Greetings, and welcome to What Happened to That Guy? A Ravens podcast about former players and life after football. I'm your host, John Eisenberg. If you listen to the first two episodes featuring Jermaine Lewis and Peter Bullware, I want to thank you. To show my appreciation, I'm going to take you behind the curtain here at the start of episode number three. My subject is Kyle Boehler, the former first round draft pick and starting quarterback who in two thousand and three was handed the keys to the Ravens offense, practically the keys to the entire franchise. Actually he was twenty two years old. As you may know, he didn't quite live up to expectations, but he was in Baltimore for six years. He started forty two games, signed two contracts, and he ranked second in franchise history in most of the major passing statistical categories, trailing only Joe Flacco. I thought it would be interesting to find out what Kyle is up to now, how he's doing, so I called him, and here's where I'll take you behind the curtain and let you see and hear how the sausage gets made, so to speak. Here at the Baltimore Ravens podcast network. Here's a raw recording of the start of my phone conversation with Kyle five. Is that good? Yeah? Hello? Hey? Is this Kyle y? Hey, it's John Eisenmerre calling from Baltimore. Hey, John, how are you doing, Buddy good? How are you doing? I'm doing good? Man. Is this a good time for you? Yeah? I got to take the old wife car into the dealership today, so jump on earlier, better for me. Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem at all. Interviewing athletes on the phone is one of the basic requirements of writing and talking about sports. When people ask me for a job description, what I do? I tell them A. I drive to and from airports. B. I talked to athletes on the phone and c in between doing those other two things. Occasionally I write. I've interviewed hundreds of sports figures on the phone, athletes, coaches, former athletes, owners. Most were cooperative, but some were, shall we say, not quite as enthusiastic about the conversation as me. Don't get me wrong, they weren't outright rude, but it was clear they would rather be doing something other than talking to a guy with a bunch of questions. They looked forward to the point where we wrap things up. Kyle Boehler, you may have noticed, could not have been more enthusiastic or pleasant. He is thirty eight years old, now happily married with two young kids. He made quite a bit of money in football Tom Brady money, but enough that he doesn't have to get up every morning and hustle off to an office job. He lives in San Diego, a beautiful place. In between taking his two kids to school in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon. He plays a lot of golf. When we spoke, I envisioned him sitting in his kitchen morning sunlight streaming in blue skies and flowers outside a classic California scene. Bowler was, still is, and will always be, a California kid, so to speak. He grew up in Burbank near Los Angeles. He played his college ball at cal Berkeley. When he settled down, he married, wait for it, a former Miss California. You heard him right. I'm doing good, man, doing really good. One of the reasons Kyle Bowler is doing so well now, no question is he isn't in the NFL anymore. I started tap a football and I was six years old. For me, the day that I did retire, it was one of the best days of my life. The world was lifted off my shoulders. When you play that long, I was mentally, physically and emotionally burnt out of it. Never got cut, never got traded. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna glad on my own terms. Did you hear what he said the day he retired was one of the best days of his life. You go through so much as a player from an emotional and physical and mental standpoint. For me, once that all ended, I knew that I didn't really have to do that anymore. It was just freeing for me of anything I've ever done in my whole life. Was like, all right, chapter's kind of done now, and now I'm ready for the next chapter. I might be wrong, but I don't think that many players feel the same way about the end of their careers. Playing in the NFL is rough stuff, no question, but the pay is good and you're in the brightest spotlights. It's exciting. There are definitely some privileges. Most guys are in no hurry to give it up. In fact, they dres At the end, all I've ever done is played football. They can't imagine doing anything else. Buller didn't say this, but I got the feeling his ten years in the league felt like a hundred to him. The whole time he faced a rugged opponent that harassed him like a Pro Bowl pass rusher. Only his opponent wasn't intangible. Something he couldn't see or touch. That opponent was the burden of great expectations. In the two thousand and three NFL Draft, the Ravens took two guys in the first round as the number ten and number nineteen overall selections. The Ravens were coming off a season in which they went seven and nine with Chris Redman and Jeff Blake at quarterback. They were looking for new blood, a young guy who could grab the position Bible lapels and make it his own. They were looking for a star. With the first of those first round picks, number ten overall, they took a linebacker from Arizona State. His name was Terrell Suggs. They had considered trading up to get a quarterback they liked Byron Leftwich from Marshall, but they couldn't make it happen. An hour or so later into the first round, they did trade up, sending a pair of high draft choices to the New England Patriots for the number nineteen overall pick, which they used to select Bowler. The Sugs pick was a home run. He would end up playing for the Ravens for sixteen years, setting a franchise record for sacks that may last forever. A lot of experts think he'll make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, But at the time, the Bowler pick was a bigger deal, a much bigger deal, breaking news. The Ravens have a new quarterback, But who was he? Only Baltimore fans who closely followed the draft had ever heard of Bowler. He played on the West Coast. His cow teams never won a conference title, never went to a bowl, didn't play on national TV. They were one and ten when Bowler was a junior. Bowler, though, piled up big numbers impressive statistics. In four seasons as col starter. He passed for sixty four touchdowns in almost eight thousand yards, and he saved the best for last. He was really good as a senior. The Ravens scouted him and fell in love. Here's Brian Billick, their head coach at the time, who had led the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory just a few years earlier. Whatever box you want to check when you evaluate a quarterback, and there's a lot of different people that'll have different perspectives on that. He checked off every box you could ever want. Strong arm, good athlete, smart, kid, loved the game, had a certain personality that people were drawn to, you know, in terms of that leadership, had plenty of want everything about it. It just for whatever reason, the sum of the parts didn't equal the whole. Ouch. That's tough stuff right there, that last sentence. The sum of the parts didn't equal the whole. I think it calls for a deep dive into exactly what went on. Just months after he was drafted, Bowler opened the two thousand and three season as the Ravens starting quarterback. There was no apprenticeship, no time for him to stand on the sidelines and learn the pro game while he watched others play. The Ravens had three quarterbacks, Chris Redmond and Anthony Wright, two veterans, and Bowler, a rookie. Bowler got the job or he was very confident young man. The one thing with Kyle, when you take a guy that high in the draft, you got to play him. And that's my personal belief as well. You don't learn anything standing on the sideline as a rookie other than how to get to the stadium and where to eat afterwards. He came in with an organization that had been starved at the quarterback position for a long time. The expectations very high. He came to a team that was very good. It is tougher for a young quarterback to come onto a team that is new and struggling, because then they can struggle with you and you build, compared to the pressures that even though you're a rookie and you're going to start, we expect to win. That was the pedigree here. We had been Super Bowl champs, We had a good enough defense in a running game that we expected to win. That's a different environment for a young quarterback to have to step into, compared to one like a Baker Mayfield where he can go out and just play and just throw it up because what what are we going to lose another game? You know? Who cares? Kyle came into a more difficult situation in that regard. At the time, Bowler was proud and excited to begin his NFL career as a starting quarterback on a winning team. When he looks back now, though, he sees the opportunity as the beginning of his struggles. From the get go, I got thrown it right away. I was never ready to play, but obviously Bryan Bill thought I was ready to play. Aside from the fact that he doesn't feel he was ready to be an NFL starting quarterback, a couple of other things who are working against him. He believes there was no mentor on a roster, no successful older quarterback to show him the ropes. Also, while the Ravens were a winning team, their style of play wasn't a perfect fit for a quarterback with a big arm, a guy who wanted to air it out, having to gone to a place where you don't have any veteran there. I mean, I love Chris Revan to death, but if I would have had a Steve McNair to learn from on how to watch tape and what an NFL quarterback schedule and routine is, you know, it would have been very helpful. And then you're coming into a team back in two thousand and three that was heavily defensive predicated basically, just don't lose the game. That's touch to like handcuff a quarterback and be like, you know we're gonna run the ball two times and then they're gonna have third and eight. You know we're gonna have this vanilla offense. But just don't lose the game. Buller started the Ravens first nine games in two thousand and three. There were some struggles typical of a rookie. He threw three interceptions in a Week four loss to Kansas City. Bowler takes the snap, fakes to Lewis, he sets he's throwing the bomb for Heat double cover d Jenet's intercepted to Weeks later, he passed for three hundred yards and three touchdowns against the Bengals. He's thrown the bomb for Travis Taylor or and he's got it, stays in bounds ten five touchdown. Ravens. Bowler with the bomb to Travis Taylor seventy three yards. A couple of so so performances followed, and then he got hurt in Week nine. A thigh injury ended his season, but it didn't end the Ravens season, Anthony Wright took over at quarterback. The offense picked up. This was the year Jamal Lewis ran for more than two thousand yards. The Ravens rode Lewis Right and their defense to a division title. But despite that success with Right, the Ravens stuck by Bowler. They had drafted him in the first round. They still believed you'd develop into a starter they could ride for years. They gave him back the starting job in two thousand and four, and this time he stayed healthy. Started all sixteen games. The Ravens went nine to seven, just missed the playoffs, and Bowler well, he didn't flop, but he didn't knock any one out. He finished the season with twenty five hundred passing yards, thirteen touchdowns, eleven interceptions, and a quarterback rating of seventy point nine that's below the league average. The next year, he got hurt right away in Week one, and the Ravens season went south. While he was out and Right played quarterback. There were two and six when Bowler came back in November. In his first game back, he threw three interceptions in a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars near the end of the two thousand and five season, he had his best games in a Baltimore uniform, playing the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football. He passed for three touchdowns in a forty eight to three romp, easily out dueling a pretty decent quarterback named Brett Farve. Third and goal from the two. Bowler quick drop, close up for heap. He's got a touchdown, bowl or the heap, but two yards score and the Ravens take the lead. The next week, he threw for three touchdowns again as the Ravens beat the Minnesota Vikings on Christmas Night. Vikings lead the game seventeen ten. Bowler has it, blitzes on fires down the middle. Clayton break catch, He's gone all the way, five touchdown Mark Clayton, Bowler throw a laser all of the medal. But after those two great performances, he ended the season with another clunker, throwing a pair of interceptions and no touchdowns in a loss to the Cleveland Browns. That offseason, the Ravens traded for Steve McNair, an accomplished and winning veteran quarterback who led the Tennessee Titans to great heights. There was no doubt what it meant Bowler's time as the number one quarterback was over, which is tough because you bring him in, you nurture him, and you can figure they're all in. But it was part of the combination of where he was and what his development was, how good a team we thought we were because those windows do exist, and to have that veteran presence of Steve McNair and we went thirteen and three that year, and so it bore out pretty good. To have that added experience and abilities of a Steve McNair on a team that we thought the window existed for us to be pretty good. I think that was part of it as well. Obviously Bowler was bummed. Part of him wondered if he should ask to be traded, but he kept quiet and became the number two quarterback, McNair's backup, which gave him a front row seat to one of the Ravens best seasons ever. With McNair under center, they went thirteen and three, won the AFC North earned the number two seat in the AFC playoffs. It all ended with a thud, a bitter home loss to the Indianapolis Colts in a divisional playoff game. But regardless, the move to McNair and away from Bowler was an unqualified success. I think kind of do what they gotta do, and I felt like I could never really get on track. I mean I was given that chance. I played all sixteen games, and that's the big learning curve year. They're starting to bring some guys in. I mean, we got Derek Mason that came in that I feel like he really helped me out, Like i'ming a veteran receiver in there. You know, Jonathan Ogen was still there, so we still had some guys who were kind of building that offensive piece. But yeah, once McNair was able to get in there, I mean Bill had decided that was the best opportunity to do that. Yo, what do you do? Like out of my control, Like I could say, I want to get trade here, I want to do this so you can just see the backup and be the team guy and do your job. And we had a really I think we're thirteen and three that year. I always think that could have been me and there playing, but that's just not the way that it went down. He had one final shot in two thousand and seven, when McNair suffered an injury in the season opener. Initially, things went well in early October. The Ravens were four and two, seemingly set up for another playoff run, but they completely fell apart, losing nine straight games at one point. During the collapse, Bohler went back to the bench. He took his last snap for the Ravens on December sixteenth, two thousand and seven, and an infamous loss to the previously winless Miami Dolphins. I'm not making excuses. It was rough. I had some really good times to Baltimore, b else had some really bad times. I feel like I kind of was always just trying to keep my head above It was kind of up and down with injuries, which doesn't help because you can't get that consistency, and then you're fighting obviously, you're fighting the fans and the media sometimes looking back now, which I was a little bit more mentally tough. I let some of the media and the fans get to me. You know, I tell my son or I give my son advice as he grows up, only believe the people that are in your close circle. You have to be so mentally strong these days with media and all that kind of stuff, because otherwise it'll tear you down. It's not worth it. And I know that for sure because I played for ten years and I let it get to me. And I probably could have played in fifteen years if I didn't let some of that stuff bother me. From Baltimore, Buller moved on to the Saint Louis Rams in two thousand and nine, and then spent two years with the Oakland Raiders. He was by now established as a number two quarterback, the kind you kept around for insurance. He signed with the San Diego Chargers, his hometown team, in twenty twelve, but one day of training camp convinced him it was time to walk away. It's very bizarre, right, I went and talk to the cow football team at all in water and a couple of weeks ago, and these guys are trying to aspire to be where I was. I mean, it played its almost ten years in the NFL, and it started a bunch of games and I live my dream and I'm sitting there telling these guys and hey, the best day of my life was when I stopped playing football. And so it's super bizarre, but it really was like, all right, chapter's kind of done now. And now I'm ready for the next chapter. Maybe it's super bizarre, but at the time it was nothing to shed tears about. Not in this case. At the time, Bowler was almost giddy about his career ending. My number one thing off the get go is like, listen, I'm gonna play golf and I'm gonna hang out with my kids and hang out my family. That was the initial reaction to like being retired. I don't listen any coaches, have to listen to anybody tell me where to be at any time, and I get to spend a lot, a bunch of time with my family. He was a young man, just thirty one. He'd given a little bit of thought to what he might want to do after football, but honestly not a lot of thought, and one reason for the delay was some advice he received from, of all people, Ravens owner Steve Bischotti. Buller can't recall exactly which year it was that Bashotti came and spoke to the team. Buller's second or third year in Baltimore, he guesses, so two thousand and four or two thousand and five, It doesn't really matter. What mattered in the long run was what Bashotti said Steve Bischotti came and spoke to the team and after the practice and basically just told guys like, listen, you have an opportunity here to play football. I know a lot of guys you're gonna have opportunities to start businesses and to start restaurants and gyms and different things. I'm just telling you right now, me as a business guy like I will crush you in anything that you get into because I get to spend twenty four hours, seven days a week doing business. You guys are doing sports. It happens so often to guys where they'll invest in something a restaurant or this kind of stuff while they're playing, and they'll they'll end up getting screwed because they're not there, Like they don't understand what is to run a business. You know. The advice that I took from when he spoke that day after practice was just focus on what you're doing now and what you can control, and give one hundred and ten percents of your football, and then there'll be life after football where you can spend all that time on the business. When I started my own business, you know, I was able to spend the time to kind of do that. It took him a couple of years, but Bohler eventually settled on what he wanted to do. He'd watched his father in law beat cancer. He and his wine were into being healthy, eating right. With help from more experienced people in the health food industry, the kind of mentors he'd lacked in football, he developed a nutritional bar and put it on the market. It was tougher than it sounds. The recipe had to be just right. Bowler worked to get the bar into stores. The competition was fierce, and I learned a ton, but you know, I kind of threw myself in there. And unfortunately, it's a super saturated industry and it's hard to sell healthy stuff sometimes, and you know, I learned a lot. I got to do that for about three years, but unfortunately I had to let it go for a bunch of different reasons. My goal originally was to do the bar and then grown into a bunch of other healthy, natural products. But you know, in that business, if you're starting a bar company, any listeners out there, good luck, there's so many There's so many things that go into it from shelf life to have to produce a ton of them and then get rid of a ton of them at the same time. But you know, it is what it is. I learned a ton from it. Basically got my business degree just by throwing myself in and said, you do go to business school. Yeah, it was, it was good. The end of his nutritional bar business put him back in the position of wondering what he'd do next, and he's still in that position. He doesn't lack for ideas. I've dabbled on a couple of different things, believe it or not. It's actually putting together my own podcast right now. And I have a relationship with a lot of other athletes, and I always feel like people sometimes don't really understand, you know, what it is to be an athlete. People can put you on a pedestal as like you're this different person, but we're all the same, you know. We all wake up and brush our teeth and you know, have families and deal with sele and stuff like that. So I thought it would be cool to spring guys on my show and just talk about what it is like kind of behind the curtain. That's kind of a little side project that I'm working on right now. But it's tough, you know, when you go from playing football, especially being an NFL quarterback. It's a real transition for guys to find out what their next passion is. And you know, I've had time to sit in my office on my green sport and you know, try and go over this and that, and you know, but sometimes it's not as easy as it's like, hey, what do you want to get into? And you've got to kind of just navigate through that to figure out what it is. I've done some real estate stuff, and you know, I definitely stay busy. I've made some good financial excisions. I've been smart with my money. You know, I'm not forced to go grab a job and make a couple hundred grand a year. I have the luxury of being able to really focus on what I want to get into. I'm in that position. That's not the case for a lot of guys. You know. It's an eighty percent of the guys after five years of being in the NFL or bankrupt and seventy five percent are divorced. You know, I'm definitely not that category. I listened to Steve Ashatti, what he talked. It always shocked me. I think the day that he talked there's probably half of the guys there, Like how every single guy wasn't there listening to this multi successful guy speak to the team one. That one always kind of shocked me. But yeah, I mean, I'm I'm in a good place. Okay, let's go behind the curtain again. Here's a rough cut from my conversation with Brian Billick about Bowler. He's a great guy. He's happy in life, he's married and kids. He is I think, and it took a while to unpeel this as we spoke. I think he's a little I don't know if I can use bitter the word, But he looks back on it like it's not his favorite memory what happened here? No one, it wouldn't be because it didn't go well and and for a lot of different reasons, and and you'd expect that. But yeah, he is a good young man and he takes on his responsibility. I'd take responsibility for it. Of whatever, you know, I could have done differently to make it, make it happen for him. Maybe we'd ahead different career if he weren't put in a position where he had that responsibility, in that expectation early. You know, like you said, it's the good news, bad news. The good news is, gosh, they think highly enough that I'm a top twenty pick in the NFL draft. The bad news is, oh my god, now I got to perform like a top twenty pick in the NFL draft. It's hard to believe that sixteen years have passed since the Ravens drafted Bowler and made him their starting quarterback. The fact that he's still not even forty tells you he was really young then in those years when he was at the center of the storm. I try not to think about it too much sometimes when the draft stuff comes around and he Sometimes it's so funny because there's so many people that are such haters, people that will try and say that I was the worst draft pick that Baltimore Ravens ever had. And I kind of laughed for myself. If I'm the worst draft pick that the Ravens ever had, then why the hell did they sign me to two contracts? Not one, but two. People Forget I restructured my contract. They could have got rid of me after whatever another two year extension to my original deal. When you hear some of the comments, I mean, I had a good relationship with Brian Billick, but some of the stuff, like listening to him talk about on the TV and saying, oh, I still have a job, it wasn't for me, and blah blah blah. It's like it's almost laughable to me. The fact that Bowler tries not to think about his NFL career too much says something about how it went. But don't misunderstand where he's coming from. He is proud that he made it that far, proud of what went right, and no doubt he would do it all again. Physically, I have my deal. I get really bad sciatica in my back. Some of the mornings I'll start filling the shoulders and I mean I had three three shoulder surgeries. But for the most part, you know, I'm a pretty healthy guy. I'm very active. You know, I work out a lot now and probably stronger than I've ever been. You know, I eat a lot better and healthier than I ever used to do. I'm in a good place, man. I You know, I live in a beautiful city in San Diego and have a beautiful family and supportive life and you know, two great kids. His life is good. It was all worth it, you know what I mean. Playing you have you'r up year down. You know, I started tackle football six and my dream was grown up to play on Monday night football. And you know I was able to do that many times against some really good teams. And even though there was there was a struggle for me, I still got nine credited seasons in and met some really great people along the way. I mean, I still have a great relationship with ste Bichell and guy looked up, look to look up to a business and and the way he's raised his kids in the organization that he's built. So I've got a lot of good things out Baltimore. And you know, obviously I'll always told it could spot in my heart for there twenty percent of the fans hate me. Good for them, I don't know. There's a lot of people in Baltimore that do appreciate me, and you know I have to have been good to me. There you have it, episode three of what Happened to That Guy? I want to thank Kyle for agreeing to talk and being so candid. He knew it wouldn't be a warm stroll down memory lane, but he went for it anyway, which I appreciate. You can find out more about him in his career at Baltimore Ravens dot Com slash What Happened to that Guy? Another new episode of the podcast will drop in two weeks, and they'll keep coming every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season. I hope you keep listening. If you like what you're hearing, don't hesitate to leave a five star rating or write a review. Also subscribe to it so you don't miss any episodes. All that helps. This podcast and The Lounge, the excellent weekly podcast from my colleagues Ryan Make and Garrett Downing, are part of the Baltimore Ravens podcast network. You can tell people just search for that wherever you get your podcasts, Baltimore Ravens Podcasts and network, and everything will come up. This is John Eisenberg. I'll talk with you again in two weeks.

Greetings, and welcome to What Happened to That Guy? A Ravens podcast about former players and life after football. I'm your host, John Eisenberg. If you listen to the first two episodes featuring Jermaine Lewis and Peter Bullware, I want to thank you. To show my appreciation, I'm going to take you behind the curtain here at the start of episode number three. My subject is Kyle Boehler, the former first round draft pick and starting quarterback who in two thousand and three was handed the keys to the Ravens offense, practically the keys to the entire franchise. Actually he was twenty two years old. As you may know, he didn't quite live up to expectations, but he was in Baltimore for six years. He started forty two games, signed two contracts, and he ranked second in franchise history in most of the major passing statistical categories, trailing only Joe Flacco. I thought it would be interesting to find out what Kyle is up to now, how he's doing, so I called him, and here's where I'll take you behind the curtain and let you see and hear how the sausage gets made, so to speak. Here at the Baltimore Ravens podcast network. Here's a raw recording of the start of my phone conversation with Kyle five. Is that good? Yeah? Hello? Hey? Is this Kyle y? Hey, it's John Eisenmerre calling from Baltimore. Hey, John, how are you doing, Buddy good? How are you doing? I'm doing good? Man. Is this a good time for you? Yeah? I got to take the old wife car into the dealership today, so jump on earlier, better for me. Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem at all. Interviewing athletes on the phone is one of the basic requirements of writing and talking about sports. When people ask me for a job description, what I do? I tell them A. I drive to and from airports. B. I talked to athletes on the phone and c in between doing those other two things. Occasionally I write. I've interviewed hundreds of sports figures on the phone, athletes, coaches, former athletes, owners. Most were cooperative, but some were, shall we say, not quite as enthusiastic about the conversation as me. Don't get me wrong, they weren't outright rude, but it was clear they would rather be doing something other than talking to a guy with a bunch of questions. They looked forward to the point where we wrap things up. Kyle Boehler, you may have noticed, could not have been more enthusiastic or pleasant. He is thirty eight years old, now happily married with two young kids. He made quite a bit of money in football Tom Brady money, but enough that he doesn't have to get up every morning and hustle off to an office job. He lives in San Diego, a beautiful place. In between taking his two kids to school in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon. He plays a lot of golf. When we spoke, I envisioned him sitting in his kitchen morning sunlight streaming in blue skies and flowers outside a classic California scene. Bowler was, still is, and will always be, a California kid, so to speak. He grew up in Burbank near Los Angeles. He played his college ball at cal Berkeley. When he settled down, he married, wait for it, a former Miss California. You heard him right. I'm doing good, man, doing really good. One of the reasons Kyle Bowler is doing so well now, no question is he isn't in the NFL anymore. I started tap a football and I was six years old. For me, the day that I did retire, it was one of the best days of my life. The world was lifted off my shoulders. When you play that long, I was mentally, physically and emotionally burnt out of it. Never got cut, never got traded. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna glad on my own terms. Did you hear what he said the day he retired was one of the best days of his life. You go through so much as a player from an emotional and physical and mental standpoint. For me, once that all ended, I knew that I didn't really have to do that anymore. It was just freeing for me of anything I've ever done in my whole life. Was like, all right, chapter's kind of done now, and now I'm ready for the next chapter. I might be wrong, but I don't think that many players feel the same way about the end of their careers. Playing in the NFL is rough stuff, no question, but the pay is good and you're in the brightest spotlights. It's exciting. There are definitely some privileges. Most guys are in no hurry to give it up. In fact, they dres At the end, all I've ever done is played football. They can't imagine doing anything else. Buller didn't say this, but I got the feeling his ten years in the league felt like a hundred to him. The whole time he faced a rugged opponent that harassed him like a Pro Bowl pass rusher. Only his opponent wasn't intangible. Something he couldn't see or touch. That opponent was the burden of great expectations. In the two thousand and three NFL Draft, the Ravens took two guys in the first round as the number ten and number nineteen overall selections. The Ravens were coming off a season in which they went seven and nine with Chris Redman and Jeff Blake at quarterback. They were looking for new blood, a young guy who could grab the position Bible lapels and make it his own. They were looking for a star. With the first of those first round picks, number ten overall, they took a linebacker from Arizona State. His name was Terrell Suggs. They had considered trading up to get a quarterback they liked Byron Leftwich from Marshall, but they couldn't make it happen. An hour or so later into the first round, they did trade up, sending a pair of high draft choices to the New England Patriots for the number nineteen overall pick, which they used to select Bowler. The Sugs pick was a home run. He would end up playing for the Ravens for sixteen years, setting a franchise record for sacks that may last forever. A lot of experts think he'll make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It wouldn't surprise me in the least, But at the time, the Bowler pick was a bigger deal, a much bigger deal, breaking news. The Ravens have a new quarterback, But who was he? Only Baltimore fans who closely followed the draft had ever heard of Bowler. He played on the West Coast. His cow teams never won a conference title, never went to a bowl, didn't play on national TV. They were one and ten when Bowler was a junior. Bowler, though, piled up big numbers impressive statistics. In four seasons as col starter. He passed for sixty four touchdowns in almost eight thousand yards, and he saved the best for last. He was really good as a senior. The Ravens scouted him and fell in love. Here's Brian Billick, their head coach at the time, who had led the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory just a few years earlier. Whatever box you want to check when you evaluate a quarterback, and there's a lot of different people that'll have different perspectives on that. He checked off every box you could ever want. Strong arm, good athlete, smart, kid, loved the game, had a certain personality that people were drawn to, you know, in terms of that leadership, had plenty of want everything about it. It just for whatever reason, the sum of the parts didn't equal the whole. Ouch. That's tough stuff right there, that last sentence. The sum of the parts didn't equal the whole. I think it calls for a deep dive into exactly what went on. Just months after he was drafted, Bowler opened the two thousand and three season as the Ravens starting quarterback. There was no apprenticeship, no time for him to stand on the sidelines and learn the pro game while he watched others play. The Ravens had three quarterbacks, Chris Redmond and Anthony Wright, two veterans, and Bowler, a rookie. Bowler got the job or he was very confident young man. The one thing with Kyle, when you take a guy that high in the draft, you got to play him. And that's my personal belief as well. You don't learn anything standing on the sideline as a rookie other than how to get to the stadium and where to eat afterwards. He came in with an organization that had been starved at the quarterback position for a long time. The expectations very high. He came to a team that was very good. It is tougher for a young quarterback to come onto a team that is new and struggling, because then they can struggle with you and you build, compared to the pressures that even though you're a rookie and you're going to start, we expect to win. That was the pedigree here. We had been Super Bowl champs, We had a good enough defense in a running game that we expected to win. That's a different environment for a young quarterback to have to step into, compared to one like a Baker Mayfield where he can go out and just play and just throw it up because what what are we going to lose another game? You know? Who cares? Kyle came into a more difficult situation in that regard. At the time, Bowler was proud and excited to begin his NFL career as a starting quarterback on a winning team. When he looks back now, though, he sees the opportunity as the beginning of his struggles. From the get go, I got thrown it right away. I was never ready to play, but obviously Bryan Bill thought I was ready to play. Aside from the fact that he doesn't feel he was ready to be an NFL starting quarterback, a couple of other things who are working against him. He believes there was no mentor on a roster, no successful older quarterback to show him the ropes. Also, while the Ravens were a winning team, their style of play wasn't a perfect fit for a quarterback with a big arm, a guy who wanted to air it out, having to gone to a place where you don't have any veteran there. I mean, I love Chris Revan to death, but if I would have had a Steve McNair to learn from on how to watch tape and what an NFL quarterback schedule and routine is, you know, it would have been very helpful. And then you're coming into a team back in two thousand and three that was heavily defensive predicated basically, just don't lose the game. That's touch to like handcuff a quarterback and be like, you know we're gonna run the ball two times and then they're gonna have third and eight. You know we're gonna have this vanilla offense. But just don't lose the game. Buller started the Ravens first nine games in two thousand and three. There were some struggles typical of a rookie. He threw three interceptions in a Week four loss to Kansas City. Bowler takes the snap, fakes to Lewis, he sets he's throwing the bomb for Heat double cover d Jenet's intercepted to Weeks later, he passed for three hundred yards and three touchdowns against the Bengals. He's thrown the bomb for Travis Taylor or and he's got it, stays in bounds ten five touchdown. Ravens. Bowler with the bomb to Travis Taylor seventy three yards. A couple of so so performances followed, and then he got hurt in Week nine. A thigh injury ended his season, but it didn't end the Ravens season, Anthony Wright took over at quarterback. The offense picked up. This was the year Jamal Lewis ran for more than two thousand yards. The Ravens rode Lewis Right and their defense to a division title. But despite that success with Right, the Ravens stuck by Bowler. They had drafted him in the first round. They still believed you'd develop into a starter they could ride for years. They gave him back the starting job in two thousand and four, and this time he stayed healthy. Started all sixteen games. The Ravens went nine to seven, just missed the playoffs, and Bowler well, he didn't flop, but he didn't knock any one out. He finished the season with twenty five hundred passing yards, thirteen touchdowns, eleven interceptions, and a quarterback rating of seventy point nine that's below the league average. The next year, he got hurt right away in Week one, and the Ravens season went south. While he was out and Right played quarterback. There were two and six when Bowler came back in November. In his first game back, he threw three interceptions in a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars near the end of the two thousand and five season, he had his best games in a Baltimore uniform, playing the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football. He passed for three touchdowns in a forty eight to three romp, easily out dueling a pretty decent quarterback named Brett Farve. Third and goal from the two. Bowler quick drop, close up for heap. He's got a touchdown, bowl or the heap, but two yards score and the Ravens take the lead. The next week, he threw for three touchdowns again as the Ravens beat the Minnesota Vikings on Christmas Night. Vikings lead the game seventeen ten. Bowler has it, blitzes on fires down the middle. Clayton break catch, He's gone all the way, five touchdown Mark Clayton, Bowler throw a laser all of the medal. But after those two great performances, he ended the season with another clunker, throwing a pair of interceptions and no touchdowns in a loss to the Cleveland Browns. That offseason, the Ravens traded for Steve McNair, an accomplished and winning veteran quarterback who led the Tennessee Titans to great heights. There was no doubt what it meant Bowler's time as the number one quarterback was over, which is tough because you bring him in, you nurture him, and you can figure they're all in. But it was part of the combination of where he was and what his development was, how good a team we thought we were because those windows do exist, and to have that veteran presence of Steve McNair and we went thirteen and three that year, and so it bore out pretty good. To have that added experience and abilities of a Steve McNair on a team that we thought the window existed for us to be pretty good. I think that was part of it as well. Obviously Bowler was bummed. Part of him wondered if he should ask to be traded, but he kept quiet and became the number two quarterback, McNair's backup, which gave him a front row seat to one of the Ravens best seasons ever. With McNair under center, they went thirteen and three, won the AFC North earned the number two seat in the AFC playoffs. It all ended with a thud, a bitter home loss to the Indianapolis Colts in a divisional playoff game. But regardless, the move to McNair and away from Bowler was an unqualified success. I think kind of do what they gotta do, and I felt like I could never really get on track. I mean I was given that chance. I played all sixteen games, and that's the big learning curve year. They're starting to bring some guys in. I mean, we got Derek Mason that came in that I feel like he really helped me out, Like i'ming a veteran receiver in there. You know, Jonathan Ogen was still there, so we still had some guys who were kind of building that offensive piece. But yeah, once McNair was able to get in there, I mean Bill had decided that was the best opportunity to do that. Yo, what do you do? Like out of my control, Like I could say, I want to get trade here, I want to do this so you can just see the backup and be the team guy and do your job. And we had a really I think we're thirteen and three that year. I always think that could have been me and there playing, but that's just not the way that it went down. He had one final shot in two thousand and seven, when McNair suffered an injury in the season opener. Initially, things went well in early October. The Ravens were four and two, seemingly set up for another playoff run, but they completely fell apart, losing nine straight games at one point. During the collapse, Bohler went back to the bench. He took his last snap for the Ravens on December sixteenth, two thousand and seven, and an infamous loss to the previously winless Miami Dolphins. I'm not making excuses. It was rough. I had some really good times to Baltimore, b else had some really bad times. I feel like I kind of was always just trying to keep my head above It was kind of up and down with injuries, which doesn't help because you can't get that consistency, and then you're fighting obviously, you're fighting the fans and the media sometimes looking back now, which I was a little bit more mentally tough. I let some of the media and the fans get to me. You know, I tell my son or I give my son advice as he grows up, only believe the people that are in your close circle. You have to be so mentally strong these days with media and all that kind of stuff, because otherwise it'll tear you down. It's not worth it. And I know that for sure because I played for ten years and I let it get to me. And I probably could have played in fifteen years if I didn't let some of that stuff bother me. From Baltimore, Buller moved on to the Saint Louis Rams in two thousand and nine, and then spent two years with the Oakland Raiders. He was by now established as a number two quarterback, the kind you kept around for insurance. He signed with the San Diego Chargers, his hometown team, in twenty twelve, but one day of training camp convinced him it was time to walk away. It's very bizarre, right, I went and talk to the cow football team at all in water and a couple of weeks ago, and these guys are trying to aspire to be where I was. I mean, it played its almost ten years in the NFL, and it started a bunch of games and I live my dream and I'm sitting there telling these guys and hey, the best day of my life was when I stopped playing football. And so it's super bizarre, but it really was like, all right, chapter's kind of done now. And now I'm ready for the next chapter. Maybe it's super bizarre, but at the time it was nothing to shed tears about. Not in this case. At the time, Bowler was almost giddy about his career ending. My number one thing off the get go is like, listen, I'm gonna play golf and I'm gonna hang out with my kids and hang out my family. That was the initial reaction to like being retired. I don't listen any coaches, have to listen to anybody tell me where to be at any time, and I get to spend a lot, a bunch of time with my family. He was a young man, just thirty one. He'd given a little bit of thought to what he might want to do after football, but honestly not a lot of thought, and one reason for the delay was some advice he received from, of all people, Ravens owner Steve Bischotti. Buller can't recall exactly which year it was that Bashotti came and spoke to the team. Buller's second or third year in Baltimore, he guesses, so two thousand and four or two thousand and five, It doesn't really matter. What mattered in the long run was what Bashotti said Steve Bischotti came and spoke to the team and after the practice and basically just told guys like, listen, you have an opportunity here to play football. I know a lot of guys you're gonna have opportunities to start businesses and to start restaurants and gyms and different things. I'm just telling you right now, me as a business guy like I will crush you in anything that you get into because I get to spend twenty four hours, seven days a week doing business. You guys are doing sports. It happens so often to guys where they'll invest in something a restaurant or this kind of stuff while they're playing, and they'll they'll end up getting screwed because they're not there, Like they don't understand what is to run a business. You know. The advice that I took from when he spoke that day after practice was just focus on what you're doing now and what you can control, and give one hundred and ten percents of your football, and then there'll be life after football where you can spend all that time on the business. When I started my own business, you know, I was able to spend the time to kind of do that. It took him a couple of years, but Bohler eventually settled on what he wanted to do. He'd watched his father in law beat cancer. He and his wine were into being healthy, eating right. With help from more experienced people in the health food industry, the kind of mentors he'd lacked in football, he developed a nutritional bar and put it on the market. It was tougher than it sounds. The recipe had to be just right. Bowler worked to get the bar into stores. The competition was fierce, and I learned a ton, but you know, I kind of threw myself in there. And unfortunately, it's a super saturated industry and it's hard to sell healthy stuff sometimes, and you know, I learned a lot. I got to do that for about three years, but unfortunately I had to let it go for a bunch of different reasons. My goal originally was to do the bar and then grown into a bunch of other healthy, natural products. But you know, in that business, if you're starting a bar company, any listeners out there, good luck, there's so many There's so many things that go into it from shelf life to have to produce a ton of them and then get rid of a ton of them at the same time. But you know, it is what it is. I learned a ton from it. Basically got my business degree just by throwing myself in and said, you do go to business school. Yeah, it was, it was good. The end of his nutritional bar business put him back in the position of wondering what he'd do next, and he's still in that position. He doesn't lack for ideas. I've dabbled on a couple of different things, believe it or not. It's actually putting together my own podcast right now. And I have a relationship with a lot of other athletes, and I always feel like people sometimes don't really understand, you know, what it is to be an athlete. People can put you on a pedestal as like you're this different person, but we're all the same, you know. We all wake up and brush our teeth and you know, have families and deal with sele and stuff like that. So I thought it would be cool to spring guys on my show and just talk about what it is like kind of behind the curtain. That's kind of a little side project that I'm working on right now. But it's tough, you know, when you go from playing football, especially being an NFL quarterback. It's a real transition for guys to find out what their next passion is. And you know, I've had time to sit in my office on my green sport and you know, try and go over this and that, and you know, but sometimes it's not as easy as it's like, hey, what do you want to get into? And you've got to kind of just navigate through that to figure out what it is. I've done some real estate stuff, and you know, I definitely stay busy. I've made some good financial excisions. I've been smart with my money. You know, I'm not forced to go grab a job and make a couple hundred grand a year. I have the luxury of being able to really focus on what I want to get into. I'm in that position. That's not the case for a lot of guys. You know. It's an eighty percent of the guys after five years of being in the NFL or bankrupt and seventy five percent are divorced. You know, I'm definitely not that category. I listened to Steve Ashatti, what he talked. It always shocked me. I think the day that he talked there's probably half of the guys there, Like how every single guy wasn't there listening to this multi successful guy speak to the team one. That one always kind of shocked me. But yeah, I mean, I'm I'm in a good place. Okay, let's go behind the curtain again. Here's a rough cut from my conversation with Brian Billick about Bowler. He's a great guy. He's happy in life, he's married and kids. He is I think, and it took a while to unpeel this as we spoke. I think he's a little I don't know if I can use bitter the word, But he looks back on it like it's not his favorite memory what happened here? No one, it wouldn't be because it didn't go well and and for a lot of different reasons, and and you'd expect that. But yeah, he is a good young man and he takes on his responsibility. I'd take responsibility for it. Of whatever, you know, I could have done differently to make it, make it happen for him. Maybe we'd ahead different career if he weren't put in a position where he had that responsibility, in that expectation early. You know, like you said, it's the good news, bad news. The good news is, gosh, they think highly enough that I'm a top twenty pick in the NFL draft. The bad news is, oh my god, now I got to perform like a top twenty pick in the NFL draft. It's hard to believe that sixteen years have passed since the Ravens drafted Bowler and made him their starting quarterback. The fact that he's still not even forty tells you he was really young then in those years when he was at the center of the storm. I try not to think about it too much sometimes when the draft stuff comes around and he Sometimes it's so funny because there's so many people that are such haters, people that will try and say that I was the worst draft pick that Baltimore Ravens ever had. And I kind of laughed for myself. If I'm the worst draft pick that the Ravens ever had, then why the hell did they sign me to two contracts? Not one, but two. People Forget I restructured my contract. They could have got rid of me after whatever another two year extension to my original deal. When you hear some of the comments, I mean, I had a good relationship with Brian Billick, but some of the stuff, like listening to him talk about on the TV and saying, oh, I still have a job, it wasn't for me, and blah blah blah. It's like it's almost laughable to me. The fact that Bowler tries not to think about his NFL career too much says something about how it went. But don't misunderstand where he's coming from. He is proud that he made it that far, proud of what went right, and no doubt he would do it all again. Physically, I have my deal. I get really bad sciatica in my back. Some of the mornings I'll start filling the shoulders and I mean I had three three shoulder surgeries. But for the most part, you know, I'm a pretty healthy guy. I'm very active. You know, I work out a lot now and probably stronger than I've ever been. You know, I eat a lot better and healthier than I ever used to do. I'm in a good place, man. I You know, I live in a beautiful city in San Diego and have a beautiful family and supportive life and you know, two great kids. His life is good. It was all worth it, you know what I mean. Playing you have you'r up year down. You know, I started tackle football six and my dream was grown up to play on Monday night football. And you know I was able to do that many times against some really good teams. And even though there was there was a struggle for me, I still got nine credited seasons in and met some really great people along the way. I mean, I still have a great relationship with ste Bichell and guy looked up, look to look up to a business and and the way he's raised his kids in the organization that he's built. So I've got a lot of good things out Baltimore. And you know, obviously I'll always told it could spot in my heart for there twenty percent of the fans hate me. Good for them, I don't know. There's a lot of people in Baltimore that do appreciate me, and you know I have to have been good to me. There you have it, episode three of what Happened to That Guy? I want to thank Kyle for agreeing to talk and being so candid. He knew it wouldn't be a warm stroll down memory lane, but he went for it anyway, which I appreciate. You can find out more about him in his career at Baltimore Ravens dot Com slash What Happened to that Guy? Another new episode of the podcast will drop in two weeks, and they'll keep coming every other week for the rest of the twenty nineteen season. I hope you keep listening. If you like what you're hearing, don't hesitate to leave a five star rating or write a review. Also subscribe to it so you don't miss any episodes. All that helps. This podcast and The Lounge, the excellent weekly podcast from my colleagues Ryan Make and Garrett Downing, are part of the Baltimore Ravens podcast network. You can tell people just search for that wherever you get your podcasts, Baltimore Ravens Podcasts and network, and everything will come up. This is John Eisenberg. I'll talk with you again in two weeks.