PRAISE THE LORD!!!!

My prayers have been answered.  Brian Bilick was fired today. Thank God. 

Now the Ravens just need to:

1. Draft a big WR who you could catch a ball thrown 9 or 10 feet in the air. Our midget wideouts (Mark Clayton, Derrick Mason) cannot go up and get these passes which totally eliminates a major option in the passing game.  Personally, I like Indiana's James Hardy.

1. Try to find a veteran QB a la Todd Collins to start / backup Troy Smith.  I know Smith isshort, but he does exude a short version of David Garrard vibe. He's physically strong, can run well, can get the ball to the open receiver and seems to have strong leadership qualities.  If the defense and running game are great then you just need the 20^th best QB to succeed.

1. The Jags copied us, now we need to copy them.  Jacksonville's Jack Del Rio was our linebackers coach in our Super Bowl season and built Jacksonville to be another version of the Ravens.  He's done an infinitely better job with our blueprint.  We need to go ahead and find another consistent RB to get 10 carries a game to go along with Willis McGahee's 18.  Our young offensive line was not great at pass protection but those guys could really run block. 

1. Get healthy.  When we lost Trevor Pryce for most of the season, we lost our primary pass rusher.  We could not pressure the QB and our starting Corners were out half the season.  The combo of a QB with time and crappy corners resulted in huge pass plays. I'd love to get Aqib Talib from Kansas to take over for Samari Rolle, get Pryce and Chris McAlister healthy and get our pass defense back to level it was in 2006.

1. Hire Rex Ryan.  Obviously he has the support of the players and I think it would be easier to find an offensive coordinator who could execute a rush first offense than it would to find another great defensive coordinator.  If we don't hire Ryan, he'll leave and then we'll lose our only good Coach.

GOOD RESULTS ON FUTURES

At the start of the NFL Season I made 6 Futures bets which around 100 of you actually read.  Well I'm pleased to report a nice 4-2 record on these bets.  My picks were:

1. Under for the entire NFC West.  That's right, I had Seattle under 9 wins, St. Louis under 8 wins, San Francisco under 8 wins and Arizona under 7.5 wins.  While Seattle played well, the Rams and 49ers "lived up" to expectations by underperforming.  Unfortunately the Falcons couldn't hold onto a 3 pt lead in Week 16 in the final minutes in Arizona.  The worst thing that happened to me is Matt Leinart got injured.  You know if his weak, lefty arm was leading the team the Cardinals would have won 5 games.

1. I called Jacksonville the Ravens of 2007.  A team that was much better than their prior season indicated.  I pointed out that they had a huge 6 point average margin of victory in 2006 and were poised to win 10+ games in 2007.  They covered the future line of 9 wins and I was quite pleased.

1. Finally, I picked the Jets to come under 8.5 wins.  They were a playoff team in 2006 but should not have been. They got lucky wins and a soft schedule in 2006. They had a hard schedule in 2007 and the Jets won just 4 games.  Sweet.

So Matt Leinart's inability to stay healthy and keep the Cardinals under 7.5 caused me to go just 4-2, but I'll take 67% anyday.