Do you remember back in 2006 when Ben had his appendix/motorcycle fiascos? Batch did a great job starting (and winning) the season opener. Then Ben returned and played like crap for the first month, including a loss to the Raiders (who only won 2 freakin’ games that whole year!). And during that month I remember listening to talk show callers blast Cowher for rushing Ben and begging for us to play Batch.

Now I’m not saying Batch is as good as Ben. But I think it’s fair to say 100% of Batch is better than 60% of Ben. And that’s pretty much what you expect from a backup in the NFL. There aren’t 32 spectacular STARTING QBs in the league. So I don’t really see how you can expect the backup to be spectacular, too. There’s nothing wrong with solid.

Most backups are either young players who have holes that need years of coaching to fix or vets who used to be starters but sucked. The good teams usually go the sucky vet route (The Giants have David Carr. The Cowgirls have Kitna.) as we did last year with Leftwich. Batch also fits that mold and I’d much rather have him than a young inexperienced player such as Cassel, who finished strong but was horrible the first 3-4 weeks which cost his team a playoff spot.

Honestly, as long as Batch is healthy and can play at 2006-07 level, I’m happy with him. Who would you rather see backing up Ben? Perhaps if you can give me a name or two of who you have in mind when you say “plenty of QBs that would happily wait behind Big Ben” I can see what your idea of a spectacular backup is. Because right now I have no idea what better option(s) are out there.