Things Looking Roseate for Ratliff

Since Brett Favre's retirement, there has been a media swarm -- not around Favre, this time -- but surrounding the Jets' vacant starting quarterback position. The questions have been posed several times. Will they go the Free Agency route? Will the Jets acquire a quarterback through the NFL Draft? Or will they stay in house and let the young guys battle it out?

But from that last question, comes a similar answer. Brett Ratliff has an infinite amount of potential.

Last night on WCWP, Newsday's Erik Boland was on Sports Talk for Dummies. He said "If they had replaced Favre with Kellen Clemens or even, I'd so far as to say, Brett Ratliff when they were 8-3, I think we would have been talking about a playoff team." Just the fact that Erik would include Ratliff in that statement is promising.

Erik later added "When they had the competition between Pennington and Clemens [In 2008, before Favre arrived], Pennington clearly was ahead of everybody, but the second best quarterback, without question, was Brett Ratliff." That's a first hand testament that Brett Ratliff is better than Kellen Clemens. Obviously he wouldn't be better than Pennington. Chad was second in the MVP voting, last season. But Boland's statement proves that Ratliff should have been Favre's backup, not Clemens. The Jets actually put themselves at a disadvantage.

This morning, Jets Owner Woody Johnson stated that he expects the young quarterbacks (Ratliff, Clemens & Ainge) to duke it out for the starting spot. If you let Ratliff go head-to-head with either Clemens or Ainge, he will display his superiority.

And later on in the morning, Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShae were on Sportscenter, talking about possible QB moves for the Jets. McShae presented the Draft route, as a Draft guru would, but Kiper went another way. He strongly campaigned for Brett Ratliff; citing his NFL arm and unlimited potential. He actually shut down Todd McShae with his bullet proof defense of Brett Ratliff.

This is Mel Kiper Jr., the master talent evaluator. I think we need to listen to him.

With support from the Jets beat writer, the Jets owner, and football genius, Brett Ratliff is qucikly rising up in the ranks of Jets quarterback options.