Billick Out - Now Hire Rex Ryan, Please

The Baltimore Sun reported this afternoon that the Ravens' head coach Brian Billick has been fired. Can you say, "Long time coming?"

I wrote earlier this month about owner Steve Bisciotti (A.K.A. The Man with the Tan) supporting Billick and what a stupid, stupid idea that was. Billick came in with the reputation of an offensive genius. The next year, his team won a Super Bowl for him. He rode that pony for seven years of disappointing offense and little playoff success. Besides great defense, the Ravens never really carried any kind of specific marking of Billick's "coaching." This season, the flaws were readily apparent as Billick called the plays himself ... and they still stunk. In doing so, he lost a lot of faith from the players.

I have some sympathy for the man - after all, he did win a Super Bowl and he had extraordinarily bad luck with QBs in his time. However, it felt like the man had more lives than a cat, and survived by taking credit for a string of great defenses and coordinators (two of whom are head coaches and one who should be).

This actually brings me to my next point.

In the article I wrote earlier, I suggested Rex Ryan should be the head coach and we should bring in a dynamite O-coordinator to support him in that area. Then we could have a situation similar to USC where Rex Ryan is the head coach and D-coordinator and someone runs the offense for him.

Now is a good time to say I wasn't kidding.

Steve Bisciotti - if you're reading this somewhere, please hire Rex Ryan as the new head coach of the Ravens. He is THE top coordinator looking for a head coaching job right now. Teams that will be soon replacing their coaches are going to look at Ryan first.

The players respect him and he has a system going in Baltimore. Just promote him right now. Grab him and squeeze before he goes off to, I don't know, San Francisco, Carolina or St. Louis. He knows he has a better shot at succeeding here with a lot of young talent.

Now, the best O-coordinators out there that might interview are Mike Martz from the Lions (retread), Jason Garrett from the Cowboys (what a smile!) and Rob Chudzinski from the Browns. To me, Chudzinski sounds the most fascinating: He single-handedly made the Browns into an offensive juggernaut (What, you think Romeo Crennel did that?). Plus, stealing him from under the nose of a division rival is tempting. Well, whoever it is, pick up somebody.

Also, guess who else is on the market? ROB RYAN, Rex's broski. I'm not sure how they would work together, but you can't deny that it could be interesting to bring the other Ryan in as a D-coordinator if the management wanted one. The Ryans under one franchise roof? Get outta here. Maybe that means Buddy only has to see one game a week.

The Ravens have a chance to be successful next season or the one after if they start making the right moves now. There's a big first step that needs to be taken.

Make Rex Ryan head coach. NOW.