From the producers that brought you, “Water Buffalo: The Scott Mitchell Story,” and “All Shook Up: In The Huddle with Elvis Grbac,” the “Kyle Boller Experiment” gets yet another shot to succeed on CBS Sunday afternoon at 1.
In case you don?t recall, “The Boller Experiment,” was a short-lived comedy starring Boller ? an oft-injured, young Baltimore Ravens quarterback struggling to find his way in professional football. The show premiered in 2003 and aired for parts of three seasons before quarterback ratings slipped to 71.4 and producers were forced to go in a different direction.
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Teammates and fans roundly panned the show, with one unnamed source even going as far to say, “If you tell me Kyle Boller is the Ravens? quarterback of the future, I?m going to tell you Terrell Suggs belongs on “People Magazine?s 50 Most Beautiful” list.
Critics, including this one, were quick to point out the uneven performances of the show?s lead character ? and for good reason. Boller had 53 turnovers compared to 41 total touchdowns during his career, which does not merit a star on the Ravens Walk of Fame. However, the show reeked on so many levels, it is hard to pin down what made this Boller strike out in his last frame.
Some point to Boller?s offensive supporting cast during the show?s infancy as the reason for its demise. The young quarterback was surrounded by “B” movie actors portraying wide receivers like, The Johnson twins, Ron and Patrick, Frank “Colonel” Sanders, Travis “Taser” Taylor, and Randy “Sometimes” Hymes. In essence, this group was a veritable who?s who of hoof-footed, brick-handed wide outs sure to sink any show.
Others argue casting Boller opposite a star-studded defense, featuring Chris McAlister, Ed Reed and Ray Lewis and asking him to lead the team back to greatness was like letting an unknown child actor take the lead in a gangster movie featuring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Ray Liotta. You just knew by the end of the show, the kid was going to get whacked, sacked and buried.
Perhaps the most overlooked reason the original “Experiment” blew up may be the show?s writers and their lack of innovation. Sure, the lead writer, Brian Billick, has lopped off the heads of offensive understudies Matt Cavanaugh and Jim Fassel, but his script remains the same ? boring, short-sighted and painful to watch.
Not only has Billlick never let his lead man shine, he screwed a dimmer on his helmet the second he put on purple. Not exactly a, “wait until you get a load of this guy we just drafted in the first round and gave up future draft picks to do so,” marketing campaign if you ask me.
The latest incarnation of “The Boller Experiment” features a mix of new and improved talent like Derrick Mason, Willis McGahee and Mark Clayton, along with some old favorites like Todd Heap to complement McAlister, Reed and Lewis. But the jury is still out on whether this show needs to be scrapped all together or just tweaked from the top down.
Tony Giro is a lifelong Baltimore sports fan who writes a column and blogs on examiner.com for fans. If you subscribe ? it?s free ? you?ll be emailed each time Tony posts a new column. He can be reached at [email protected]. And yes, he?s still bitter about the Skipjacks and Bullets leaving town.
