The world's worst-kept secret
Ravens coach John Harbaugh confirmed yesterday that Joe Flacco will be the starter when the Ravens play the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium on Sunday. I'm sure that came as unexpected news to a lot of people...in Beijing, maybe.
Harbaugh will not commit beyond Sunday, but that's just Psychology of Coaching 101. Much better to tell the kid that he's helping get the team through a quarterback crisis than tell him that the weight of the team is going to be firmly on his shoulders from here on out.
He's also tiptoeing around a sensitive situation with Troy Smith, who seemed ticketed to start the regular season opener until a debilitating viral infection attacked his throat and cost him the opportunity of a lifetime.
Smith caught a tough break, but everybody's fired up about Flacco and there was no way -- politically -- the Ravens could start anybody else. They're 1-0 and the fans have embraced their new rookie quarterback. He's going to have to play himself off the field.
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Comments
Peter- Don't you think that the fans will be more leniant with B-MO Joe then they would with Smith? They/We get its a learning curve. Also, could you post Manning, Montana, Young, Farve, Elway, and Marino. 1st year stats one day? I think it would be neat to see just how bad they all were in their intial pro-campaigns. I for one will be very liberal (God I hate that word this year) with my grading of his play. I can email those stats to you if you want.
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Pete's reply: Yes, I'm sure Flack gets more Slack.
Posted by: Ryan | September 9, 2008 7:01 AM
Similar to how Brady got his job. This is not to imply that Flacco is the same quality of quarterback that Brady was.
Posted by: Rusty | September 9, 2008 7:44 AM
... Don't you think that the fans will be more leniant with B-MO Joe then they would with Smith? ...
Yeah, just like they gave Kyle slack. If Joe starts playing like Kyle the fans will give him another half game to recover before they start booing him too. It's all about "what have you done for me lately."
Posted by: Paul B | September 9, 2008 1:36 PM