Joe Flacco received high praise from his head coach John Harbaugh after the Baltimore Ravens defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card round of the NFL playoffs on Saturday night.
Here we go again. The significantly overpaid Joe Flacco has apparently transformed into a playoff stud again.
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Granted, Flacco didn’t exactly set the world on fire in his team’s 30-17 victory over the Steelers, at least not in terms of overall numbers. What he did do was play a clean game, make huge throws when his team needed them, and out-duel an eventually-apologetic Ben Roethlisberger on the big stage of the NFL playoffs.
Flacco got rich two years ago with a run of playoff heroics, and if Saturday night proves to be a trend, he might be at it again. That all remains to be seen, of course, with a showdown with the New England Patriots on the docket for next week. In the meantime, Ravens’ head coach John Harbaugh has some high praise for his quarterback.
“Joe Flacco, what can you say,” Harbaugh said, as quoted on ESPN.com. “He’s the best quarterback in football. We’ll take him any day of the week, twice on Sunday or Saturday if that be the case.”
It’s kind of a fascinating setup, really. So often during the regular season it feels like the Ravens win despite the play of Flacco at quarterback. But then they reach the playoffs, and Flacco is a rock, a guy who doesn’t make mistakes and hits key throws.
To be fair, Joe Flacco is coming off a better regular season than most people probably appreciate. As measured by ESPN’s Total QBR, he was a top-10 quarterback. His 67.3 QBR for the regular season ranked him ahead of the likes of Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, and Philip Rivers.
Excitement should be tempered slightly when you are talking about Flacco’s night on Saturday: he went 18-of-29 for 259 yards. He threw two touchdowns and no interceptions. He avoided the big mistake, something that Roethlisberger could not say on this night.
It’s hard to imagine the Ravens beating the Patriots in the next round; even with how well Baltimore’s defense has played, it seems like Tom Brady and company will be able to take advantage of a depleted secondary and find the right match-ups to win.
As we know by now, however, anything can happen in the playoffs. And if Joe Flacco plays this well again next weekend, maybe the Ravens will continue their postseason run.
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