Raheem Morris Now Faces Bigger Decisions

Okay, Raheem finally got down to business and named his starting quarterback, the mighty Byron Leftwich. Fair enough. Now comes the hard work. At 6 p.m. on Saturday, September 5, Morris will have to choose the 53 players for his final roster. He'll have to tell us those players he will take into battle against Dallas and the rest of the NFC East, NFC South and AFC East. Now that he has Leftwich as his guy, Morris had hinted that he might, just might, pick up where Jon Gruden left off and keep four quarterbacks on his team. That's something he might want to think long and hard about. Fact is, the third quarterback on an NFL roster is fairly irrelevant. A four quarterback is an after-thought. It's a luxury this young team cannot afford. It will need all the man-power it can muster for special teams, defense and those other fairly-important facets of the game. One man who most likely will not make the team is kicker Matt Bryant. Bryant was the feel-good story of 2008 but a hamstring injury has hamstrung his hopes of making the roster. Morris told him this week that in order for a chance at the final roster, he needed to play in the preseason finale against the Houston Texans on Friday night. Bryant said he'd rather heal properly and live to kick another day, perhaps for another team. Which brings us to that fourth preseason game. You can bet a pair of club seats to Raymond James for the seven home football games that Morris has pretty much made up his mind on his final 53. Starters don't play in that fourth preseason game. It's a last call for those guys on the bubble and Morris has already honed in on his guys. Four quarterbacks? Let's hope not. A stout defense? Keep your fingers crossed. Derrick Ward, Cadillac Williams and Earnest Graham as your running back rotation? Hopefully, especially is you happen to be Leftwich. Talk about the Houston Texans as much as you wish. Morris and his staff are already game-planning for Dallas. And that's the smart thing to do.