NOTES: PRACTICE AXED; A WORD ABOUT TURF; POSSIBLE RECORD?

By Joe Platania

OWINGS MILLS -- Sundays are usually a day to kick back and reflect on the past week, although this time around, many parents are simply enjoying the calm before tomorrow's school-year-starting storm.

We've had quite a bit of mailbag buildup, so let's mellow out, have a sip of tea and see what Ravens fans are thinking and talking about.

Predictably, our Saturday entry regarding our playoff and Super Bowl picks generated some heat, mostly from fans that think the Ravens will win it all, no matter what bad tidings might befall them.

To recap: our picks have Cincinnati winning the AFC North, with wild-card Baltimore advancing to the Divisional round and losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Houston Texans.

But "jimmiemack" had this to say:

"If the Ravens play close to the way they played against the Jaguars, they'll win the AFC North, the AFC Conference Championship and the Super Bowl!"

"Jimmiemack," you could be right, considering the Ravens' first unit did hold a 20-3 lead when it was removed from last Thursday's preseason game. But the team still allowed way too many big gains on run plays, and the first-string defense's pass rush is still nearly non-existent.

"DannyBoy25" weighed in with this:

"Joe, I have to respectfully disagree with your Bengals pick; their offense is not as explosive as people think. A.J. Green is a beast, but based on what I saw this preseason, including Thursday night, they aren't that great on offense. They can be a playoff team and possibly win the division, but I wouldn't bet money on the latter happening. Dalton going 5-for-17 for 40 yards on Thursday isn't a very good sign.

"Outside of that and the Ravens not being in the Super Bowl, everything else is good."

"DannyBoy," the Bengals indeed did not put on a good performance against the Green Bay Packers. But then again, it's the Packers, one of the league's most consistently dangerous teams.

The Monday-night opener between the Bengals and Ravens will be huge on several different levels: it's the opener, it's at home and within the division -- two scenarios the Ravens swept last year -- and it will feature two of the NFL's best young quarterbacks.

Our e-mail inbox (joeyp@pressboxonline.com) contained this rather tactless diatribe from "purplepower":

"Joey P, you suck! You're just another hater, someone who won't get behind the home team no matter what happens! I smell an undefeated season!"

"Purplepower," what we smell here is someone that doesn't understand what the media's job is, and that is to be objective.

Our constantly contributing friend "spy" certainly doesn't have purple-tinted glasses on, as he tried to calm down the masses that were fired up about the Jacksonville win. He wrote, in part:

"It was Jacksonville, people, Jacksonville. Please don't get excited over this meaningless win. On to real things: [Courtney] Upshaw looks like one more of Ozzie [Newsome's] poor draft choices, [Paul] Kruger looks slow and [Sergio] Kindle looks lost.

"The linebackers are very, very weak. Maybe Ozzie can bring back Dan Cody and Tavares Gooden. I was worried about the O-line until I saw how weak the LBs are this year. It may be a long season."

Finally, we end with this comment from "kingraven75." Our "Joey P's Trivia Time" question regarding the Jaguars' signing of ex-Ravens receiver Demetrius Williams, who happened to take a roster spot formerly occupied by an AFC Championship Game pariah, stirred up bad memories for "kingraven75":

"I am still mad at Lee Evans."

***

JOEY P'S TRIVIA TIME: Today's question:

The NFL likes to make the opening of its season -- as with everything else -- a big deal accompanied by hoopla.

It annually releases a "Kickoff Weekend" guide, replete with facts, stats and figures from the season's first batch of games, a round we simply like to call "Week One." As far as we're concerned, "Opening Day" is a baseball term.

In any event, according to the "Kickoff Weekend" guide, which two of the league's 32 current head coaches are the only ones that have never lost a Week One game?

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of this entry.

***

NO PRACTICE: Approximately two hours before the Sunday afternoon practice was to begin at the Under Armour Performance Center, head coach John Harbaugh canceled it to give the players a bit of rest.

That means two days of workouts are remaining before the team takes on the St. Louis Rams during the preseason finale.

The team's current list of injury concerns, based on those that missed the Saturday workout, is composed of wideout Tommy Streeter (sprained foot); safety Sean Considine (concussion); linebackers Darryl Blackstock (groin, ankle), Josh Bynes (cracked vertebrae), Stevie Baggs (unknown) and Ricky Brown (unknown); guard Marshal Yanda (leg); and guard/tackle Jah Reid (calf).

It is expected that safety Emanuel Cook (broken leg) and defensive tackle Ryan McBean (broken and dislocated ankle) will be placed on injured reserve, joining linebacker Michael McAdoo (Achilles).

Those moves would count as two of the 15 needed to get the roster down to the NFL-mandated 75-man maximum by 4 p.m. Monday.

Wideout David Reed (ACL surgery) remains on the Physically Unable To Perform list, the last of four players placed on that sheet when training camp began.

Linebacker Terrell Suggs (Achilles tendon surgery) is still on the Reserve/Non-Football Injury sheet, expected to miss at least half the season after incurring his injury in late April.

***

TURF WARS: According to a published report, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was quick to blame the FieldTurf surface for rookie guard David DeCastro's possibly season-ending knee injury in Buffalo on Saturday night.

"It's just FieldTurf -- this is a great field, but FieldTurf is just killing guys, because they can’t get their feet out of the ground," Roethlisberger reportedly said after the game. "It's just another reason we should get rid of FieldTurf."

In the past, players such as former Maryland defensive lineman and New York Jets standout Kris Jenkins and Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher have advocated getting rid of FieldTurf in favor of natural grass.

But what many fail to understand is that FieldTurf is simply a response to the way the game and the players have changed.

The M&T Bank Stadium surface -- SportExe Momentum Turf -- is similar to FieldTurf, in that it is not the concrete-hard AstroTurf that ended so many players' careers, nor is it the grass on which the Ravens played from 1996-97 (Memorial Stadium) and 1998-2002 (current stadium).

Such synthetic surfaces are more adaptable to today's ever-changing weather conditions -- the drainage is much better than AstroTurf -- not to mention the bigger, stronger, faster athletes that play pro football today.

So, why have players such as Jenkins and Urlacher gotten injured on it? Because they have failed to keep up with the faster, more diversified offenses being thrown at them; there have been few, if any, stories about players like them dropping weight -- as Ray Lewis, Jameel McClain and others have -- to stay in touch with offenses.

If players "can't get their feet out of the ground," as Roethlisberger said, then how did Jamal Lewis set what was then a single-game NFL record of 295 rushing yards during the Ravens' first-ever game on Momentum Turf in 2003? How have the Ravens' defenders managed to get their feet out of the ground to chase down quarterbacks and other ball carriers all these years?

As the Ravens begin their 10th season on their surface this year, it's something to think about.

***

RECORD SETTERS: It remains to be seen whether the Ravens' attempts to have a more diverse, dynamic and explosive offense will result in the kind of scoreboard busting the team did during its 1996 inaugural season.

That year, despite a 4-12 record brought on mainly by an aging defense, the Ravens scored 371 points, still the fourth-highest single-season total in team history and only 20 points short of the franchise-record 391 set in both 2003 and 2009.

But what's interesting about the 1996 Ravens is not only did they score 30 or more points four times and 25 or more six times, they also had a record-setting preseason scoring binge.

In August of that year, the Ravens scored 106 points during their four preseason games, against Philadelphia, the New York Giants, Green Bay and Buffalo. They haven't come close to breaking that record until now.

Through three games, Baltimore has put 91 points on the board, against Atlanta, Detroit and Jacksonville. With 16 points Thursday night against the St. Louis Rams (7 p.m.; WBAL-TV, Comcast SportsNet; WIYY-FM), the Ravens will break the 1996 team's preseason record.

Already this year, the Ravens have put together two preseason games of 30 or more points, duplicating a feat they accomplished only twice (1996, 2011). All told, they have scored 30 or more during a preseason game a mere eight times during 66 contests.

The most recent of those occurrences, the 48-17 win against Jacksonville, represented a single-game preseason record.

Of course, in the bigger picture, such marks don't mean all that much. But judging from the comments from fans on our message board and on various radio talk shows around town, points -- and plenty of them -- never fail to get people's attention.

***

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Rookie second-round pick and probable offensive-line starter Kelechi Osemele was given that first name because of its divine meaning.

"[It means] 'Thank God,' " he told the team's Web site. "I have three sisters, and it's a pretty big deal in the Nigerian culture to have a son carry on your name, and my mom and dad were praying for it.

"They wanted to name their son that, because they wanted to thank God every time they said my name. My family is pretty religious, so that's why they gave me that name.”

***

JOEY P'S TRIVIA TIME ANSWER: Here's the question we asked you earlier in this entry:

The NFL likes to make the opening of its season -- as with everything else -- a big deal accompanied by hoopla.

It annually releases a "Kickoff Weekend" guide, replete with facts, stats and figures from the season's first batch of games, a round we simply like to call "Week One." As far as we're concerned, "Opening Day" is a baseball term.

In any event, according to the "Kickoff Weekend" guide, which two of the league's 32 current head coaches are the only ones that have never lost a Week One game?

ANSWER:

Granted, he has coached only one season in the league, but San Francisco head coach and former Ravens starting quarterback Jim Harbaugh was victorious during last year's season opener, when his 49ers throttled the Seattle Seahawks, 33-17.

There's another coach in the NFL with a more substantial Week One resume, and that happens to be Harbaugh's older brother, and Ravens head coach, John Harbaugh (4-0).

He began his Ravens career with a 17-10 home win against Cincinnati, the day the "Wacko For Flacco" placards were waving in the stands. The new head coach and quarterback were on their way to an eventual AFC Championship Game appearance.

The following year, a supposedly undermanned Kansas City Chiefs team hung with the Ravens during the home opener for the better part of four quarters before falling to Baltimore, 38-24.

In 2010, the Ravens opened on a Monday-night stage -- just as they will this year -- by being the first visiting team to win at MetLife Stadium, edging the New York Jets, 10-9.

Last season, the defense registered seven takeaways during a 35-7 home blowout of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Posted Aug. 26, 2012