We should've seen it coming

Naming No. 1 passer by now was never the plan

On not having a clear starting QB

The Ravens didn't become the 5-11 team of last season overnight, nor a team increasingly predicted to struggle equally this season. Their quarterback situation didn't just turn to mush that fast. Neither did the offense. No one ever should have assumed that Smith or Boller would have, or could have, emerged as the clear-cut choice by now.

This, folks, is a long-term project. That can't taste good to the veterans hoping for one last run or to the fans who remember not just the Super Bowl, but also the 13-3 outburst of two seasons ago. But it's reality. Getting the offense right, and the right quarterback for it, will take - has taken - longer than preseason Week 3 of the Harbaugh Era, Year 1.

It might be Harbaugh's way of letting us in on what he probably knew the day he walked into the Castle for his interview in January, or at least figured out soon after his introductory news conference.

"Guys are going to be learning the offense for years to come, in reality," he said. "From a teaching perspective, that's the way you've got to look at it. We'll game-plan the stuff they know the best and run the stuff we master the most, but they're not going to be with this offense the way we want them for a while yet."

So this isn't a disaster - any more than it was the day everybody realized that these were the choices for starter all those months ago. With the quarterbacks specifically and the offense in general, it wasn't meant to be quite yet.

To borrow the official phrase of Ravens head coaches past and present, it is what it is.

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