Ravens' Billick seeks answers for season-long funk

The team is 2-7 and its offense hasn't scored a touchdown in 11 quarters.
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) -- In his second season as an NFL head coach, Brian Billick won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens. The glory and acclaim he reaped for that accomplishment has been replaced by disappointment and criticism, and he might lose his job if he can't bring his underachieving team out of its season-long funk.
The Ravens broke training camp with designs on returning to the Super Bowl. They signed two coaches known for their offensive prowess, fortified the passing attack and drew up an aggressive defensive scheme that centered around the talent of middle linebacker Ray Lewis.
Nothing has gone according to plan.
Baltimore (2-7) has no chance of reaching the playoffs for a variety of reasons, beginning with an offense that hasn't scored a touchdown in 11 quarters and is averaging a horrid 11.1 points per game.
Decimated by injuries
The defense has been inconsistent and decimated by injury. Lewis will miss a fourth straight game Sunday with a hamstring injury, safety Ed Reed will be held out for a fifth successive week with a high ankle sprain, and defensive tackle Anthony Weaver is finally running hard after sitting out five weeks with a hyperextended toe.
It all adds up to the kind of season that can get a coach fired, even if his Super Bowl ring isn't even 5 years old.
Owner Steve Bisciotti isn't talking about Billick's future, and Billick has danced around the issue. However, in an entry in his online diary, the embattled coach wrote about the difficult task of righting the Ravens "in the short term and the long term."
"Some will question whether I am the right one to lead this challenge. That is justified," he wrote. "Clearly, this is by far the most challenging and difficult a task as I have ever faced in my professional career."
Getting the blame
When the Ravens won the 2001 Super Bowl, defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis received much of the credit because Baltimore set an NFL record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game season. Now that the Ravens can't score, Billick is receiving far more blame than offensive coordinator Jim Fassel or quarterbacks coach Rick Neuheisel.
Is that fair?
"We all collectively deserve the blame," linebacker Bart Scott said Wednesday.
Many of the players believe that responsibility for this ugly season can be spread equally around the locker room and the coach's offices.
"You don't point everything at the man upstairs. It's a collective effort by everybody, coaches and players," Reed said. "At 2-7, something's not right. Something has not been right. We all need to say, 'What can we do, and what can we do better? What have we been doing that we need to change?"'
Changes needed?
Maybe the coaching staff needs to be changed. Perhaps it's time for the Ravens to give up on inconsistent quarterback Kyle Boller. Or maybe it's time to dump some of the over-30 crowd, which includes offensive tackle Orlando Brown, cornerback Dale Carter and nickel back Deion Sanders.
"Billick is not the only one to blame here," cornerback Chris McAlister said. "We go out and play on Sundays, they coach. That's what it boils down to. You have to look at players, you have to look at personnel, you have to look everywhere."
Billick responded testily to the suggestion that his players are tuning him out.
"I wouldn't know what you'd base that on. Your challenge in your seventh year is keeping your message fresh enough for guys that have been with you for seven years," he said. "You do try to keep the message fresh, but by the same token, you can't change the fundamental truth.
"The observations that players might be tuning coaches out are very predictable, and from a conventional perspective rather than a factual perspective."
Despite the pressure associated with being 2-7 for the first time, Billick will plow forward with the notion that he will return to the sideline in 2006.
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