How is Billick NOT on the Hot Seat?

Last year at this time, I wrote a few posts about how Brian Billick could be a nominee for NFL coach of the year. He had fired one of his best friends from the offensive coordinator position in the name of saving his team, the Baltimore Ravens, and taken over the play calling for the team’s offense. What happened thereafter was a string of wins for the team as well as the development of what was in Baltimore the equivalent of an “offensive juggernaut.” For the Ravens, that means they scored a touchdown in most games. Still, it was a marked improvement over Jim Fassel’s stewardship and Billick deserved “props” for his work.

This year there is quite a different story. The offensive ineptitude that has haunted the Ravens since the beginning of the Brian Billick “Offensive Genius” era has reached a crescendo, against the hated Pittsburgh Steelers and on national television, no less. In fairness, the Ravens destroyed the Steelers twice last season and Bart Scott single-handedly made Ben Roethlisberger wish he’d never taken up the game of football. This year, however, things have quickly taken a terrible turn.

Billick has a penchant for calling passing plays, but when he did it on 4 consecutive plays near the Red Zone a few weeks ago, with the “mighty” Kyle Boller at the helm, some experts were scratching their heads a bit. Despite that, there has been a surprising lack of talk regarding Brian Billick’s status as the Ravens’ head coach. This is perhaps due to the fact that he signed a 3-year extension before last season, but certainly stranger things have happened than coaches being fired before the end of a contract (it happened to Jim Fassel, in fact). Perhaps Ravens ownership doesn’t wish to further disrupt what already promises to be a rough season, but even the press are not making a big deal out of this. I can understand the national press not paying attention. After all, the New England Patriots are the best team in football and, barring some catastrophic injury situation, they’ll be hoisting the Lombardi trophy next February. The talk, naturally, is about them, Bill Belichick, “Spygate”, the 1972 Dolphins no longer being the only season-long undefeated team, etc. Nice try Colts, but really, without the made-up pass interference calls, Brady and the Pats wouldn’t have even had to come back from a deficit, though they did so quite easily.

The question, I guess, is what has to happen before Billick will be on the proverbial “hot seat?” Surely losing to one’s archrivals in disgusting fashion, on national TV, after having an extra week to prepare must be at least a pre-cursor to the talk, right? Whatever the case may be, it is likely that Billick will not be back with the Ravens next year. The only way for him to avoid being fired, in my opinion, is to get this team to the playoffs. At this point, I’ll be kind in saying that this is merely “not likely.”

Tags: bill belichick, brian billick, new england patriots, nfl coaching jobs, nfl hot seat

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