 Rams -- 34-10 -- let us examine how rare an occurrence this is.

- The Cardinals franchise has only finished above .500 four times since 1976.

- The Cardinals franchise has not won their division since a strike-shortened 5-4 record was good enough in 1982. In the past 25 years, the Cardinals had only made the playoffs once -- when Jake Plummer took them on a 9-7 whirlwind in 1998.

- Since moving to Arizona, the Cardinals have lost at least 10 games 13 times in 20 seasons.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. This was one futile organization. I'll admit that when covering a team who is not your favorite, you still develop some love for the team. I've been rooting for these guys to do well, and they are a likable bunch from top to bottom. To the true Arizona Cardinals fans -- who have been with the team since the beginning -- you really deserve this. Enjoy it, and hopefully it's simply the start of things to come.

As I was doing my daily browsing of the Internet, searching for videos of cats playing ping-pong and water-skiing squirrels, I stumbled upon this article from Ian O'Connor over at Fox Sports titled, "In a do-over, Eli still gets draft nod over Big Ben."

My first thought was, "oh crap, not this again." Being the sane, rational person that I am, I decided to give Mr. O'Connor's article a shot and see if he might be able to enlighten me, offering convincing evidence that Eli Manning is indeed better than Ben Roethlisberger, as he suggests.

He failed. Not only did he fail, he made me want to take my laptop and throw it against the wall, repeatedly, until Ian O'Connor's article ceased to exist on my computer screen. I screamed various expletives as if he could hear me, stomping around the house screaming his name. O'Connor! O'Connor! O'Connor!

Now, let me be clear: I'm not going to sit here and blow a bunch of smoke up your butts and pretend to be some sort of unbiased, neutral third-party. Because I'm not. As you may already know, I am a Steelers fan, which makes me incredibly biased -- and passionate -- about this topic. What I am going to do, however, is attempt to offer objective facts, many of which O'Connor uses in his own article, to prove his is full of ... well.