Celebrate the new year!

ESPN: Billick, entire Ravens coaching staff dismissed following 5-11 season

Happy new year, everyone. I know mine is. My team is ridding itself of the overrated, overpaid, underperforming talking head known as Brian Billick. It took the completion of a 5-11 season - the second worst in team history - for owner Steve Bisciotti to realize it, while informed Ravens fans have known for years that this self-proclaimed "offensive genius" and "quarterback expert" was a fraud. Credit Bisciotti, though; this move showed balls. Nullus. Billick's contract runs through the 2009 season and entitles him to over $15 mil between now and then. By making the right move, and not the cheap one, he showed that he's committed to winning in a way that can't be taken for granted among Baltimore-based team ownership.

It's true that Billick won a Super Bowl in his second year as head coach and the franchise's fifth year in Baltimore. But anyone with half a brain knew at the time that he was given much more individual credit than he was due. It was the team's all-time great defense that won them a world championship alongside an offense that actually went five straight games without a single touchdown, despite the fact the Billick was known from his time with Minnesota as an offensive strategist. Since then, the team has won exactly one playoff game in three postseason appearances, despite perennially high expectations. Even then, his blind, unwarranted arrogance was perhaps the most aggravating aspect of his reign as head coach. He is downright atrocious as a play-caller, and despite claiming to "know quarterbacks", the guys he has put long-term stock in have been the likes of Scott Mitchell, Chris Redman, and Kyle "Should've been a bowler" Boller. I could talk all day about reasons why I'm glad to see him gone, but ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli pretty much sums it up in this shameless ethering that literally brought a smile to my face.

Word on the street is that the leading candidate to replace Billick is Rex Ryan, who has been the Ravens' defensive coordinator since 2005. Some notable others that are being considered are Jason Garrett, the current offensive coordinator in Dallas, Josh McDaniels, the o-coordinator/QBs coach in New England, and Kirk Ferentz, the head coach at the University of Iowa. Naturally, I have opinions on all of these candidates and more, but I'll post more on this later.