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BALTIMORE -- Long after Steve McNair donned a baseball cap
to watch the game's final 50 minutes, the other quarterbacks began
the process of showing why they belong in the NFL. Or they don't. The Heisman Trophy winner showed his inexperience. The top draft
pick couldn't produce a touchdown. And the guy who spent his summer
in Amsterdam played better than all of them, offering proof his
time in NFL Europa was very much worthwhile. McNair led Baltimore 93 yards to a touchdown on his only drive
of the game, and the Ravens coasted past the Philadelphia Eagles
29-3 Monday night in the preseason opener for both teams. "Really, really solid start. The things I'm most pleased about:
One, no injuries. No. 2, no turnovers and only three penalties,"
Ravens coach Brian Billick said. "That's pretty unique for a first
preseason game. I was pretty pleased with the way the guys handled
themselves in their first outing." The Eagles, in contrast, played poorly and got banged up in the
process. Running back Ryan Moats fractured his ankle and will probably be
lost for the season; defensive end Jerome McDougle strained his
triceps; and defensive tackle LaJuan Ramsey sustained a high ankle
sprain. Starting quarterback Donovan McNabb did not play for
Philadelphia, but that didn't make the lopsided defeat any easier
for coach Andy Reid to swallow. "It was not a very good performance, all the way around, from
the first unit down to the last unit," he said. The most interesting facet of the game was the performance of
three young quarterbacks: Baltimore's Troy Smith and Drew Olson,
who are competing to be the backup to McNair and Kyle Boller; and
Philadelphia's top draft pick, Kevin Kolb. Smith, the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner, played the third quarter
and went 3-for-11 for 34 yards. Olson, a former UCLA star and a
product of NFL Europa, gained the upper hand in the competition by
going 7-for-9 for 84 yards and a touchdown. Sure, Olson was competing against third-stringers. Still, he
produced 13 points on his three drives before running out the clock
the last time he got his hands on the ball. Asked if there was pressure to perform, Olson said, "I'd lie to
you if I said I didn't feel it. But you try to put it in the back
as much as you can and try to just go out there and play and be as
smooth and calm as you can." Kolb, a four-year starter for the University of Houston, played
the entire second half and went 11-for-20 for 77 yards. He was
anything but spectacular, but at least he got a feel for playing in
the NFL. "The coaches aren't standing right there telling you what to
do. You're on your own, and when you make a mistake it's on you,"
Kolb said. "It's nice at the same time when you're out there by
yourself, you kind of slow things down a bit. You make your own
plays and use your own instincts." He got sacked twice and scrambled for 4 yards. "I saw some good things, and I saw some things he's got to work
on," Reid said. "But I thought the majority of it was pretty
good. Obviously, we're playing a team that likes to blitz. We
didn't spend a lot of time on their blitzes." The Eagles were penalized six times, lost two fumbles and gained
only 23 yards rushing on 18 carries. McNair went 6-for-8 for 73 yards, including a 6-yard TD pass to
tight end Quinn Sypniewski, in Baltimore's opening march. Now in
his second year with the Ravens, the 34-year-old McNair took a seat
after the 12-play drive. "Obviously, Steve now compared to last year -- where he was
still learning the verbiage -- has a complete grasp of what we're
doing. And we have a much better feel for what Steve can do well,"
Billick said. McNair said, "We wanted to start fast. We did a lot of things.
We ran the football, we threw the football. Most important, we kept
them off-balance."
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