The rookie quarterback was clueless, overwhelmed, discouraged when it ended. He finished with a QB rating of zero. Baltimore can be an unforgiving place for a rookie quarterback.
Any rookie quarterback.
As Geno Smith, beaten and bloodied by the Ravens but nevertheless, unbowed, tries to get back up Sunday against the Dolphins in a must-win game where the Rex Ryan and the Jets desperately need him to grow up, he can look to Eli Manning as an example of how you survive and eventually overcome the growing pains.
It was Manning who suffered the most humbling, humiliating experience of his career four games after replacing Kurt Warner 10 long Decembers ago against the Mike Nolan Ravens.
It has been long forgotten that Manning looked as lost that day as Smith has over the past month or more, that the kneejerk naysayers were asking how Manning could possibly have been the first pick of the 2004 draft.
Manning was 4-for-18 that day for 27 yards with two interceptions and a fumble in a 37-14 loss before Tom Coughlin mercifully yanked him for Kurt Warner in the fourth quarter. That gave Manning one TD with six INTs in four losses.
“Thank you for bringing up these great memories,” Manning told The Post, and smiled. “It is discouraging, ’cause it’s your first year, and a lot’s happening. … Sometimes you gotta go through some growing pains.
“I sat down with my coordinator [John Hufnagel] and with Tom Coughlin and the quarterback coach [Kevin Gilbride], and I remember giving them a list of plays. I said, ‘These are my five plays that I love. I want these plays called. You can call each one twice. I feel I’m gonna get a completion. I can find a completion.’
“ Some are shots down the field, some are just to get me in a rhythm. I think you gotta get some feedback and start getting comfortable. Some plays the coordinator loves, he’s run ’em forever, and he’s had great success. Some plays you like just ’cause you see it well, you’ve thought it through all, you have your progressions, and you know how to find completions.”
In the postgame locker room, Coughlin told his team Manning would remain the starter even though he had not led a TD drive in more than 12 quarters.
“When you think about playing, you never think it would go like this,” Manning said after that game. “I’ve got to get my teammates to trust me. I haven’t proved anything to them.”
Then Gilbride on Friday: “Obviously, it was about as … low point of our career here together. They, of course, were a special defense and were especially sophisticated and complex, and then when things started going south on us, it just made it almost impossible to recover.”
Manning recovered in large part because of his makeup.
“More than anything, you just keep encouraging him, that, ‘Hey, this is part of the growth process, part of the learning curve,’ ” Gilbride said. “Fortunately, we’ve been blessed, that guy just stays as strong as you can possibly imagine anybody to be in difficult circumstances, he does.”
Smith (9-22, 127 yards, zero TDs, two INTs) finished with a 22.3 rating in Baltimore, which was better than his 10.1 rating the previous week in Buffalo.
Manning wanted no part of sitting and watching after his horrific outing.
“Even if you’re learning the hard way, you are still learning out there,” Manning said at the time.
Ryan feels the same way. Even if he fails to make the playoffs, he’ll have a good chance to stay if he can get Smith straightened out so the future is tomorrow, if it can’t be now.
“Sometimes you’ll want to sit a guy so he can see things maybe from a different perspective,” Ryan told the Miami media. “But, the best way to learn is actually get out there and do it and face it and come through it, and I think that’s probably the best way to learn.”
Manning finished his rookie season with five TDs and three INTs in his past three games. Asked what his advice for any rookie quarterback would be, the two-time Super Bowl MVP of the Giants told The Post: “You just gotta keep working. You gotta be hard on yourself, and you gotta study it, and talk to your coordinators about it to find solutions.”
The expectations for Smith are far lower than they were for Manning. The jury is out on whether Smith can be the Jets’ quarterback of the future.
He better start making his case soon. Like Sunday against the Fish. This is no time any longer for guppy love. It’s sink or swim.