Ravens Fan- Joe Flacco Q and A

[The Excellector]

Is there a worse QB with more meaningless excuses consistently made for him in recent history?

Upon watching several dozen Ravens games, the teams weren't very good, but he seemed to have been holding the team back with his poor play yet there is a group of fans dead set on blaming everyone else for his issues.

Why is that? Is it his face? His personality?

I don’t know. You tell me what a man’s supposed to do throwing to Marlon Brown, Tandan Doss and Torrey Smith (2013) or to Mike Wallace, Jeremy Maclin and Breshad Perriman (2017).

[gtown53]

I don’t know. You tell me what a man’s supposed to do throwing to Marlon Brown, Tandan Doss and Torrey Smith (2013) or to Mike Wallace, Jeremy Maclin and Breshad Perriman (2017).

Thanks for your insight!!! And, of course you are right.

I've gotten to the point where I avoid responding to what are clearly repetitive"Trolls" meant to sow discord, inflame and annoy the people with a reasonable view of one of the two best Veteran QBs available in Free Agency. I don't know why those Posts aren't re-directed to the "Talkin' Smack" threads.

[The Excellector]

I would have hit the lottery before Flacco ever got a chance to throw to Stefan Diggs and Adam Theilen in Baltimore.

[The Excellector]

Joe Flacco, in character, is not a rah-rah guy. His demeanor really doesn’t change, except for him smiling a little more when they are winning. That has its positives and negatives.

The negatives are that if things are going tough and you need a guy to rile up the offense, that’s not him. The way you’ve probably seen Brady and Manning chew out their offenses, Flacco isn’t going to do. It also gives off the vibe that he doesn’t care and that he’s not a hard worker, because he’s just not the type of personality the media will follow closely. Both of those assertions would be wrong, but that’s just the nature of how he’s thought of.

The positives are that he’s never going to throw a teammate under the bus and will always take responsibility for when he up. He will be respected and liked by his teammates, because he leads by example. He’s not going to come into the Denver locker room with a sense of entitlement. He’s going to come in with the mindset that he has to earn the respect of the locker room, but with full confidence that he will. If he had an issue with a player, he’ll handle it behind the scenes. If there’s a WR dropping too many passes, he’ll approach him behind the scenes, one on one, and tell him straight up, if you keep dropping it it’s not gonna keep coming your way.

The biggest plus is that in big games, the man just doesn’t flinch. You’ll see him sitting by himself on the sideline with that blank look on his face and then he’ll come out slit throats and lead comebacks. He’s the sort of QB who reveled in playing at Heinz Field and at Gillette. He just didn’t show it through outward expression.

[DENVERSB50CHAMP]

Joe Flacco, in character, is not a rah-rah guy. His demeanor really doesn’t change, except for him smiling a little more when they are winning. That has its positives and negatives.

The negatives are that if things are going tough and you need a guy to rile up the offense, that’s not him. The way you’ve probably seen Brady and Manning chew out their offenses, Flacco isn’t going to do. It also gives off the vibe that he doesn’t care and that he’s not a hard worker, because he’s just not the type of personality the media will follow closely. Both of those assertions would be wrong, but that’s just the nature of how he’s thought of.

The positives are that he’s never going to throw a teammate under the bus and will always take responsibility for when he up. He will be respected and liked by his teammates, because he leads by example. He’s not going to come into the Denver locker room with a sense of entitlement. He’s going to come in with the mindset that he has to earn the respect of the locker room, but with full confidence that he will. If he had an issue with a player, he’ll handle it behind the scenes. If there’s a WR dropping too many passes, he’ll approach him behind the scenes, one on one, and tell him straight up, if you keep dropping it it’s not gonna keep coming your way.

The biggest plus is that in big games, the man just doesn’t flinch. You’ll see him sitting by himself on the sideline with that blank look on his face and then he’ll come out slit throats and lead comebacks. He’s the sort of QB who reveled in playing at Heinz Field and at Gillette. He just didn’t show it through outward expression.

Your Insight is Great I am one of the Very Few on this Board who was Elated to have Canned Cannot Throw Keenum and to Have a Great Passing QB I for one cannot wait and see what this Offense will have in-store for Denver what I do know is that it could not been any worse than what I had to watch the past 2 years and that was pure ugliness at is finest lol...

[Melemele]

Another Baltimore ex-pat chiming in.

If you give Flacco a decent offensive line and a couple of guys who can catch (hold onto the ball once it hits their hands) Joe can take Denver deep into the playoffs. Except for Kubiak,, Flacco has never had an offensive coordinator who knew what the hell he was doing. Just remember that it was under Kubiak in the 2014 playoff game in New England against the Pats that Joe gave the Ravens two (2) fourteen point leads only to have the Ravens prevent defense fold like a house of cards and lose the game. They didn't lose the game because Joe couldn't put enough points on the board - the Ravens defense lost the game.

Do not be fooled by their REPUTATION - the Ravens defense hasn't been effective since Ray Lewis and Ed Reed retired. They consistently lose more games than they win.

[broncoslover115]

Joe Flacco, in character, is not a rah-rah guy. His demeanor really doesn’t change, except for him smiling a little more when they are winning. That has its positives and negatives.

The negatives are that if things are going tough and you need a guy to rile up the offense, that’s not him. The way you’ve probably seen Brady and Manning chew out their offenses, Flacco isn’t going to do. It also gives off the vibe that he doesn’t care and that he’s not a hard worker, because he’s just not the type of personality the media will follow closely. Both of those assertions would be wrong, but that’s just the nature of how he’s thought of.

The positives are that he’s never going to throw a teammate under the bus and will always take responsibility for when he up. He will be respected and liked by his teammates, because he leads by example. He’s not going to come into the Denver locker room with a sense of entitlement. He’s going to come in with the mindset that he has to earn the respect of the locker room, but with full confidence that he will. If he had an issue with a player, he’ll handle it behind the scenes. If there’s a WR dropping too many passes, he’ll approach him behind the scenes, one on one, and tell him straight up, if you keep dropping it it’s not gonna keep coming your way.

The biggest plus is that in big games, the man just doesn’t flinch. You’ll see him sitting by himself on the sideline with that blank look on his face and then he’ll come out slit throats and lead comebacks. He’s the sort of QB who reveled in playing at Heinz Field and at Gillette. He just didn’t show it through outward expression.

I really appreciate this thread, the way you’ve laid it out and your balanced answers. I’ve gotten a lot out of it so far.

Welcome to Broncos Country. I’m excited for the upcoming season.

[Peanut]

Joe Flacco, in character, is not a rah-rah guy. His demeanor really doesn’t change, except for him smiling a little more when they are winning. That has its positives and negatives.

The negatives are that if things are going tough and you need a guy to rile up the offense, that’s not him. The way you’ve probably seen Brady and Manning chew out their offenses, Flacco isn’t going to do. It also gives off the vibe that he doesn’t care and that he’s not a hard worker, because he’s just not the type of personality the media will follow closely. Both of those assertions would be wrong, but that’s just the nature of how he’s thought of.

The positives are that he’s never going to throw a teammate under the bus and will always take responsibility for when he up. He will be respected and liked by his teammates, because he leads by example. He’s not going to come into the Denver locker room with a sense of entitlement. He’s going to come in with the mindset that he has to earn the respect of the locker room, but with full confidence that he will. If he had an issue with a player, he’ll handle it behind the scenes. If there’s a WR dropping too many passes, he’ll approach him behind the scenes, one on one, and tell him straight up, if you keep dropping it it’s not gonna keep coming your way.

The biggest plus is that in big games, the man just doesn’t flinch. You’ll see him sitting by himself on the sideline with that blank look on his face and then he’ll come out slit throats and lead comebacks. He’s the sort of QB who reveled in playing at Heinz Field and at Gillette. He just didn’t show it through outward expression.

Welcome to the MB. Just to let you know, I edited a word out of your post (and those that quoted it). Please read the CoC on language. This is your one freebie.

I live 20 minutes from Baltimore, but I am not a Raven fan (my most disliked team). One of my favorite memories of Flacco was after his big contract a few years ago, he went to McD's. My most favorite memory was the loss against Broncos/Manning.

How has the team reacted to Flacco leaving?

[The Excellector]

Thank you for the welcome. Flacco is hard to gauge for a lot of people, even myself sometimes. When you look at a QB, I don’t think you can do so without looking at the environment they are in. I don’t think anybody can say that Baltimore is the environment conducive to individual QB success, which is why I’ve always defended him.

Like I said, for example, if I saw him with the sort of surrounding talent that Roethlisberger has had in Pittsburgh or that Dalton has had in Cincinnati or that Ryan has had in Atlanta, and he still played poorly and still put up really bad numbers, then I would call a spade a spade. However, we’ve seen nothing close to that level of talent or coaching in Baltimore for the offense, outside of the one year Gary Kubiak was here. Even when you look at that season, the starting receivers were a veteran Steve Smith Sr., a Torrey Smith who didn’t fit the system, the RB was Justin Forsett and the TE was an aged Owen Daniels who had one foot out the door.

Seriously, 2012 was the best collection of talent he’s ever had. Once Cam Cameron was fired, Caldwell took over and put Boldin in the slot. So, you had Torrey going deep drawing attention, Boldin working against a Nickel CB and Pitta working against a Safety or LB. Then, occasionally, defenses would forget about Jacoby Jones and he’d sneak behind them. They had Rice coming out of the backfield.

[The Excellector]

Welcome to the MB. Just to let you know, I edited a word out of your post (and those that quoted it). Please read the CoC on language. This is your one freebie.

I live 20 minutes from Baltimore, but I am not a Raven fan (my most disliked team). One of my favorite memories of Flacco was after his big contract a few years ago, he went to McD's. My most favorite memory was the loss against Broncos/Manning.

How has the team reacted to Flacco leaving?

As far as I can tell, teammates had a great deal of respect for Flacco, with regard to how he handled the change at QB. He treated Lamar well, didn’t put up a stink and helped him out as much as he could. The organization made it clear that Flacco would have a say in where they traded him to, out of appreciation. The feelings seem to be mixed. Guys like Suggs and Yanda liked Flacco and wanted to see him stay in. Yanda never outright said it. Suggs diplomatically did. The WRs weren’t happy with the switch, but I don’t think it was due to Lamar. I think everyone liked Lamar and also had respect for how he handled it. Both he and Flacco handled it like pros. I think it’s the offense they ran. Crabtree and Snead got into with coaches on the sideline at one point and had to come out after the game and minimize it, showing support to the direction.

Jackson had quite a few supporters on the team and I don’t think they would have made the move if the vast majority of the team weren’t on board with it. Jimmy Smith, in particular, took exception to fans booing during the playoff game, even going over to them and telling them that Lamar got them there and to not turn their backs on him.

Generally, again, they weren’t booing Lamar so much as it was: We need to throw to win this game, so either let Lamar throw or bring in someone who can. But don’t have Lamar out there and not let him throw until it’s too late.

While the decision was understood, there was also a sentiment that the playoff game was treated like an experience game for Lamar, which didn’t go over well with the fans. Former Maryland Terps Head Coach Gary Williams even told a story that in Steve Bisciotti’s Owner’s box, Ray Lewis and other former Ravens were telling him that he needed to go to Flacco.

Now, to be fair, there was a strong contingent of the fan base who felt that if they hadn’t made the switch then they never would have made the playoffs. Partly, because making the switch gave the offense a clear identity, which was something it lacked for years.

The organization is all in on Lamar. The fans are nervous. Some feel it was time. Some feel that it wouldn’t have got to this point if the Ravens didn’t neglect the offense for years. I think with Flacco, fans saw the other issues with the offense, but after a while they got tired of going for reasons and it just became easy to blame the QB who got paid.

Drew Brees got paid. Has he ever gone into a season in New Orleans with Smith, Brown and Doss (2013) as his top three WRs? Or Maclin, Wallace and Perriman (2017)? Rodger got paid. Has he ever went into a season with a trio like that? Roethlisberger got paid. Has he ever went into a season with a trio like that?

Now, fans are starting to pay more attention to the myriad of other issues with this offense, since you can’t blame Flacco anymore.

[TheAsianPA]

How many offensive coordinators did Joe Flacco go through in Baltimore? From what I understand, that played a big part in decline in play after the SB win.

[The Excellector]

How many offensive coordinators did Joe Flacco go through in Baltimore? From what I understand, that played a big part in decline in play after the SB win.

2008: Cameron
2009: Cameron
2010: Cameron
2011: Cameron
2012: Cameron (Fired late in the season)/Caldwell (Won the title with Caldwell)
2013: Caldwell
2014: Kubiak
2015: Trestman
2016: Trestman (Fired early in the season)/Mornhinweg
2017: Mornhinweg
2018: Mornhinweg

So, at one point, yes, he had four Coordinators in five years and all very different in style. Kubiak, Trestman and Mornhinweg are all west-coast offense-based guys, but their variations are very very different.

To add, in 17’ and 18’, Greg Roman was in charge of the blocking scheme. So, they weren’t running the full blocking scheme Marty was used to running in Philly under Reid. This led to a lot of confusion in the blocking, similar to 2013, when they had both Andy Moeller (Man blocking) and Juan Castillo (Zone stretch blocking) as line coaches.

When Lamar was inserted, they went strictly with Roman’s blocking scheme.

[swinginhorseman]

Does Flacco and Dummervil have some tension between each other? I was surprised to hear Dummervil comments in a public statement about Flacco.

[The Excellector]

Does Flacco and Dummervil have some tension between each other? I was surprised to hear Dummervil comments in a public statement about Flacco.

Was that the one where Dumervil was in the car, shortly after the deal was announced? To my knowledge they have no beef. Man was probably just giving his opinion.

[MarshallMoss]

In my personal opinion, Joe Flacco’s ceiling is pretty high if I’d have to take a guess, but it’s such an unknown. The narrative around Flacco, nationally, is that he needs a strong rush offense and defense to lean on. The problem I have with that is that the Ravens have been trying to win that way for twenty years now. They haven’t done it any differently since Vinny Testeverde was our QB. So, we’ve never actually seen Flacco in any other situation to truly say whether or not he can do anything else. For example, look at the offense that Matt Ryan had to work with, the year he won the Super Bowl. We’ve never seen Flacco with that sort of talent. Not even the year the Ravens won the title. We’ve not seen Flacco in that sort of team philosophy, where the offense isn’t just reduced to scoring 25 points and parking the bus. There have been several years, since the Super Bowl, that a healthy Mohammed Sanu has been better than Flacco’s entire WR corps combined. Let alone a talent like Julio Jones.

So, if you ask me, I’d say his ceiling is pretty high. If anything concerned me it’d be his durability. 2015, he shredded his knee. 2016, he rushed back from it and wasn’t feeling better until the second half of the season. In 2017, it was a back issue and last year it was a hip. He’ll play through some serious injuries, but if I had to pick one thing that could keep him from reaching his ceiling, injuries would be it.

Thank you for your amazing feedback. I've read all your responses in this thread and they shed some cool light and perspective outside our fanbase. I especially liked your breakdown of our receivers, it was better than anything I've heard on this board! (this is not a knock on my bronco brother and sisters).

You didn't flat out say Matt Ryan as a ceiling comparison, but I see Flacco in the same mould as Ryan. Tall, pocket passers with big arms. I want to believe that the day of a statue qb has not ended in today's nfl (unless your name is Tom Brady).

Speaking of Brady. He gets the ball out of his hands so fast and has tremendous pocket presence. Where is Joe's pocket presence on a scale of 1 to 10 for you?

I also think Big Ben has the best pump fake in football, which has messed up safeties and corners for years, how is Joe's?

Cheers!