Even He’s Ravin’ About Billick

I say this through gritted teeth: Brian Billick deserves strong coach-of-the-year consideration.

Not only that -- and this will go over big in Cleveland -- Art Modell has done an outstanding job as owner of the Baltimore Ravens.

First, Billick: OK, so his ego could fill the Potomac, and sometimes he talks as if he invented the game. But it’s impossible to deny what he and the Ravens (7-7) have done this season.

The team that was gutted of its best players, and wasn’t projected to win more than five games, is suddenly in the thick of a playoff race.

If Baltimore beats Cleveland on Sunday, and Pittsburgh loses at Tampa on Monday, the Ravens and Steelers will play for the AFC North title Dec. 29 at Heinz Field.

“This may be the most gratifying season I’ve had in 45 years,” said Modell, in his second-to-last year as owner of the team. Minority owner Steve Bisciotti will assume a majority share in the franchise after next season.

Modell could have angled for a short-term solution and kept some of the team’s big-money players through next season, essentially leaving Bisciotti cap-strapped for years to come. Instead, Modell gave the OK for a colossal salary-cap purge in the off-season, and the Ravens cut loose a parade of all-star players: Rod Woodson, Duane Starks, Elvis Grbac, Carnell Lake, Jamie Sharper, Sam Adams, Tony Siragusa, Terry Allen, Randall Cunningham, Qadry Ismail, Rob Burnett, Lional Dalton, Shannon Sharpe and Jermaine Lewis, among others.

It was a tremendous favor to Bisciotti.

“I would not do any man wrong in a deal of this kind,” said Modell, who will be forever loathed in Cleveland as the man who stole the Browns. “I said, ‘Look, guys, we’re going to leave this franchise in as good a shape or better than when we started it.’ ”

Baltimore had only 13 defensive players on its 35-man roster before last spring’s draft. Then, in training camp, 60 players on the 80-man roster had NFL experience of two years or less.

The Ravens started 0-2 and looked horrible before winning a bizarre Monday night game against Denver that was widely written off as a fluke. Making matters worse, Baltimore played most of the season without three of its top defensive players -- Ray Lewis, Michael McCrary and Chris McAlister, all sidelined with injuries.

Just last month, when his team was 4-6, Billick dismissed his team as a playoff longshot. This has been a strange season, though, and counting out any team is risky. The Ravens have won seven of their last 12 games, and have developed a core of talented young players, many of whom were sixth- and seventh-round draft picks.

That they are in position to win a division title puts Billick in the class of Philadelphia’s Andy Reid, whose team is winning despite the loss of Donovan McNabb, and Indianapolis’ Tony Dungy, who has turned one of the league’s worst defenses into one of its best.

Fear of Flying

Anyone want to fill in for Joe Horn at the Pro Bowl?

It may come to that.

The New Orleans receiver reportedly is having second thoughts about traveling to Hawaii, only because he’s afraid to fly. He boards an airplane only when he must and stays ground-bound throughout the off-season.

“I don’t like flying at all -- at all,” he told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I don’t care if it’s a 20-minute flight. I don’t fly anywhere in the off-season. The only reason I fly here [with the Saints] is because I have to. It’s part of the job.”

Horn made the Pro Bowl trip two years ago, only because it was his first invitation, but he couldn’t fully enjoy his Hawaii experience because he couldn’t get the thought of the return flight off his mind. Last year, he was selected as an alternate, but he aborted his trip in Houston when mechanical problems with the plane delayed his departure during the stopover. He rented a 15-passenger van and drove home with the 14 friends and family members who’d accompanied him on the trip.

“The mechanic came on board, like, two or three times, and it was raining. That did it,” Horn recalled. “I felt pretty bad. I may suck it up this time because a lot of my friends and family members were with me last time and they really wanted to go.”

Around the NFL

AFC EAST -- The Patriots are the first defending Super Bowl champions to surrender three 200-yard rushing games, the latest being Monday’s loss at Tennessee, when the Titans rolled up 238. New England Coach Bill Belichick, a defensive guru, isn’t too worried about the situation and doesn’t think it’s a trend that will continue. He points out that the Titans gained all that ground by constantly running Eddie George (101 yards in 31 carries), a few big scrambles by Steve McNair, and some coaching breakdowns -- Robert Holcombe had some long runs when the Patriots were using their nickel or dime package.

New England plays host to the Jets on Sunday, and needs to stop running back Curtis Martin. Before this season, Martin had averaged 100-plus yards in his previous eight games against the Patriots. They held him to five yards in four carries earlier this season, but Martin was slowed by an ankle injury.

Reporters who cover the Patriots got some disappointing news this week when the team cut defensive tackle Steve Martin, maybe the team’s liveliest interview. Martin, a former Jet signed as a free agent during the summer, was a fountain of quotes who always drew a crowd around his locker-room stall. He had only 17 tackles, though, and his days were numbered. He went out in a blaze. On a conference call with writers who cover the Jets, he called center Kevin Mawae “a dirty player,” and said he was confused about his own role with the Patriots, saying sometimes he felt like he was on the team “to stand around and look pretty.”

As I said, a tragic loss.

AFC NORTH -- They won’t face each other on the field Monday, but that didn’t stop Pittsburgh safety Lee Flowers and Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp from jawing in the press this week. It started after the Steelers beat the Buccaneers last season and Flowers called them “paper champions” because they have never gotten to the Super Bowl, despite an abundance of Pro Bowl players. This time, the winner of the Buccaneer-Steeler game wins its division title. Sapp, who is from Orlando and the University of Miami, launched the first salvo, calling Flowers some unprintable things, then saying, “Listen, man, Lee Flowers is a guy from Georgia. Florida boys walk around with chips on their shoulders all the time. We talk more stuff than anybody. He doesn’t have any credentials to talk stuff, so I’m wondering where this stuff is coming from.... You wouldn’t even know the man unless you get in front of the television and they put his name under his face.”

Sapp is known as a “red-light” guy, who springs to life any time a TV camera’s red light comes on.

Flowers had a retort, of course. “I’m not from Georgia, I’m from South Carolina. You need to do your homework if you’re gong to talk about somebody. I went to school in Georgia. I haven’t checked the last time somebody got a degree from Miami, anyway.”

Cincinnati is one loss away from a franchise-record 14 and will secure the No. 1 pick in the draft. Hello, Carson Palmer. Who says the Bengals don’t give their fans anything?

AFC SOUTH -- Houston will hold the Super Bowl in 2004, but the expansion Texans will be playing in their “Super Bowl” on Sunday in Washington. Seventeen members of the Houston organization are former Redskin employees who were unceremoniously dumped when Dan Snyder bought the team. Most prominent of that pink-slip brigade is Texan General Manager Charley Casserly, who joined the Redskins in 1977 as an unpaid errand boy for then-coach George Allen. Casserly doesn’t hide his contempt for Snyder, 37, among the league’s most pompous and least-liked team owners.

“I don’t have a problem with what happened to me,” Casserly told the Houston Chronicle. “It was his team, and he could do whatever he wanted. I understood that. I don’t have any issues with him about how it went down.... But Daniel Snyder didn’t know half the people who were fired. I have issues with some others in and around the organization who undercut people for their own selfish interests.”

There’s more incentive for the Texans: If they win, they will become the first expansion team to post three victories on the road.

If you’re a Jacksonville fan who believes Tom Coughlin should go, there’s a Web site for you: FireTomCoughlin.com. The site features an online store with all sorts of items emblazoned with an encircled “Tom” with a slash through it. There are teddy bears, greeting cards, T-shirts, mouse pads, even baby bibs. My favorite is the No-Tom thong -- $9.99.

In an unusual twist, there’s also KeepTomCoughlin.com, which offers items from the same company that carry the opposite message. Any way to make a buck, I guess.

AFC WEST -- According to an NFL source, several Oakland players were fined for missing curfew last Saturday in Miami, the night before a 23-17 loss to the Dolphins. That kind of stuff might have been laughed off in the days of the rollicking Raiders. But considering the league is so balanced -- and the Raiders have yet to clinch a playoff berth -- that’s a troubling lapse in focus.

The Raiders haven’t swept the Broncos in a season series since Mike Shanahan took over as Denver’s coach in 1995. The Chiefs are the last team to have swept the Broncos, doing so twice in the last three seasons. Oakland can earn a playoff berth with a win Sunday over Denver and a loss by Miami, New England, Tennessee or Indianapolis. If the Raiders win or tie and San Diego loses at Kansas City, the Raiders win the AFC West.

NFC EAST -- Philadelphia receiver Antonio Freeman has impeccable timing. His older brother, Clarence, was attending his first Eagle game this season on Sunday when Antonio caught a touchdown pass. Antonio found his brother in the stands and gave him the ball. Clarence is a Marine master sergeant who has been stationed near Iraq for the last six months. He returned to the U.S. five days before the game and flew to Philadelphia to watch his brother play. “He’s my best friend, my idol,” Antonio told reporters. “Everything I am today is because of him and my father and my mother. Every time I get to show them a sense of gratitude, make them feel special, I try to do it. I caught the touchdown and then shared the joy with my brother.”

NFC NORTH -- Brett Favre is downsizing. The Packer quarterback has put his five-bedroom home on the market for $1.4 million and plans to move with his family into a Green Bay townhouse by next season. The decision has stoked the buzz that Favre is flirting with retirement and doesn’t want to have to unload a big house when he calls it quits. He has said he plans to play next season but has not elaborated on his plans beyond that. Favre and his wife, Deanna, reportedly have told friends they’re tired of keeping up two large homes. They also own an estate outside Hattiesburg, Miss. Their two-story brick home in southwest Green Bay is 7,829 square feet and sits on 2.77 acres of woodland.

The Packers will reshuffle their offensive line Sunday for the fifth time this season, using their center at left tackle and a free-agent rookie at right tackle. No wonder Favre is thinking about retiring. Actually, the line has played well, in spite of the shakeups. Favre has been sacked 24 times -- almost three times fewer than Houston’s David Carr.

NFC SOUTH -- Not only does he draw swarms of defensive players, Michael Vick draws fans by the thousands. The Falcons have sold out every home game this season, the first time that has happened since 1992, the year the Georgia Dome opened. Demand for tickets is so great, the Falcons have started accepting deposits for season tickets for 2003. They have received 3,000 deposits from fans in 18 states and from as far away as Germany.

Vick’s jersey has become the league’s No. 1 seller, followed by the jerseys of Oakland’s Charles Woodson, Chicago’s Brian Urlacher, St. Louis’ Marshall Faulk and Philadelphia’s McNabb.

NFC WEST -- The 49ers haven’t had a tight end of note since Brent Jones retired after the 1997 season. They might have found one in Eric Johnson, a converted college receiver, who caught eight passes in each of the last two games. One of his most promising plays didn’t lead to a catch, but reminded people of the possibilities. The 49ers sent him deep down the middle on third and 10, reminiscent of a pattern Jones might have run.

Since Matt Hasselbeck replaced the injured Trent Dilfer on Oct. 27, Seattle’s passing offense has risen from 19th to seventh. The Seahawks have averaged 468 yards of offense in the last four games. Regardless, Mike Holmgren’s job status has been shakier this season than at any other time in his career.

Sharpie is coming out with another Terrell Owens commercial. Yawn. I’m waiting for the ad for the Coughlin thong.