The people's choice? Boller -- for now
The results of the fan voting in the highly unscientific "Who should start? McNair or Boller" poll are in -- and to be honest, they're a little surprising.
Now, if you go back and read the item that was part of the poll yesterday, you'll see that we're not really trying to stir the pot here, not yet anyway. We were reflecting on Steve McNair's groin injury and voicing some concern about him aggravating it against the Jets. We were also reflecting on how we thought the Steelers mishandled Ben Roethlisberger a year ago and rushed him back into the lineup after his assorted physical problems (motorcycle accident, appendicitis) with disastrous results when Pittsburgh had a capable backup in Charlie Batch.
So we wondered that since the Ravens are playing at home against the Jets after a short week, and New York's own starting quarterback, Chad Pennington, has a banged-up ankle, well, maybe the prudent thing might be to play Kyle Boller and allow McNair to heal a little more.
Well, here are the results. With more than 1,000 votes cast, the fans said to start Boller by nearly a 4-to-1 margin. Wow! It was 803 votes for Boller (79.3 percent) to 210 for McNair (20.7 percent). I didn't see the TV show last night but someone connected with Fox's The Best Damn Sports Show e-mailed me to say that the poll was mentioned to guest Ray Lewis and he was astounded by the results.
Sun beat reporter Jamison Hensley says that Boller has been running the first-team offense in practice.
Photo credit: Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun
Comments
the reason for the poll results are boller can make throws mcnair cant he looks poised and confident in his throws what he is showing is that he is a different QB than we saw in his first 3 seasons the offence has a high powered look to it when boller is in. mcnair is a steady QB but not one who can do enough to beat the elite teams in the league if mcnair remains the unchallenged starter we will beat the middle of the pack teams but be destroyed against the elite teams in short my opinion of mcnair is he would be a great back up and mentor to boller but i think we all can see mcnair is one of those guys who just doesnt know when to take a back seat.We went 13-3 on a 3rd place schedule its gonna be a lot tougher this year for him as you could see in cincinnati.
Posted by: babaganuche | September 14, 2007 11:33 AM
Boller does exactly that. he brings the flash to this offense that it's lacked for years. McNair can manage a game but even that is in question after the way he played against Cincinnati. Boller looked poised and confident in his strides against Cincinnati in a very clutch situation he practically won the game on three different events whether its receiver drops or bad officiating. It's time to give him a shot and it's good to see that the fans have forgiven him for the early days!
Posted by: VT | September 14, 2007 1:01 PM
How come people can't type and use a period honestly that is the stupidest thing i've ever seen it gives me a headache thinking about why someone would not use a period to finish off a sentence will someone PLEASE tell babaganuche to use a period before it starts getting out of hand in here and everyone will be doing it oh no I'M doing it now Noooooooooooooooooooo
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Bruce,
Excellent end-of-week comment. Funny stuff. But I confess that as I make these comments live, I'm mostly looking for George Carlin's bad words as opposed to the appropriate commas, semicolons and even periods. Thanks for writing and have a great weekend.
-- Bill O.
Posted by: Bruce | September 14, 2007 2:06 PM
How come people can't type and use a period honestly that is the stupidest thing i've ever seen it gives me a headache thinking about why someone would not use a period to finish off a sentence will someone PLEASE tell babaganuche to use a period before it starts getting out of hand in here and everyone will be doing it oh no I'M doing it now Noooooooooooooooooooo
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Bruce,
Excellent end-of-week post. Funny stuff. But I confess that as I make these comments live, I'm mostly on the look out for George Carlin's words that you can't say on radio rather than the appropriate commas, semicolons and even periods. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to respond. Thanks for writing and have a great weekend.
-- Bill O.
Posted by: Bruce | September 14, 2007 2:14 PM
....and once this team finishes 7-9 with Boller for the rest of the season, these Boller "supporters" will want to run him out of town.
Nah, that's too easy. They'll blame Ray Lewis. Or J.O. for not being healthy. Or Troy Smith for breathing down his neck.
He had 3 years to get it right. We had a dominating defense and a decent running game during his time as a starter.
This team would not have been 13-3 last season with Boller at the helm. We would not have beaten San Diego. We DAMN sure would not have come from behind at Tennessee.
Stop giving Boller excuses.
Posted by: ravenjames | September 14, 2007 4:39 PM
One can only imagine what lies ahead, given this team's history of playing old, worn out players to the obvious chagrin of most of those outside the inner circle of the Ravens organization. I just read Dan Markus' update, in which he says that because of the good practice McNair had today, it's likely he'll start against the Jets on Sunday. Nothing definite, but...
Here we go again.
Posted by: skaybaltimore | September 14, 2007 8:24 PM
dear.bruce. you (stink) .please.note,this,.statement,;is true.i.cant.,stop.;using;'period......someone....send....help.....thanks....for.....nothing.......b.r.u.c.e.
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Okay, fun's fun but let's move on.
-- Bill O.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 14, 2007 9:49 PM
OK folks, lets all take a deep breath. Mac's turnovers surely hurt us, but in spite of them we were oh so close to pulling that last game out.
200+ yards and almost 60% completion...numbers that this team would have killed for 3 years ago.
I encourage you to check out this link and think really hard about what really cost us that game. Does Mac (stink)? Or was he hurt and dealing with an overmatched OL?
http://files.filefront.com/McNair+Throws+Week+1wmv/;8553953;/fileinfo.html
Posted by: Mobtown | September 15, 2007 1:01 AM