Interesting to see it as a negative:

TROY SMITH TO START FOR THE RAVENS?
Posted by Mike Florio on July 19, 2008, 5:16 p.m.

There’s scuttlebutt in Baltimore that, even though rookie first-round quarterback Joe Flacco ready to hit the ground running from the start of training camp, Flacco won’t be the starter to start the season.

Instead, the grapevine is pointing to 2006 Heisman winner Troy Smith, a fifth-round pick in 2007 who saw very limited action as a rookie.

As we hear it, there are concerns that the offensive line isn’t ready to protect the signal-caller on a consistent basis, and that the team doesn’t want to expose Flacco to a consistent pounding.

Still, the risk is that, if Smith plays well and the team is in the hunt for the playoffs come November, the Ravens could find themselves in a Browns-style pickle, with Smith playing the role of Derek Anderson and Flacco starring as Brady Quinn.

So we think the better approach is to get Flacco ready, and to let him play, sooner rather than later.

quote:

Originally posted by shepwrite:
So we think the better approach is to get Flacco ready, and to let him play, sooner rather than later.

2 schools of thought when it comes to QBs, and this is one of them, and I disagree with it. But bring his rookie ass on.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Florio:
and the team is in the hunt for the playoffs come November

Sorry shep, couldn't get past how funny this is.

I'm not burying them until #52 retires. As much as I'd like to.

I'm not burying anybody in our conference just yet.

The Ravens situation could only be considered "Browns-style" if they had an offense anywhere nearly as potent as ours.

They have McGahee and Heap and that's it. They don't have the line or the receivers that we do.

Which brings us back again to the recurring theme of this discussion: this is an absolute FIRST in the NFL.

NO OTHER TEAM has EVER had this situation, with this many #1 picks littered throughout the offense and a CAREER BACKUP given the helm.

In our situation, we simply do not know if the horse is pulling the cart or the cart is pushing the horse.

But we're going to find out...and SOON...

2 years ago thet were 13-3. I am not burying the Ravens either. Them and the Raiders could surprise some folks.

quote:

Originally posted by shepwrite:
I'm not burying them until #52 retires. As much as I'd like to.

I'm not burying anybody in our conference just yet.

I agree. I don't care what the papers say, and what our hearts might tell us...until we can consistently punk them on the field, all teams in the division are as good as we are.

When you draft a small school QB who's played in a mostly-shotgun system, you have to accept that the guy isn't going to start Week One.

Beyond that, Flacco has a reputation for not seeing edge rushers coming at him, which makes rushing him onto the field even more risky.

So I'd imagine the Ravens would like to let their o-line get used to playing together before putting him on the field.

But I think the Ravens' schedule may force them to start Flacco early or not at all. Normally, waiting until the bye week to install a rookie QB makes the most sense, but that may not work for two reasons.

First, the Ravens' bye isn't until Week Ten; if Troy Smith doesn't produce, it'll be hard to wait that long before playing Flacco.

Second, all of their NFC East games come after the bye. So if they get to the bye without playing Flacco, perhaps they'll let Smith or Boller face those tough defenses.

So it's hard to know when Flacco might start, though it seems like Week One wouldn't be a good idea.

Maybe we could send the Ravens back there QB?

I would trade DA for Troy Smith in a minute!

quote:

Originally posted by mz:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Florio:
and the team is in the hunt for the playoffs come November

Sorry shep, couldn't get past how funny this is.

Believe it or not DD - they were 13-3 as recently as 2006. Therefore, if they can find QBing more functional than Kyle Boller - we better not take them lightly.

As it is, they came WAY too close to beating us in the rematch. The way we overcame Dumb Ass' TD pass to Ray Lewis was because Kyle Boller out-Bollered DA with 3 turnovers of his own. If there wasn't instant replay or Dawson did a bad impersonation of Tom Dempsey going long distance - we LOSE that give-me hearing DA got no help from 21 other starters and STs.

EVEN Charlie Frye beat Kyle Boller to close our 2005 season with a W. I'm gonna miss that Kyle Boller playing Kris Kringle to the AFC North.
- Tom F.

quote:

Originally posted by Mr. T:
Maybe we could send the Ravens back there QB?

I would trade DA for Troy Smith in a minute!

You would trade a QB who played in the Pro Bowl for one who has never started a game and is 6'?

quote:

Originally posted by shepwrite:
Still, the risk is that, if Smith plays well and the team is in the hunt for the playoffs come November, the Ravens could find themselves in a Browns-style pickle, with Smith playing the role of Derek Anderson and Flacco starring as Brady Quinn.

Let's see...one guy threw 29 TDs last year, the other lost to the Dolphins. And he's about as tall as Joe Morris. And he's got that weird Kirby Puckett cross-eye thing going, which doesn't mean anything, it's just...unsettling. The whole "in the hunt for the playoffs" thing is also misleading, given the Ravens' history. If they're in the playoffs winning games 10-7, and the offense goes a month without scoring a touchdown, it'll be hard to make the argument that you don't want to upset the cart.

Here's why I hate you, Shep--you're one of the only people on the board who can draw me into this loathesome debate. Here's a question that is related to the original article in terms of the chronology of the season. If Anderson goes out on week one and throws three TDs, no picks, and the team wins, how much do you want to bet that there will be at least ten posters on the board pointing out that the games that really count will be at the end of the season? And, going a step further, how many of those same posters will be on the board DEMANDING that Quinn start if Anderson goes out the next week and throws three picks, win or lose?

Dennis

quote:

Originally posted by Dawgtracker:

quote:

Originally posted by Mr. T:
Maybe we could send the Ravens back there QB?

I would trade DA for Troy Smith in a minute!

You would trade a QB who played in the Pro Bowl for one who has never started a game and is 6'?

Tracker, it's not like we didn't get DA for the market value of an open bag of stale potato chips. On top of that, we have a first round draft pick performing rather impressively this offseason to shed some light that last preseason's upstaging of Frye and Anderson was hardly a fluke. You're either accurate or you're not. DA finished BAD and his Pro Bowl performance with the conference best at all positions using OUR offense made him look like the ONLY AFC QB that wasn't worthy of participating in that game. Unless 10 of 26 knocks your socks off. I would think the way he CLOSED 2007 would be more of a concern to those that aren't here just for De-rack. I'm not throwing you in the Stupid-4-Cupid-QB crowd Tracker - I just think there's more to the trend of our last 8 games than stuck on pause over 29 TDs and the weak schedule permits.

Kurt Warner once turned worst into first overnight and he didn't STOP at midseason and turn into a lesser QB. He had 41 TD Passes when there weren't all these gay restrictions on DBs downfield. There's ALOT of hint he WAS Kurt Warner but the Rams finished the job instead of turning into Cinderella after midnight.
- Tom F.

quote:

Here's why I hate you, Shep

I would far prefer that you hate me because I'm beautiful.

Hey, it's a fun debate. As sports go, it's definitely classic drama.

quote:

Originally posted by Dencyguy:
If Anderson goes out on week one and throws three TDs, no picks, and the team wins, how much do you want to bet that there will be at least ten posters on the board pointing out that the games that really count will be at the end of the season? And, going a step further, how many of those same posters will be on the board DEMANDING that Quinn start if Anderson goes out the next week and throws three picks, win or lose?
Dennis

I hear what you're saying Dennis. That said, DA had 2 completely different trends in 2007. His final 8 games produced 12 TDs and 10 INTs as well as some big game stage-fright in Cincy. As we closed the season, we were looking to instant replay for CPR in Baltimore and as much as we WANT to credit DA as the winning QB. Overcoming his TD pass to Ray Lewis was MORE from causing Boller to fumble twice and throw an int against our maligned defense. We can PRETEND the Baltimore offense without Todd Heap while looking to a 34 year old WR like Mason was MORE than what our QB had to work with but it wasn't.

If NFL Execs and Head Coaches live and die by their choices in starting QBs - Brian Billick (the Randy Moss-induced offensive genious from Minnesota) looked miserable gagging and walking the plank with Kyle Boller. Air McNair had them 13-3 just a year ago.

Early on DA was very pleasant surprise many of our opponents weren't ready for. However, when we started hearing "must-win" or talk of "clinching playoff spot" the performance level dropped.

And while MANY have stated it doesn't matter WHO you beat as long as you BEAT teams. Well, there's a couple AFC Teams with 10 wins either beat us head to head twice OR could go 4-2 in their own division and win more games in the conference. SOME of that involved beating playoff caliber teams.

There's a reason they say you draft to beat the teams in your division. I think if we're focusing on winning the division, we need to have a roster capable of doing so. Last year, in the rematch. Cribbs had 2 returns of 97 yards or more. Outside of that, our entire second half, was 1-2-3-punt except for the time we fumbled the ball back to Pitt. Those giddy about blaming the D chose NOT to see we never got a single first down in half two until the final minute of the game as DA went 16 of 35 for 123 yards passing. Back to that concept of handling pressure and BIG stage - we're going to excuse that Pitt game because of our week 2 explosion at Cincy (7-9) and our ability to score at will on bad teams like St Louis and Miami. There's 11 of the 29 TD passes in 3 of our 16 games as well DA's top passer ratings.

I've never once seen us play a schedule where there's only 3 teams (one we played twice) that won more than 8 games so it DOES matter some WHO we're playing. That matters everywhere they play football on the weekends. You're in SEC Country at UT so you're learning WHERE Ohio State stands. Is it nice they've been undefeated heading into 2 National Champsionship Games? To an extent but what's the question they always ask where you go to school now? "Yaaa, who'd they beat?" And why do they ask that question? Because there are BETTER teams that played a better caliber of opponent that didn't get the free-ride to the National Championship Game.

If we're telling ourselves don't worry what DA does the first 8 weeks of 2008 because we scored 51 points at Cincy in week 2 of 2007 plus he trounced crap teams like Miami and St Louis - we're going to stay MOR about the moral victories than doing anything wonderful with what we have on the roster IMO.

Here's my hostory with DA. He takes over the KC game in 2006 and I'm saying "WOW! I'm intrigued to see MORE of that gun. How exciting!" The next 3 weeks he starts and NEVER once looks like that same guy as his 3rd and final start was 4 INTs vrs the bad TB team we coin filpped for the 3rd overall pick in 2007. IMO, it also led to "we better draft a REAL QB or GM and Head Coach should prepare to walk the plank sooner than later." That's eggs-actly what Phil Savage and RAC did.

If DA finished stronger than he did in 2007 - I think I'd feel better about him. And your comment about his week 1 performance won't mean nearly as much to me as seeing steady improvement from DA where I can finally say "I don't care if Quinn gets a chance or not." I think we can all concur that the objective is improvement rather than regression. We see steady improvement and we're not discussing this as much as we're wondering what kind of trade value we have in Quinn. If we let ONE of these guys get away for little to no return value - we've made a BIG error. And if we're 1 BIG play from getting into the post season or doing some damage in the post season - we'll be wondering about that missing X-factor.

I feel kind of spoiled that I grew up watching Sipe and Kosar LEADING us to post seasons. When the games got clutch their offense was re-named the Cardiac Kids for their ability to erase late deficits for game winning points before the final whistle. BOTH guys could beat Pittsburgh and make themselves to the QB of the division. When DA faced Lerch, it was no contest who was the better guy in the 3rd and 4th quarter convenient or not. I'm so sure it would be that way with Quinn but I've been wrong before.
- Tom F.

quote:

Originally posted by shepwrite:

quote:

Here's why I hate you, Shep

I would far prefer that you hate me because I'm beautiful.

Well, I generally try to keep it quiet on this board--on the politics board, there are fewer people to judge, so I can be a bit more up-front with my dirty, dirty fantasies.

Dennis
Now there's a post for a Sunday morning. If you'll excuse me, James Dobson is kicking my door in.

Both Guys will suck where both of our guys are good. I don't see the comparison. The talent around the Ravens QB's does not resemble the Browns at all. Stupid article.

quote:

I would trade DA for Troy Smith in a minute!

Troy looks like Eric The Midget attempting to play in the NFL

quote:

If you'll excuse me, James Dobson is kicking my door in.

A. Funny
B. Did somebody propose DA for Troy Smith?

Yikes.

quote:

Originally posted by Listercat:

quote:

I would trade DA for Troy Smith in a minute!

Troy looks like Eric The Midget attempting to play in the NFL

They said the same thing about this fella too...