You know, when the Ravens played the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, I thought it was a great opportunity for Joe Flacco to go for his first 4,000-yard season. Before the game, Joe Flacco was 217 yards away from passing for 4,000 yards for the first time in his career. I think it was beneficial to his contract negotiations to do so, but either he or the coaches thought it wasn’t smart to do so, and he was pulled along with many other starters early in the game. He finished the regular season with 3,817 yards, the most of his career.
But this isn’t the first time Flacco has done something similar to this.
In rout wins against the New York Giants, the Oakland Raiders this year, and back in a game against the Detroit Lions in 2009 that was a 48-3 win, Flacco came out of the game early.
So what does that mean? Well, Flacco is not a stat player. He has even elected to say so in some interviews on TV by saying things like (and I’m paraphrasing), “just because a player does not have the numbers people would like means they played poorly.”
I tend to agree.
Flacco is on a team that doesn’t win the way some fans would like them to. His style of play only adds to fans’ frustration.
Some of this goes hand-in-hand with what type of player he is. Does this mean he is not elite? No it doesn’t. But is does mean he’s not a player that will be going in the top five of fantasy drafts any time soon.
Of course, Joe doesn’t care about your fantasy team – he’ll leave the first-round fantasy selections to Ray Rice. But it is does mean that winning is priority number one for Flacco. He doesn’t care about anything else except wins. And that is something Ravens fans should look at long term, and appreciate.
Flacco, I believe, will be an “elite” quarterback one day. With the changes on the offensive coaching staff, his states will continue to trend in the right direction in my opinion.
