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Billick seeks to help Banks stay focused
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As Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell thoroughly soaked in the greatest moment in his young franchise's history last week after his team rallied to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, he flashed back to a telephone conversation he had two months ago with Dick Vermeil.
|  | | The Ravens are banking on Tony Banks being their QB of the future. |
"Art, I'm telling you, Tony Banks could be and should be the best quarterback in football," Vermeil told Modell.
Modell was stunned. Vermeil had just won a Super Bowl with MVP Kurt Warner under the center. As much as Modell enjoyed Banks' progress at the end of the 1999 season, he is no stranger to the game. He knows the highs and lows of football, and Banks has been more on the low end than the high end.
Vermeil, of course, has a knack for the overstatement. He swore to several teams that Lawrence Phillips was a success story waiting to happen after his St. Louis Rams had released the troubled running back. You know the rest of the story.
Yet, Banks' five-touchdown passing performance against the Jaguars on Sunday does demand our attention. If that's what is in store for Banks this season, the Ravens are not just playoff contenders. They're Super Bowl contenders.
Vermeil had his reasons for endorsing Banks, whom he dealt to the Ravens prior to the '99 season. He saw the raw physical talent. He believed Banks would get stability in Baltimore.
"Dick talked about how Tony had had five different coordinators, or something like that," Modell said. "He thought Brian Billick would be the best thing to happen to him."
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He needed to stay in the same system, with the same coach, for the first time in his career. All the other stuff will fall in place. ” |
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— Ravens coach Brian Billick |
Bingo. Billick's tough love approach with Banks last season, when he made him the No. 3 quarterback behind Scott Mitchell and Stoney Case, was a message that as gifted as Banks might be, his professional approach was, well, third-rate. Once Banks understood, Billick promoted him to a starting role. Then he did something else. He sold Banks on bypassing the temptation of free agency by signing a contract extension with the Ravens.
"He needed to stay in the same system, with the same coach, for the first time in his career," Billick said. "All the other stuff will fall in place."
Banks finished the '99 season on a promising note, by throwing 16 touchdowns and only seven interceptions in the final seven games. Billick didn't let his quarterback rest on his brief courtship with success. The offseason was more schooling in an offense with a great track record.
Billick and personnel whiz Ozzie Newsome also started acquiring skill talent to surround Banks -- they used two top 10 picks on running back Jamal Lewis and wide receiver Travis Taylor. They added two veteran Pro Bowl tight ends in Shannon Sharpe and Ben Coates. Talk about motivating a quarterback to greater heights.
Yet Billick understands that many elements control a quarterback's true success in the NFL. How he handles failure, how he handles success. His detractors believe success will spoil Banks. Billick is not naïve to this idea.
"We have talked about that a great deal in camp, in anticipation of Tony doing well," Billick said. "The main thing is has to do is stick to a routine on a daily and week-to-week basis. Now that he's had this (breakout) game, there's going to be all this attention, lots of accolades, lots of interviews. He has to be careful."
Billick is taking a hands-on approach. On Monday, he met with Kevin Byrne, the team's vice president of public relations, to micromanage Banks' schedule this week.
"Specifically, what he can and can't do," Billick said. "Tony understands it. He's been in the valley before. I think he knows that you can always slip back if you don't pay attention to detail, to the things that got you out of the valley."
Billick always has game tape as a humbling teaching tool for Banks, who made mistakes in the first half of the Jacksonville game. "It was like we played with two different quarterbacks, one in the first half, the other in second half -- only they were the same guy," Modell said.
The week before, in Pittsburgh, Banks didn't throw any interceptions, but he did miss some throws that could have given the Jaguars a more comfortable margin than their 16-0 victory. He didn't miss the big throws against the Jaguars, including the game-winning touchdown to Sharpe as bedlam broke out in Baltimore.
"I wish you could have seen the fans here," Modell said. "I think we're finally weaning people away from the Eagles, Steelers and Jets."
Note that Modell said nothing about making people forget the Baltimore Colts. He knows that'll never happen. But at least for a day, people in Baltimore were talking about Tony Banks, and not Johnny Unitas.
Chris Mortensen, ESPN's NFL reporter, sheds light on pro football each week for ESPN.com.
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