Joe Flacco Told Teammates on Sideline to Illegally Interfere and Tackle Ted Ginn Jr. in Super Bowl
By Josh Hill
NFL Films usually catches interesting tidbits from the sidelines of games, but when they mic’d up the Super Bowl, Joe Flacco was captured getting a little too into the moment. On the final play of the Super Bowl, after the Ravens had given up a safety and were preparing for a free kick, Joe Flacco told his teammates on the sidelines to run onto the field and tackle 49ers kick returner Ted Ginn if he broke free returning the kick.
From NFL Films:
"“If he starts to break it, go tackle him,” Flacco told tight end Dennis Pitta.“Really?” Pitta said.“I don’t know,” Flacco added. “I mean what else — what could they — I don’t know. I mean, they might be able to give him a touchdown on that, but I don’t know.”"
Flacco seems to be a bit too committed to winning a Super Bowl. He couldn’t have been serious, rather we’re going to give Flacco the benefit of the doubt that he was just a little too pumped up on adrenaline and was speaking rather than thinking. But while I’d really love to chalk this up entirely as a joke, listening to the audio suggests Flacco was indeed very serious about leaving the sideline to tackle Ted Ginn.
“Hey, if he breaks it, if he busts this for some reason, tackle him.,” Flacco is head saying. “Go tackle him. I don’t know what the rule is on that, but . . . .”
But it’s against the rules so it’s a good thing it didn’t happen. Had it happened the Niners would have been given a free, un-timed down, likely in field goal range meaning David Akers could have realistically tied the game thus sending it to overtime. In the NFL rulebook, it actually states that the referees would have been able to award Ginn a touchdown, thus winning the game for San Francisco anyways.
However, the image of Flacco, helmet-less and rabid as a dog chasing Ginn like he was a villain chasing a car in some bad movie is almost too good to have missed out on. Instead, all we get is a now semi-tainted image of the Super Bowl MVP who was literally ready to win a Lombardi Trophy by any means necessary.