FanHouse SteveBisciotti

Depending on who you ask, Terrell Owens is as good as gone from the Cowboys, or Jerry Jones could keep him around, presumably because a life without drama ain't a life worth living. Or some similarly lame sentiment.

SI.com's Don Banks writes that "From all indications, the faction that has decided the Cowboys would be better off without Owens includes Stephen Jones, the owner's son and the team's COO and director of player personnel, and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett."

Of course, Garrett is the same guy Jerry paid $3 million to keep in Dallas last season -- much to the delight of Terrell Suggs and Steve Bisciotti -- so who knows if such feelings from a once-promising coordinator carries much weight with the owner.

Since the Baltimore Ravens have been relevant, Ray Lewis has been the face of the squad. He pumps the team up, builds team morale and is what every team would want in a defensive leader.

He's also 33, with a ton of miles on his odometer. That doesn't seem to bother owner Steve Bisciotti or head coach John Harbaugh, who said they'd be willing to pay a large sum of money to keep Ray in the purple and black.

After the Baltimore Ravens fell in the AFC Championship game to the Pittsburgh Steelers, owner Steve Bisciotti talked about the situation the team faces this offseaso with all three starting linebackers being unrestricted free agents. It's not exactly a good situation for a team that is so dependent on its linebackers, and Bisciotti mentioned how he would love to see Ray Lewis, the unquestioned leader of the team, take a hometown discount to remain in Baltimore.

Predictably, Lewis isn't interested in that option, telling the NFL Network, "I don't play less ... If you don't play less, you don't take less."

It's evident that Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett (left) can't get along with anybody named Terrell, no matter the pronunciation.

The Terrell Owens Valley Ranch drama is well documented, but following Dallas' demoralizing home loss to Baltimore last December, linebacker Terrell Suggs took his turn at tweaking Garrett, who had passed on the Ravens head coaching job last offseason to remain with the Cowboys.

"It was personal,'' Suggs said. "You know their coach, Jason Garrett, he turned the job down and said one of the reasons was we didn't have men of character. We fed off that... I wonder which team he wishes he was coaching now?''

I've been trying to figure out how the Baltimore Ravens, a team that is usually run with a great deal of efficiency, could allow themselves to be in a position where three of their most important players on defense are all eligible for free agency in the same offseason. As it stands, linebackers Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs and Bart Scott will all be available to the highest-bidder in late February, assuming, of course, the Ravens don't find a way to keep them.

They won't be able to keep all three, and assuming they use their franchise tag, they might be able to keep two for at least one more season. There's also the possibility that somebody could take one for the team and sign a deal for less than market value.

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Greg Olsen hated Rex Grossman's guts. Now I have confirmation:



Yeah, maybe I overstated* it a bit there in the lead; Olsen admits that the Bears would never land Brett Favre because of their NFC North rivalry with the Packers, and the second-year tight end remarks that "I think we're happy with the two guys we got."

Of course, he said it with all the conviction of Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti pledging his support for Brian Billick -- right before firing him -- but whatever. Olsen continued: "I think we have a good quarterback competition right now with Kyle and Rex, and I think the team is real comfortable with one of those two guys being the guy for us for the future."

He then added, "But, yeah, who the hell wouldn't want Favre? I mean, we could have Kyle and Rex on the field at the same time and wouldn't be as successful with Favre under center."

Okay, I definitely made up that last sentence, and to Olsen's credit, he handled the Favre-to-Chicago talk about as well as you could expect. And as he explained to First Take's Jay Crawford, given the history between these two organizations, it's ain't happening so it's not even worth discussing.

Ideally, Favre would go to an organization that was a quarterback away from making a deep postseason run. The Bears, as currently constituted, don't qualify, but there is that other NFC North team...

* overstated = lied

For those of you who need closure before moving on, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti has finally explained why Brian Billick was canned shortly after the 2007 season. Bisciotti admits that he gave Billick a vote of confidence during the year, but obviously, he changed his mind.

The bottom line is that I think there was a deterioration in the confidence in him and his coaching staff. I think the morale in the building was down. The reports that I got from other executives and team personnel [ranged] everywhere from the disrespect of coaches from players on the sideline to arguments in the locker room and team planes.

Losing creates a lot of frustration. It's not something that I took lightly. When the sting is gone and I sit down with Brian, I don't expect him to agree with much of my reasoning. But it was time. I believe that or I certainly wouldn't have done it to a good friend who I owed a lot of money to [between $15 million to $18 million].

Can't argue with Bisciotti's rationale here, although you could make the case that players have been disrespecting Billick for some time now. But unless you're the Chargers, organizations don't usually fire coaches after winning 13 or 14 games. The Ravens were 13-3 in 2006 and Billick had seemingly saved his job after a six-win season in '05.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis will turn 33 in May, which isn't typically the age at which NFL players sign long-term contract extensions. But with Lewis entering the final year of his current deal with the Ravens, a contract extension is exactly what they're working on.

Jamison Hensley of the Baltimore Sun reports that Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti has talked about a new deal for Lewis at this week's owners meetings in Florida. And Bisciotti says that even if he and Lewis don't agree on a new contract before he becomes a free agent, Lewis is likely to finish his career with the Ravens:

"If he becomes a free agent next year, I think the Ravens would probably outbid other teams," Bisciotti said today during a break at the NFL annual meetings. "We know Ray's value more than the other teams. We know the leadership he brings to the team. We know the commitment and the effort he gives to winning."

Lewis is nowhere near as good a player as he was eight years ago, and the $6.5 million he's scheduled to make this season might even make him a little overpaid. But the Ravens seem to think there's something intangible about what Lewis brings to the team that makes him worth every cent they pay him, and for that reason, it sounds like he'll be in Baltimore into his late 30s.

During John Harbaugh's introductory press conference as the Ravens new head coach, owner Steve Bisciotti made some interesting -- and, frankly, random -- comments about linebacker Ray Lewis and his role with the team.

Bisciotti was asked about a perceived lack of discipline inside the organization. After tackling the query, Bisciotti veered off in a defense of Lewis, one of the team's least penalized players on the field. Lewis, though, is the team's most vocal member...

"Everybody knows that Ray Lewis is the player and the leader that he is," Bisciotti offered, unprovoked. "Everything you know about Ray is true. He's truly one of the greatest leaders that I've ever been around in my life. It's genuine, it's constant, it's so deep-rooted, that he can't possibly be anything but a great influence for the other players. People say, 'This is Ray's team. It should be, it shouldn't be, whatever.' Leaders rise to the top, and Ray has since the time he was a young man."

Now that Jason Garrett is out of the picture, the Ravens are back to the drawing board in their search for a head coach. Although they were sending out signals that John Harbaugh was their fallback if Garrett passed them up, the team is only now interviewing the Eagles secondary coach for the second time. They are also rumored to be interested in speaking with Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer again in a search that's starting to appear more than a little aimless.

Whether or not Garrett was the right guy for the job, the Ravens believed he was. He offered a new direction for the team, a fresh outlook and a long-term solution. Which is why it's odd to keep hearing Marty Schottenheimer's name linked with the opening. After making several denials of interest in returning to the sidelines, Schottenheimer changed course yesterday when asked about the Ravens.

"I think it's a terrific organization. They know how to win football games, and that's the most important thing to any decision I might make with regards to my coaching future. That having been said, I'm not going to rule out anything at this juncture."

So which is it, youth or experience?