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.
If you're HBO, it's hard to think of a team you'd rather have on "Hard Knocks" more than the Cincinnati Bengals. You're guaranteed to have at least one Chad Ocho Cinco meltdown, it might explain what Mike Brown does, or doesn't do, for his general manager's bonus and with this roster there's likely to be some Andre Smith man-boob action. And that doesn't even count the possibility of a Bengals' arrest--which is always a pretty good possibility.
But it's hard to figure out why the Bengals would want to get the Hard Knocks treatment, because you're guaranteed at least one Ocho Cinco meltdown, it might explain what Mike Brown does, or doesn't do, for his general manager's bonus and with this roster there's likely to be some Andre Smith man-boob action. And that doesn't even count the possibility of a Bengals' arrest--which is always a pretty good possibility.
The plan was for Joe Flacco to spend his rookie season -- the first part of it, anyway -- on the sidelines. The Ravens' 2008 first-round pick came to Baltimore by way of Delaware, a Division I-AA school. And while he had the physical tools -- size, elusiveness, arguably the strongest arm in the league -- there's a huge difference between pummeling Monmouth on Saturdays and trying to slow down the Steelers on Monday night.
But training camp injuries to Kyle Boller and Troy Smith forced Flacco onto the field. In 2003, Brian Billick named then-rookie Boller the starter, and five years later, he was fighting for a roster spot (and Billick was out of a job).
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.
In "Rough Draft," lawyer-turned-writer-turned-football-player Clay Travis recounts his experience training for the 2008 NFL draft alongside some future pros. The following is Part 10 of 10 (read Chapter 9 here) installments that FanHouse will roll out every weekday leading up to the 2009 NFL Draft on April 25.
At 6:35 in the morning, gray mist encircles the stone barracks of West Point. First-year cadets stand in the hallways counting down the minutes until formation, Cadet Caleb Campbell tucks in the corner of his bed, the green cover tight and without wrinkles. He adjusts his hat and steps outside of Eisenhower Barracks room E313. It's 6:39 in the morning. Look quickly across the timeless cadet procession standing in the courtyard, past the parade ground bleachers that say Beat Navy, and it could be any year, any time, but only one place: West Point at morning.
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.
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 
If you're HBO, it's hard to think of a team you'd rather have on "Hard Knocks" more than the Cincinnati Bengals. You're guaranteed to have at least one 
The plan was for 
Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 
In "
