[SUNRA]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

Lady T:

You pose an interesting rhetorical question that leads to the conclusion that Ranmsey should start.

But suppose - just suppose - that you have already seen the absolute BEST that Patrick Ramsey has to offer. What is his record in games he started? Is it a playoff record? The short answer is, NO!! In that hypothetical situation, what good does the change do for this season? If you want to see it go down the drain, put in the Patrick Ramsey that we have seen in the past and the team will be headed to about 5 or 6 wins a year for quite a while. Or are you postive that he will morph immediately into a reincarnated John Unitas as soon as he is named the starter? I'm not.

In the preseason, Ramsey looked awful. So did Brunell, but Brunell has one thing in his background that Ramsey does NOT have. Brunell has had a LOT of success in the NFL winning football games. He's led a team - an expansion team one year removed no less - to a conference championship game. Ramsey has not done anything even remotely comparable. Standing in the pocket and getting clobbered by opposing defensive linemen shows he tough but not that he is a winner - - and that is about the most positive thing in his favor to date.

Ramsey has yet to show that he can lead a team to a winning season - let alone the playoffs. That is a fact; that is unarguable. He MIGHT be a lot better than Brunell sometime in the future, but until he shows - in practice or in the next preseason or in this year if the Skins are eliminated from the playoffs - that he is better than Brunell NOW, he is going to collect butt splinters on the bench. And that is as it ought to be. And he MIGHT be a lot worse in the present and the future than Mark Brunell has ever been or ever will be. Just saying over and over again that he is great and has such potential does not win games; it just repeats the same phrases over and over and over...

Jets' coach Herman Edwards - also an excellent coach and a solid citizen - said that the only reason you play is "to win the game". You don't play to win some game that might happen next year or the season after next; you play to win the game on this Sunday. Ramsey is there in case Brunell gets hurt. Other than that, he'll start when he convinces Coach Gibbs in practice that he is a better QB THIS WEEK than Mark Brunell.

BTW, if Tim Hasselbeck happened to convince Coach Gibbs that he was better than both Ramsey and Brunell, he'd be the starter too...

Let the Church say Amen! Finally a voice of reason.