Campbell addresses what it was like to be so publicly dissed by management this offseason:
“It’s, well, tough sometimes,” Campbell said on the sideline after practice. “I am fine now, but there were a couple of times in the off-season I felt like a piece of tissue they were flushing down the toilet.”
Personable and hardworking, Campbell is as well-respected in his locker room as any quarterback in the league except maybe Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. “There’s such great admiration for him around the team,” says tight end Chris Cooley. “Nobody in this building doesn’t want Jason to play great this year, go 8–2 in his first 10 games and force Dan to give him a huge contract.”
The main criticism of Campbell:
The knock on Campbell has been his conservative decision-making; he knows he’s going to have to be bolder. “I don’t like how few chances he takes in a business where quarterbacks have to take a few,” says an opposing coach.
To illustrate the trials Campbell went through, especially late in the season when his offensive line was beaten to a pulp, Zorn showed his team a series of time-lapse photos of Campbell and the Ravens’ Joe Flacco dropping in the pocket and setting up to throw. The images showed the rookie Flacco with at least three yards of space in all directions as he released; Campbell looked as if he was trying to throw in a phone booth.
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