FanHouse Charlie Frye

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.

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:

Week 5's Raiders-Giants game may go down as the biggest mismatch of the entire NFL season. New York led 28-0 without breaking a sweat and cruised to a 44-7 victory against an absolutely pitiful Oakland squad.

And if it looked easy for the Giants -- well, that's because it was. Linebacker Antonio Pierce told Fox Sports' Alex Marvez that last Sunday's game felt like a "scrimmage".

"I do not like knocking teams. But right now, they're struggling. We're playing that game the other day and, honestly, it felt like a scrimmage, like a practice," Pierce said. "It felt like we were going against our offense [in a controlled setting] as far as the tempo."

In matter of months, veteran quarterback Jeff Garcia went from pronouncing himself a contender for the Raiders' starting job to an Oakland afterthought. Garcia fell victim to his age (39) by sustaining a series of nagging injuries that forced him to miss the bulk of training camp snaps, but he appeared ready to accept a backup role.

Instead, his Raiders career ended before it really starting. Oakland released Garcia on Saturday, along with 21 other players to reach the 53-man NFL roster limit.

While the Brett Favre saga seems to be the story that won't end, even if nearly everyone wants it to. Now he's sending shoulder MRIs to the Vikings, and if everything goes well, maybe he'll still consider un-retiring for the second time.

But whether his shoulder is fine or not, the Vikings need to be aware of how unlikely it is that Favre will be the answer to the team's quarterback problems. The reality is that 40-year-old quarterbacks are very lucky if they make it through the season healthy, asking them to lead a team to the playoffs is too much. The Hall of Fame is filled with quarterbacks who retired as 38 and 39-year-olds, but there are very few 40-year-olds who ever suited up.

In the entire history of the NFL, I was unable to find one quarterback 40 years old or older who led his team to the playoffs as the team's primary quarterback. The only one who came close was Warren Moon in 1996. The Vikings were 4-4 in their first eight games, but he missed the second half of the season with a broken collarbone as Brad Johnson led the team to a first-round playoff loss.

Nate Davis has had a rough few months. After an impressive junior season at Ball State -- one in which some folks had him pegged as a possible first-round pick -- the MAC quarterback has experienced a series of setbacks that will cost him millions of dollars, and perhaps the opportunity to play professional football.

ESPN.com's Jeffri Chadiha wrote earlier this month that Davis "... seemed destined to follow Ben Roethlisberger, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich as the next great Mid-American Conference quarterback to enter the NFL," although now he's more likely to be lumped in with Bruce Gradkowski, Charlie Frye -- or worse -- Omar Jacobs.

With the draft approaching, we ignore projections and identify the dream scenario for each team in a series we call The Perfect Draft.

For all the good that Mike Holmgren did in Seattle (and everywhere else he coached), it's hard to argue that the first year of the Jim Mora Era hasn't already started out better than the Holmgren Farewell Trainwreck Tour. The Seahawks traded Julian Peterson, but they signed T.J. Houshmandzadeh and managed to pick up Colin Cole. Sure, it's not that impressive, but it's still better than what happened to Holmgren and Co. last year.

Since the days of Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar, Cleveland Browns fans have seemingly had a love-hate relationship with their starting quarterbacks ... and by "love-hate," I obviously mean they love to hate them. After suffering an Aaron Rodgers-like slide on draft day, 2007, Brady Quinn was supposed to change all of that and become the franchise quarterback Dawg Pounders have longed for since, well, Otto Graham.

On Tuesday, new head coach Eric Mangini made the announcement that Quinn will be competing for the starting job in 2009 with five-year veteran Derek Anderson.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

Mike Holmgren has long been one of the primary identities of the Seattle Seahawks. He took them to the Super Bowl and made them a perennial winner of the NFC West. Then last year happened. As Holmgren's retirement tour rolled along, more and more injuries piled up, Seneca Wallace had to start at quarterback for a few games, and the Seahawks stumbled to a 4-12 record.

With Jeff Garcia out of the picture in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers' quarterback position is a bit of a question mark. If the season opened right now, the team's starting quarterback would likely be Luke McCown, whom the team recently signed to a two-year contract extension. They also have veteran Brian Griese and 2008 draft pick Josh Johnson on the roster.

According to some of the local scribes in Tampa Bay, there's some chatter around the NFL combine that Cleveland Browns quarterback Derek Anderson could be a target in a potential trade.

The offseason got underway Thursday, and the Patriots wasted little time in franchising Matt Cassel. What they plan to do with him remains a mystery, but there are plenty of teams in need of quarterback help.

In fact, if you believe National Football Post's Michael Lombardi, nearly a third of NFL franchises could stand an upgrade at the position. The Lions and Vikings top the list, obviously, but Lombardi also thinks the Redskins could be in the market for a new quarterback, if not this offseason, then in a year's time.