Troy Smith informed the Baltimore Ravens Monday that he’d like to be traded.

Well, actually it was his agent, Ralph Cindrich, via his Twitter page.

This is just one of the many issues with Twitter, which allows people to post thoughts real time – many of which, if not most, are pointless, inappropriate, boring or some combination thereof.

In this case I’ll go with inappropriate. Note to Cindrich, the Ravens play at Oakland Sunday and a win puts them in the playoffs.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand why Smith wants out. It looks like Joe Flacco is going to be the starter there for several years. Smith is a good athlete with some potential and he wants a chance to play. I get that – any good competitor probably feels the same way. But the timing is terrible.

Just what a team needs as they approach a must-win game – the backup quarterback telling the team he’s going to seek an offseason trade.

Come on Mr. Cindrich. Teams can’t trade right now anyway. Would it have hurt you to wait the seven days before they’re officially eliminated? What if they now make the playoffs and starter Joe Flacco gets injured? The team is going to respond to a guy who already informed the team he no longer wants to be there?

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Twitter has a few legitimate purposes. Unfortunately most of its users – apparently including Cindrich – aren’t capable of filtering out when or what should and shouldn’t be posted. Here’s a hint – save the offseason for the offseason.