Huh. Apparently, a lot can change in a few months. The Baltimore Sun ran an online poll in yesterday's edition and the results are, well, surprising. First, the question:
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, might it be prudent to start Kyle Boller and allow Steve McNair to heal a little more? And now, the shocking findings:
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.Didn't see that coming. It's worth noting that online polls aren't scientific, so there's some probability Boller's family just voted all day long.
There's also the chance that Ravens fans -- at least those that took the time to vote -- are genuinely concerned about McNair. Enough, in fact, to prefer Kyle Freaking Boller.
On the quarterback-head coach dysfunctional scale, Boller and Brian Billick are right up there with Romeo Crennel and the Charlie Frye/Derek Anderson/Brady Quinn three-way in Cleveland. That fans actually think he gives the team the best chance to win next week speaks as much to McNair's recent struggles and Boller's, ahem, ability.
In any other year, McNair, as long as he could stand up, wins this race in a landslide. Now, after a rocky end to '06 and a rough start to '07, he gets the Walter Mondale in 1984 treatment. Which gives you a sense of how worried Ravens fan are about the QB situation. Well, hose fans that know how to work a computer, anyway.
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