Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

[Dee Dub]

Case in point, Joe Flacco yesterday. He is being praised for having a great game versus the Patriots. And I believe that has a lot to do with his numbers----22/36 306 yards 2 TD's and 1 INT. His coach and some of the so called experts have alluded to how he made plays all game long as well as when the game was on the line. I disagree with that. And those numbers that Flacco put up seem to have hidden the fact that with the game on the line and about 7:20 seconds left in the game he threw a crucial interception. Then on his last pass of the game he nearly did that again.

Flacco is not an elite QB. Elite QB's find ways to get their teams to the Super Bowl. Flacco has had 4 shots at it and he has not been able to do so. I will admit he is a good QB but he is not an elite one. And I will contend that I dont believe he ever will be elite. When the game is on the line in the biggest games of his career, he doesnt get it done.

[steelblood]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Case in point, Joe Flacco yesterday. He is being praised for having a great game versus the Patriots. And I believe that has a lot to do with his numbers----22/36 306 yards 2 TD's and 1 INT. His coach and some of the so called experts have alluded to how he made plays all game long as well as when the game was on the line. I disagree with that. And those numbers that Flacco put up seem to have hidden the fact that with the game on the line and about 7:20 seconds left in the game he threw a crucial interception. Then on his last pass of the game he nearly did that again.

Flacco is not an elite QB. Elite QB's find ways to get their teams to the Super Bowl. Flacco has had 4 shots at it and he has not been able to do so. I will admit he is a good QB but he is not an elite one. And I will contend that I dont believe he ever will be elite. When the game is on the line in the biggest games of his career, he doesnt get it done.

Flacco was also AWFUL in the first Q. He was off target and missed several wide open receivers. His numbers for the Q only looked OK because he hit Smith on the long pass on which his receiver was schemed open. But, even that throw was terrible (thrown late and very short). Smith was wide open and if he didn't have to completely stop and wait for the ball, it would have been an easy TD.

[feltdizz]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Flacco was average... that really is a bad Pats D when it comes to the pass. He should have ran on the 3rd and 1 once he broke the pocket.

Hard to fault him for not getting it done when he puts the ball in Evans lap and he doesn't hang on and the FG misses a chip shot.

It looks like Cam believes Flacco an elite QB...

I would have taken the ball out of hands on one of those last 2 plays.

[flippy]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

If Lee Evans made a catch he should have, this would be a different story.

[Shawn]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

This may not be a popular opinion but I believe it to be truth. Flacco is a solid QB. No, he isn't elite. But, he can make all the throws and reads. The reason he isn't elite is located above the neck. Ed Reed was right...easily rattled. Pressure situations are not his thing. But, if you give Flacco a lead, he can make all the throws to bury you.

[feltdizz]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

This may not be a popular opinion but I believe it to be truth. Flacco is a solid QB. No, he isn't elite. But, he can make all the throws and reads. The reason he isn't elite is located above the neck. Ed Reed was right...easily rattled. Pressure situations are not his thing. But, if you give Flacco a lead, he can make all the throws to bury you.

I fear he no longer is rattled by Lebeau.

[Shawn]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

This may not be a popular opinion but I believe it to be truth. Flacco is a solid QB. No, he isn't elite. But, he can make all the throws and reads. The reason he isn't elite is located above the neck. Ed Reed was right...easily rattled. Pressure situations are not his thing. But, if you give Flacco a lead, he can make all the throws to bury you.

I fear he no longer is rattled by Lebeau.

Yeah you have to actually get pressure on him to rattle him.

[NW Steeler]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

If Lee Evans made a catch he should have, this would be a different story.

Exactly. And today everyone would be talking about how Flacco was now an elite QB. Not that I think he is, but the media is always looking for someone new to blow.

[pittpete]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Not sticking up for Flacco, but for those who actually watched the game, Wilfork was absolutely destroying the pocket.
Pretty hard to step up and throw if you ask me.

[brothervad]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

I am going to say coaching lost this game for the Ravens more than anything Flacco did or did not do.

You have a 2nd and 1 with 25 seconds remaining and 1 timeout at the NE 14.

You have the 2nd leading rusher in Ray Rice with a Stud lead block in Vontae Leach.

Here is a novel idea. Get the first down call a TO.

You will have a 1st and 10 (or 1st and goal) with 20 seconds or so remaining in the game.

That gives you three shots into the EZ and then if you don't make it take the game tying FG.

I know it's easy to say this as a Monday morning QB, but it seems to me coaches keep a timeout sometimes like it's going to be given to them in OT.

Use it.

brothervad

[fezziwig]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

I agree, flacco doesn't sweat the steeler defense. He has gotten better and I can't say he is the reason why they lost that game last night. I was hoping that he had a terrible game to create in team termoil and to knock his confidence but, that didn't happen.

He's not an elite QB but, he is good enough to lead his team.

[SidSmythe]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Flacco has a lot of room for improvement.
He could also benefit from having more weapons.

At the end of the day Joe Flacco isn't the greatest QB on the road and when under pressure he caves. His eyes see the rush and the rest of the field is nowhere to be seen.

[fezziwig]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

He has Smith, Bolden a pretty good tightend, Ray Rice and I'm sure a clutch reciever could do him well.

[BradshawsHairdresser]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Flacco played well enough to win...if Lee Evans had held on to that pass.

Don't think Unibrow is elite by any means, but neither do I think you can pin yesterday's loss on him.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Sometimes numbers dont really tell the whole story...

Mon Jan 23

In playoff loss, Flacco earns respect he didn’t deserve in previous wins

By Doug Farrar



Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has faced the New England Patriots twice in the postseason. His team has won one of those games, and lost the other. If you subscribe to the idea of "quarterback wins" (that most nebulous of statistics), that makes Flacco 1-1 in the postseason against Foxboro's favorite team. Here are his stat lines in each of those two games:

4 of 10 for 34 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception; and
22 of 36 for 306 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception.

Of course, the line that looks so much better came in the loss, Sunday's 23-20 defeat at the hands of a Patriots team that will go to its fifth Super Bowl in 11 seasons. The first line came in the 2009 wild-card round, when the Ravens demolished the Pats, 33-14 as Baltimore scored three touchdowns on the ground and picked off three Tom Brady passes. The Ravens picked off two more in the AFC championship game, but it wasn't enough.

That doesn't mean that Flacco didn't do enough. This time, he outplayed Brady — and until linebacker Brandon Spikes picked off the only pass Flacco threw to a defender all day, Flacco actually bettered Brady by a fairly decisive margin. For all the credit Flacco has received for "winning" games in which he was little more than an innocent bystander, he was far more the franchise quarterback he's expected to be in one of the most disappointing losses in team history.

"I'm proud of our quarterback, I'm proud of the way he played and the way he stepped up in this kind of a setting," head coach John Harbaugh said after the game. "The plays that he made down the stretch, I think that says a lot about him and a lot about his future."

True enough. After a season in which Flacco found his efforts questioned by just about everyone in the NFL — from the media to opponents to his own teammates — Flacco finally came up big when his teammates could not. In a weird way, that was cause for encouragement, because Flacco was everything he had not been through most of the 2011 season. He made decisive throws off of pinpoint reads, he was quick to release the ball when pressure came, and he showed some ability to scramble when the pocket broke down. He made several stick throws with impressive accuracy through the Patriots game, but the one great throw that wasn't what it should have been doomed the Ravens to their eventual defeat.

With 27 seconds left in the game, Flacco threw a wonderful pass to receiver Lee Evans in the end zone, but cornerback Sterling Moore pulled the ball from Evans' grasp before the receiver could establish possession. It was the play of the game in a contest that agonizingly close. Kicker Billy Cundiff shanked a 32-yard field goal attempt two plays later, but if Evans holds on to that ball, we're selling a very different narrative right now.

"Honestly, the most disappointing part of all this [is] that I feel personally that I let everybody down," Evans said with great emotion after the game. "This is the greatest team that I've been on, and I feel like I let everybody down. It's on my shoulders. It's hard to sit here and accept how and why things happened, but it's the reality of it. It's as tough as it gets."

What is not real this time is the idea that Flacco somehow lost the game. This was a Ravens loss, and a very difficult one, but anyone who chooses to stick an "L" next to Flacco's name because of a misguided belief that quarterbacks win and lose in a vacuum will only prove that they didn't watch the game tape.

"It's definitely tough to be as close as we were, as close as we feel like we were to going to [Indianapolis], and not having it go our way," Flacco said. "We played a hell of a game; they played a hell of a game … we laid it all out there. We can look at each other and say we left it all out on the field and we gave it our best. Did we play every play our best and did we execute everything the best? No. If we [had], we'd probably be out on the field celebrating. But it just doesn't happen that way. Somebody lost. It was us. But we left it all out there. We've got to be proud of that and move on."

Asked if he felt that this performance was a rebuttal to the critics who have bedeviled him all season, Flacco made his feelings very clear.

"I don't care," he said. "If you look at the film, you see how I play. I pretty much play the same every week. If you think I played better this week than other weeks, then I think you're wrong. This is the way I play every week, and I really don't care. I don't know if I'll ever prove everything. That's not up to me. My job is to go out there and give our team the best shot to win."

This time, Joe Flacco did just that. The final score simply didn't reflect his efforts.

[url="http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/flacco-earns-respect-in-playoff-loss-he-didnt-deserve-in-previous-wins;_ylt=AjD.790sRFXKp2HF8dmGy2EdsLYF?urn=nfl,wp1 6847"]http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdo ... fl,wp16847[/url]