Hello Journal,
Week 5 is in the books with Baltimore winning 26-23 and sure enough, Joe Flacco has another game where he made the best of what he can do at crunch time. I mean, despite his 268 yards and 1 Interception, he still played a rather good game. I am a staunch supporter of Joe Flacco ever since he walked into into this league.
Everyone wants to talk about stats, how he's not elite, and how he didn't earn the $120 million he was signed for.
Ok, let's review:
1. The quarterback position is probably the most scrutinized position in professional football, also they are the controllers of the offense, so what they say goes unless the OC wants to jump in and handcuff you.
2. Joe Flacco's record in 98 games is 66-32 (57-28 in the Regular Season, 9-4 in the playoffs, which includes 7 road wins). But every win that Joe gets is luck. Critics are stating it's a team game. If it's such a team game then why the god's name do we continue to monitor quarterback records? The numbers speak for themselves. Sure he's not putting up the stats this year... 5 TD and 8 INT, but hey, he's very well known for starting slow in the first half but really throwing it into high gear in the 2nd half. His first two games, he threw for what a quarterback would throw in 1 game, 129 yards both games. But again, he's had a great start to his 6-year career. He made it all the way to the AFC Championship which... was VERY MUCH UNEXPECTED and the Steelers even gave Joe credit for getting THIS FAR as a ROOKIE. Joe's made it to the playoffs each of the 5 years he's been in this league! That 38-yard run in the first game, the 43-yard catch and run in the Oakland game, and making it to the AFC Championship in your first season. Yup Ravens fans WE GOT A QUARTERBACK!!!!! Finally!!!!!
3. Any bad game always seems to fall on Joe. Ok? The media wants to make him look like the bad guy because he's a FCS quarterback from Delaware. A no-name football school. His stats at Delaware don't necessarily jump out at you but they are rather good. He threw for 7,057 yards, 41 touchdowns, 15 interceptions, and he was 16-10 as a starter. Let's also remember that he almost quit football until his coach said: "No way man, Joe, you are going to be picked in the NFL draft" and while all the other scouts walked away from a game in which he threw 4 interceptions, the Ravens stayed and they wrote an absolutely GLEAMING report on him. Yes, he's got the tangibles, good football intelligence, and not only that, he's a big guy (6' 6" 230lb at draft day). His football intelligence parallels that of Manning and Brady. He picked up pretty quickly.
4. Remember that game vs. Denver last year in Baltimore... Yeah, Flacco had a bad game and the disdain of the media was like: "This guy sucks... His QBR is terrible..." Fast forward to the playoffs, the Ravens are 10-6 heading to the Wild Card game and Ray Lewis announces his retirement after the season is over. Vs. Indianapolis, Joe had a monster game, 12/23, 282 yards, 3 TD. Denver was like: Oh that's nothing! We got Peyton Manning! We're going to win easily! And sure enough, the Ravens were given no chance. ESPN was chalking it as an easy win. Manning-Brady in the AFC Championship game. The Ravens weren't even supposed to show up and win! Ok, so basically this was USA vs. the Soviet Union...
5. That win vs. the Broncos in the AFC Divisional put Joe into the history books. That throw put him in the history books and if you think that's just luck that he got that completed throw... Then... you must be messed up! That play is FOREVER ETCHED in lore as the "MILE HIGH MIRACLE" or "THE F-BOMB", but again... the critics say: Ah, just luck... But some legends rushed to the defense of Flacco. Len Dawson of KMBC-TV said: "He couldn't believe what he just saw" and I remembered hearing Gerry Sandusky: "Jacoby Jones... HAS IT AT THE 20! (Qadry: WOAHHHHHHHHH!), 15! 10! 5! (Qadry: WOAHHHH!), TOUCHDOWNNNNNN RAVENS! NO FLAGS! AND THE MIRACLE! IS ANSWERED!!!" Miracle? Yep, you can put in NFL Lore!!!! One of the greatest games in playoff history. He ties Eli Manning for the most road wins at 5. He went 18/34, 334 yards, 3 TD, and again, NO INTERCEPTIONS.
Also, let's review this. The Ravens-Broncos AFC Divisional brought in 47,600,000 viewers nationally and 273,500,000 viewers worldly. Those broke records for AFC Divisional Match-up. Patriots and Texans? Didn't even come close.
6. He won the AFC Championship beating both Manning and Brady, the two best quarterbacks in the NFL in consecutive weeks. The Patriots were 9 1/2 point favorites... And with his arm, threw for 240 yards, 3 TD, and again, NO INTERCEPTIONS... 3 straight games of 3 TD in the postseason. CBS was seriously hoping for a Brady-Manning match-up because that's where the money was. Sean McManus, head of CBS, even apologized for what he called a "bad match-up." Again, winning on the STRENGTH of Joe's arm and Boldin's great plays and a fantastic D that held the Pats to just 5 first downs and 124 yards in the 2nd half, and BREAKING Brady's 67 game winning streak when leading after the half. Wait, I thought that quarterback records didn't matter! Obviously it did here.
That "BAD MATCHUP" brought in 41,200,000 viewers nationally and 350,000,000 viewers worldly according to Nielsen.
7. He's a Super Bowl MVP, even though Jones and Boldin could've been named but Jones even said: Flacco deserved it. Only one person picked us to win and I got to tell you, Bill Cowher made the best choice ever: He picked Baltimore to win when everyone else was taking San Francisco. Joe Flacco in that 2 week span was largely ignored by the media because they wanted to flock to Colin Kaepernick or talk about Ray Lewis' "Deer Antler Spray" Allegations. Everyone was talking big about how Kaepernick is better than Flacco. How Kaepernick is this and that.
Basically it was: Joe who?
Well guess what: Joe was crowned a champion after helping his team win Super Bowl XLVII as the quarterback. 22/33, 287 yards, 3 TD, and again, NO INTERCEPTIONS!!!!
The Super Bowl shattered records left and right, 165,000,000 national viewers and record-breaking 796,200,000 world viewers! Joe Flacco was on top of the world! He got some serious recognition nationally!
But what I found unbelievable was how a lot of tweets (I don't tweet, twit, or twat) were asking: "Where's Baltimore?"
Some of the tweets were great, Aaron Rodgers congratulated Baltimore, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James was disappointed, but hey, he thought it was a great game. I think Rodgers post was the best along with Nick Saban's.
Joe Flacco's 4 game stat-line for the playoffs:
73 completions, 1140 yards, 11 Touchdowns, 0 INTERCEPTIONS, and a 117.2 QB rating. His performance in those 4 games was historic! HE EARNED HIS $120.1 million. WIN!!!! Steve Young quoted Flacco's performance as the most "dominating" 4 games in history.
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In defense everyone, He's earned his contract, he busted his butt for it, and if you guys don't like him, then you really don't like the Ravens (Sorry, but you take the good and the bad). This is our quarterback and he will possibly go on to be one of the best FCS division quarterbacks to ever play the NFL game.
I'm writing this to defend the quarterback of our team. He's done a great job and he's been an excellent contributor to the community. We got another super bowl under our belts because of him, it may be a team sport, but we got to have the arm that goes with team.
Joe Flacco, Number 5, you are the leader of this team, and you earned your fourth star as the Field Marshal of the Ravens with that Super Bowl win. Ray is gone now and you have earned the leader role.
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"Until the next post, I'm signing off..."
~ Joshua
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