SEATTLE — The next time rage takes control to the extent that you want to pull your brain out through your left ear because your favorite team is in the dumper, chill.
At least it’s not the Baltimore Ravens.
The best thing the Ravens did Sunday was to avoid a shutout. If you want to know the brutal truth of their existence, they were beaten before the day even started, destined by painful fate to watch their losing streak extend to nine games.
“We didn’t have enough players to do anything,” Ravens center Mike Flynn said. “It’s been the same old story. We were only down 7-0, but then we had a fumble for a touchdown (by Seahawk linebacker Leroy Hill), so that’s not very good. We were never in it.”
This isn’t an NFL team in the truest sense of the term. Playing without six Pro Bowl players, including linebacker Ray Lewis, along with starting corners Chris McAllister and Samari Rolle, the Ravens are largely elevated bench players on a teetering roster held desperately together by toilet paper and spit.
Conditions didn’t improve for the 4-11 Ravens during their 27-6 loss to Seattle Sunday. Tailback Willis McGahee fractured two ribs; all-Pro tackle Jonathan Ogden and tailback Mike Anderson pulled hamstrings (their own, not each other’s); tight end Quinn Syphniewski (who started for all-Pro Todd Heap, out with a bad hamstring) sustained a concussion and a bruised sternum.
With one game left in the season, it’s safe to say that all or most are giving their golf clubs a good polish. They can join other flightless Ravens — the team has eight on injured reserve, including Pro Bowl quarterback Steve McNair, linebacker Dan Cody and return specialist B.J. Sams — and cheerfully forget about the 2007-08 season.
“We’re trying to focus and get a little something going for next year,” said corner Derrick Martin, a second-year, sixth-round draft choice who’s subbing for McAllister. “We’re trying to get ourselves ready so we can compete for positions for next year.”
So this year, they’re taking a pounding. Was it only last season that Baltimore won the AFC North Division? Is it as recent as the 2000 season when the Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV?
Likely, the 2007 Ravens will go down as the only team to have fallen victim to the Miami Dolphins.
“We are a proud organization that is having a hard time right now,” said offensive coordinator Rick Neuheisel.
Should Neuheisel stay at his current position — he is reported to be a leading candidate for the open job as head coach of UCLA — he saw someone at quarterback who just might hold some promise. Troy Smith, rookie QB out of Ohio State who is the Ravens’ third at that position, had his first career start and acquitted himself reasonably well. He was 16-for-33 passing for 199 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions.
“He got through the game,” Ravens coach Brian Billick said. “He orchestrated it. He obviously had command of the huddle and command of the line of scrimmage. That’s a lot.”
Smith is an interesting story. At 6 feet, he hardly has the ideal stature of an NFL quarterback, a message the league delivered loud and clear when the Heisman Trophy winner lasted 41/2 rounds and 184 picks in April’s NFL Draft. Still, after McNair went down with a shoulder injury and Kyle Boller missed Sunday with concussion symptoms, Smith was all the Ravens had.
And with McNair’s advancing age, coupled with Boller’s chronic inconsistency, it may be Smith who goes into next season as The Guy. His mobility Sunday allowed him to escape pressure behind an offensive line that gave up 18 sacks in the five previous games. He has a cockiness about him that his teammates love.
To dismiss Smith would be a mistake.
“We have a lot of work to do as a team, as an offense, as a defense, the whole way around,” Smith said. “The nucleus of our team is yet to be made. We have some things that we need to iron out as a team, but I had fun out there today. I really did.”
He may have been the only Raven who did.
Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. To reach Sleeper’s blog, go to www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.
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