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POSTER 1: I live in Baltimore and watch most games, and I trust Stony much more than Tony (or Mitchell) based on just his performance with the Ravens. Tony's batted balls against the Giants seemed to be Billick's last straw.

FADLER: I always thought that he would overcome that with the Rams and some better coaching but after last year and the Dolphins game I started to despair that he would ever get his arm and shoulder up.

The deal was at the start of the year he was cocking his elbow and bringing his arm up as compensation for the old sidearm zing he seemed to favor. You could literally see the underside of his forearm when he would start to bring his arm back. I felt and still do that the sudden upsurge in his interception total was due to this new delivery.

One of the things about his performance that had always given me hope was that his interceptions were relatively low for an inexperienced QB...of course he more than made up for that with his fumbling...but I also thought that could be cured.

There are several games since 1996 that I consider watersheds for the Rams performance. Such a game was last years Miami game where even I....veteran Banks Booster thought he should have been benched late in the game. The Dolphins exposed the Rhome offense and showed eveyone except Dave Wannstedt how to defense it.

Of course then you have the Steelers game from 1996 that proved to me that Robert Jones had no instinct for the game and needed to play in a tightly orchestrated scheme...and that the team had quit on Brooks.

The 1997 Raiders game that proved to me that Jerry Rhome was out to lunch...and hopefully the 1999 Falcons game that proved to me that the Rams have come of age.

POSTER 2: Jim you say the  Ravens coaches were concerned about Banks's low delivery point and his continuing problem with his shoulder---something he needs to compensate for. So a lot of it is mechanical/technical, and yes he MUST overcome that. But the Ravens coaches are being pretty blunt about the situation...and they just aren't saying the favorite tony bashing things a lot of Rams fans were fond of saying. He is inconsistent in a new offense (still); he has balls batted down far too frequently; his mechanics still need a lot of work. That is what is coming out of Baltimore.

FADLER: Okay...but. My favorite baseball player of the last few years was Brian Jordan. It was said of Brian that he would never learn to last through an entire season because he thought like a football player and not like a baseball player. I heard much the same thing said of Kirk Gibson during his hey day.

The point being that neither athlete knew how to pace themselves and/or how not to take "unnecessary risks" in order to last the marathon baseball schedule.

Tony Banks was and is a baseball player first and I think the obverse may be said of him....he thinks and acts like a baseball player on the sidelines too much and needs to get more of a football mentality in order to succeed in the NFL. Fans and players and coaches expect their QB's to command the team-right or wrong and Tony does not appear to do that.

The tale with the Rams was always mixed...I would hear that some thought Banks  was too laid back while others felt that he quietly went about his job....