Skip to main content

McNair to Ravens

If Steve McNair can pass a physical, the Tennessee Titans will trade him to the Baltimore Ravens.

The Titans, of course, locked McNair out of their training facility this offseason due to a contract dispute. McNair was on the books for an enormous salary cap figure this year but refused to renegotiate his deal.

Was McNair delusional? Not even close. Sure, I guess it’s possible that the 2003 co-MVP thought he’d get to stick around and cash in. More likely, though, he saw an easy way out of town and took it.

Things change quickly in the NFL, but the Titans probably won’t be competitive for a few years. Surely McNair knew this. Now he gets to bail on them without taking a PR hit.

The Titans, on the other hand, are ready to turn the team over to Vince Young. Is it the right decision, or should young quarterbacks take a few years to learn before they see the field? I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all right answer to that question. Yes, Carson Palmer benefited from waiting behind Jon Kitna, but Peyton Manning started from day one on an awful squad and quickly became a star. Besides, if sitting is all a young player needs, Jarious Jackson’s decade on the Broncos’ practice squad should have turned him into a Hall of Famer.

If a quarterback’s good enough to make it in the NFL, he’ll probably be fine whether he sits or plays his first year. I think Vince Young’ll be great, though I don’t expect a ton from him as a rookie.

As for the Ravens, taking a rival’s franchise cornerstone for a third or fourth-round pick is worth it just out of spite, but McNair can still play, too. He’ll at least beat out Kyle Boller, you know what I’m saying?

Having horrific quarterbacks has cost the Ravens for years, but the team still has a number of name players, none of whom, in a rare twist, served any jail time this year. Check out their depth chart.

That roster has been screaming out for a quarterback for years now, and the Ravens have finally found one. Watching the Ravens, Steelers and Bengals fight for the division title this year should be great, though I have to go with the Steelers right now. What do you think?

Comments

Mike said…
Ha, the Ravens. Are you a big Brian Billick fan?
Mike said…
Hey, McNair went to the Pro Bowl last year! And he was only the sixth quarterback picked from the AFC...

Anyway, there are still a ton of question marks around Baltimore, like Jamal Lewis for starters.

As for Cincy, you're asking a lot for Carson to return. If I were him I'd give up on walking and just see if I could get that leg amputated. I'm not even kidding. Man, that was gross.

Popular posts from this blog

And now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all

I never thought this blog would last longer than Jay Cutler's career with the Denver Broncos. He was a talented young prospect so good that the Broncos, a powerhouse organization only one game removed from the Super Bowl the season before, traded up to get him—or, in other words, a player whose upside was so huge, the team sacrificed its present to get his future. And now? He's gone . How did it come to this? * * * Often I'll play devil's advocate with a move like this; you know, I'll try and explain how it makes sense from the other side of the table. Today, during the most disastrous Broncos offseason in memory—and the draft hasn't even happened yet, so settle in—I just don't have it in me. I don't think move is really defensible from a football standpoint. But what the heck: as the article above says, the Broncos are sending Cutler and a fifth-round draft pick this month to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, Chicago's first-rounder in t...

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...

Payback

It's a nice little coincidence. Sunday the Broncos face the Steelers, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. Tomorrow night the Nuggets play the L.A. Clippers, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. Friday the Avalanche host the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, who knocked them out of last year's playoffs. (All right, the part about the Avs was a complete fabrication, but you believed me, didn't you?) Forget the Steelers game. The last thing I want to talk about right now is Denver's football team. (Seriously, what was that Sunday? I finally start to fall for the defense, and voila! Peyton Manning, for the first time ever, gets the better of it. You win some, you lose to the Colts.) I'm not so excited about the Clippers game either, per se, but I am glad the NBA is back, especially after this week. So what has changed from when we last left the squad? (Not that much.) New guys: The Smiths, Joe and J.R., might be Denver's most effective sibling duo...