Adam Schefter of the NFL network is reporting that the Ravens will be putting the Franchise Tag on OLB/DE Terrell Suggs. League rules state this his salary would then be the average of the top-five players in his position.

This leads to some interesting maneuvering from the front office. With three of the top five and six of the top 20 highest-paid players (including bonuses) being defensive ends, it makes sense to save the $814,000 by applying the LB tag.

Here are the salary breakdowns:

DE: Julius Peppers, Jason Taylor, Justin Smith, Jevon Kearse and Michael Strahan make up the elite 5 in the DE category, with a franchise salary of $8,879,000.

LB: Ray Lewis, Zach Thomas, Keith Brooking, Keith Bulluck and Nick Barnett make up the highest paid quintet in the LB category, with a franchise salary of $8,065,000.

According to the USA Today Salaries Databases, the Ravens had the 10th highest payroll in the NFL ($104,997,764).

Maybe we should have saved our money and drafted Kevin Hart right out of High School. He really wants to play Division-I ball!

From the “it just gets worse” department, Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun is reporting that All-Pro CB Chris McAlister is headed to the IR, ending his season 3 games early. McAlister finished the season with 23 tackles, one interception and 10 deflected passes.

So, what does this mean for the upcoming Dolphins/Ravens game? Well, if you’re a Dolphins fan, that elusive win is now within reach. If you’re a Ravens fan, that bottle of whiskey should be within reach. At all times.

Game over, man!  Game over!

As reported today by the Baltimore Sun, Ravens DE Trevor Pryce will miss the rest of the 2007 season with a torn pectoral muscle and was placed on the IR.

“We’re going to miss Trevor,” Billick said Tuesday night. “Getting him back was important for us. We’ll adjust but missing him on the inside is going to be a lot to deal with.”

You ain’t kidding, Brian.  Without Pryce, we have a severely limited pass rush.  To fill Pryce’s roster spot, Zarnell Fitch was signed from the practice squad.

Well, it just got a lot easier to be Brian Billick.

Thanks to ESPN’s bottom line (okay, really you should thank the UCLA hoops game on the deuce), I was informed by the lovely text crawl that Kyle Boller was named starter for Sunday’s game vs. Cleveland. I lept off the couch, did a happy dance, and ran in to my office to post the news.

Obviously, I’m not a big fan of any player getting injured — especially when that player is as classy as Air McNair — but I can’t help but think that McNair’s injury forced Billick to start Boller. Yes, I honestly feel that Billick would have started McNair if he could have. Deep down, I could hear Billick justifying starting McNair while staring in his bathroom mirror… “I feel Steve gives us the best chance to win.”

I headed over to the Sun’s web site to see if Mike Preston had blown a gasket over the news and read a Jamison Hensley story about McNair being out 2-3 weeks with his shoulder injury instead. McNair’s injury was announced on Billick’s weekly radio show as a partial dislocation of his non-throwing shoulder.  Preston will have something up soon, I’d imagine…

“Obviously, Kyle is cranked up and ready to go,” Billick said.

Cranked up? Did he just leave Tara Reid’s house?

Troy’s Turn?

The Sun article had an interesting blurb at the tail end:

With Boller becoming the starter, rookie fifth-round pick Troy Smith now becomes the backup. Last season’s Heisman Trophy winner has yet to take a snap during the regular season.

“That’s going to be a fun challenge for Troy, because now he’s been around enough,” Billick said. “The focus and attention that he brings to [preparing] is heightened.”

Because Smith is the second quarterback (the No. 3 essentially can’t play the first three quarters unless the top two quarterbacks are injured), Billick speculated that Smith could be put into some specialty packages to take advantage of his athleticism.

“You don’t want to tip your hand, but there are some things that you could do with Troy in that capacity because of his abilities to run the ball and do some of those things,” Billick said.

The idea of putting in Smith for some “specialty packages” (read: ooh! gadgety trick plays!) is dumb. I’m sorry, but the one trick play we tried earlier this year was downright embarrassing. Let’s leave the cutesy stuff to the Chargers…

As for Troy getting some NFL experience… if Boller gets his body rocked with the young offensive line, Smith may just get his shot after all.

The Washington Post reports that the Baltimore Ravens may shut down all-pro franchise cornerstone Jonathan Ogden’s season if he isn’t able to play in the November 5th, 2007 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“It’s a very legitimate question: ‘Jeez, is this going to happen?’ Because at some point, if it’s not, then we have to consider holding a roster spot,” Ravens Head Coach Brian Billick said during his weekly news conference. “But by the way he moves around [in practice], I’m fairly optimistic. But he’s the only one that can really answer it, and he’s working very hard.”

Turf toe. I know that Kornheiser said it on Monday Night Football, but to be a freakin’ giant like JO… and to be shut down because of a hyperextended toe? Wow. Irony, thy name is Turf Toe.

So, just what the hell is Turf Toe?

Well, according to the Wikipedia entry, turf toe, more properly known as a metatarsalphalangeal joint sprain, is an injury to the joint and connective tissue between the foot and one of the toes, usually the big toe. Turf toe is named from the injury being associated with playing sports on rigid surfaces such as artificial turf and is a fairly common injury among professional American football players.

Often, the injury occurs when someone or something falls on the back of the calf while that leg’s knee and tips of the toes are touching the ground. The toe is hyperextended and thus the joint is injured. Additionally, athletic shoes that tend to have very flexible soles combined with cleats that “grab” the turf will cause overextension of the big toe. It should be noted that this can occur on the lesser toes as well.

At any rate, here’s hoping for a speedy recovery for one of my all-time favorite football players. Nobody will be able to pwn Dwight Freeney’s spin move quite like you could…

EDIT: Check out what the 12 year-old Steelers fans have to say about Ogden on the Yahoo story. What a bunch of morons.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Ravens QB Steve McNair may be a game-time decision on Sunday against the St. Louis Rams:

Ravens quarterback Steve McNair missed his second straight practice today with a stiff back and is now considered a game-time decision for Sunday’s game against the winless St. Louis Rams.

Backup quarterback Kyle Boller, who took all of the snaps with the starting offense the past two days, would make his second start of the season if McNair is sidelined. Boller led the Ravens to a 20-13 win over the New York Jets in Week 2.

Asked whether he would play, McNair said in the locker room, “Hopefully. I feel all right. If I can’t go, then we have a good backup. But we’ll see.”

Personally, I’d be happy to let Boller start. With the youth and inexperience of the Ravens O-line, having Boller taking snaps under center may not be a bad idea… Besides, we’ll need McNair rested and healthy if we want to make any noise after the bye week. As noted by the Sports Cartel’s Steelers blogger, Neal Coolong, “[Ozzie] Newsome must have known what he was doing when the team signed McNair — he’s a Steelers killer!”

My sincerest hope is that Brian Billick doesn’t start the game with McNair and then transition to Boller mid-way through the contest. Give this game to Boller, let him start and let McNair apply stick ‘um to Boller’s hands on the sidelines — no more fumbled snaps!

Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun is reporting that Ravens head coach Brian Billick and all-pro LT Jonathan Ogden are ‘cautiously optimistic’ about JO’s return to the lineup against the Browns in Cleveland.

“It feels better, a little better than last week,” Ogden said after the Ravens practiced indoors today at their facility in Owings Mills. “We’ll see. I might go out there and run around [before the game]. I don’t know.”

Said Billick, “He moved around very, very well. We’ll see how Sunday looks. I was very pleased with the way he moved.”

If JO is back… that’s excellent news.  But don’t rush that toe.  We’ll need a fully healthy Ogden for the playoff run.

In two completely unrelated items of note, rookie return specialist Yamon Figurs was honored by the NFL as the AFC Special Teams player of the week and CB Samari Rolle will sit for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns.

Poor BJ Sams — in the week he’s injured, Ed Reed has the big return for a TD. The following week, Figurs rips one off and wins the Special Teams player of the week. Talk about rubbing salt in the ACL wound. Yikes.

As for Doorknob, apparently the medication he was taking for his illness last week left him very lethargic (like our 4th quarter pass defense) and will keep him in the sidelines for Week 4.

“I’m off,” Rolle said today after practice. “I can’t play. As far as being straight and balanced and coordinated, I’m not.”

“It’s evidently something that he is going to have to monitor for a while,” Billick said. “I hesitate to make comparisons because everybody will go, ‘Oh my God, you mean he has –.’ No. But it takes medication, and you have to have the right balance. That’s the best I can offer you.”

Here’s to a speedy, Figurs-like recovery for Rolle.

Big story today in the Washington Post — apparently Brian Billick is considering platooning Steve McNair and Kyle Boller, citing Boller’s play and McNair’s health as the two contributing factors.

I’ll have to admit, it’ll be really strange seeing Billick make that call to the bullpen for the hammer to put away games.

From the article:

Kyle Boller’s career as a Baltimore Ravens quarterback has taken several turns over the past five years, from first-round draft pick to oft-criticized starter to valued backup. Now, Boller appears to have a new role: late-game reliever.

One day after Boller replaced starter Steve McNair in the fourth quarter against the Arizona Cardinals and led the Ravens to a winning field goal, Coach Brian Billick said he has no qualms turning to Boller in late-game situations as McNair continues to recover from a strained groin.

There is no question McNair, who was injured in the season opener and missed the second game, is Baltimore’s starting quarterback. But considering his age (34), the beating his body has taken over 13 NFL seasons, and the way Boller has performed this month, Billick said he would consider using a similar platoon even after McNair is healthy.

“It depends on the continuity of the team, what Steve’s doing and, you know what?, I got the sense that Steve would be okay with that under the right circumstances,” Billick said during his weekly news conference. “That’s 20 fewer plays, five fewer hits, whatever it may be. There was a freshness to Steve’s arm in the [Arizona] game, because of the week he had off previously. We’re lucky to have that latitude with Kyle.”

Last week McNair said that he agreed with Billick’s decision to remove him from the game after he aggravated his groin. If you were Steve McNair, how would you react to being taken out of a game in favor of a backup — even if you were efficient at moving the offense down field?

Well, according to Billick, everything is gravy:

“It can be a huge problem if you let your egos get involved,” Billick said. “But Steve has one agenda, and that is to win and to get through the season and be the quarterback he has shown he has been for us. . . . The numbers, the stats, he doesn’t care. He’s all about winning, and I appreciate that. It could become more of a problem if a guy didn’t have the right character and the right ego.”

As long as this doesn’t turn out to be a locker room distraction, I’m all for it. Replace wonky crotch with working crotch late in games and let ‘er rip. Personally, I think the mystical collapsing 4th quarter defense is more of a concern than a McNair/Boller platoon, but I’m sure Rex will get all of that sorted out soon enough.  Hopefully the QB situation will find that same natural resolve.

Not one to sit on their haunches, the Baltimore Ravens have placed injured DB/RS BJ Sams on the IR (knee). The Ravens signed RB Cory Ross from the practice squad and replaced him with WR Romby Bryant.

Let the Cory Ross era… begin continue!