Another road game, another dispiriting loss to a team the Ravens would have easily handled last year. Troy Smith, for all his courage, pocket presence, and agility, couldn’t overcome the now-weekly ineptitude of the offensive line and injuries to his key running backs. For much of the game the Seahawks had him running for his life. He looked exactly like what he is – a rookie. Some good, some not so good. You hate to make predictions off a game and a half, but I’ve seen enough to think the Ravens have to make Troy a part of the quarterback equation for 2008.
As we fans look back on this disastrous season a couple of things have stand out. No, I’m not talking about the game planning, the stupid penalties, or the lousy clock management. Those issues are an indictment of 9 full years of Billick coaching management and will be addressed in a later column.
You have to look first at the injuries. Look at the starters and key back ups that have been lost to the Ravens for significant portions, if not the entire year. The team that plays Pittsburgh will look more like the squad that was mopping up in the 4th quarter of the last preseason game. To win championships and division titles, you have to be very good and you have to be lucky. And part of the luck equation is to stay relatively injury-free.
Quiz time: What player of any importance on the 2006 squad missed significant portions of time last year? Hard to remember isn’t it?
It’s because hardly of them any did.
But more than anything, this season will stand out for me as the one in which the Ravens were Betrayed by Age. Ozzie, Brian, and the brain trust in Owings Mills made the conscious decision in the off season to play with a club loaded with veterans in key positions. They rolled the dice and bet that the Karma of ’06 would hold true for one more year and it bit them right in the butt.
Look at the players who’ve missed significant time – Ogden, McNair, Rolle, Pryce, McAlister, and Heap. None of them have less than 7 years experience in the league. It’s no coincidence that the Ravens’ most seriously injured players are their oldest.
I need something to wash the taste of this season out of my mouth. I hate to say this, but for the first time in years I’m looking forward to baseball spring training.
Like a lot of Ravens fans, I use the baseball season to take up time and space until training camp opens in July. But not this year. This week I actually surfed Orioles Hangout.com looking for reporting dates for pitchers and catchers. Things must be bad!! The O’s will struggle to stay out of 5th place in the AL East but I’m finding the infusion of prospects from the Tejada trade to be intriguing. They have more dead wood to move but Andy McPhail finally has things moving in the right direction. Hold on….are we are talking about the Warehouse Gang?
And so it ends. We have one more Ravens home game this year and I’ll be sitting there among the usual contingent of loud-mouthed, obnoxious, Black and Gold in the stands. It can’t end soon enough. But wait a minute….the NFL heaped one final indignity on Ravens fans by moving the game to a 4:15 start. Just what we need…. another chance for the Ravens to embarrass themselves on national TV, and an extra 3 hours for us to wait for this utterly forgettable season to be over.
Bah, humbug!!
Happy New Year everyone. It’s got to be better in ’08.
Photo by Sabina Moran
