Joe to haters: “Flacc-off!”

What the hell, am I going to have to write this piece every year?!?  Did I not say last year that Flacco got his team into the Super Bowl and his team (Lee Evans, Billy Cundiff) screwed it all up and this is a family show so I won’t say anything more harsh than screwed.  For some reason it just doesn’t seem to matter what this guy does in big games, people only want to focus on his negatives.  How you like him now….he’s back in the AFC championship game for the 3rd time in 5 years.

This guy has won at least 1 playoff game every season of his career!!!  You know who didn’t do that in their first 5 seasons?  Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Brett Favre, Johnny Unitas, not 1 freakin QB has ever done that!  I don’t know what the American media and fans expect out of this guy, he gets his team in the playoffs every year and when he gets there he’s never 1 and done.

I’m not anywhere near old enough to remember Ken Stabler.  I’m 29, Stabler I believe was done by 1983.  But Stabler from my understanding was very similar.  Had a great team around him (Flacco hasn’t had a GREAT team around him for a few seasons now) and he would get bored unless the game was big or the moment was big.  That’s Flacco.  When Flacco has to step up, he usually does.  But sometimes he plays games like he did last season in Jacksonville or this season at home against the Steelers.

And speaking of the Steelers game at home, that seemed to be the game where critics jumped off his bandwagon after being on it for the first half of the season.  I know why they did too.  As a guy that bets I usually know the lines off by heart.  Most people had the Ravens -8 in that game and thought it was easy money because the Steelers were starting Charlie Batch.  Flacco lost and I couldn’t believe the outrage on twitter towards Flacco.  My thoughts were “he got shutdown by a great defense, that will happen”.  Just about everyone else was saying “if he can’t beat Charlie Batch he can’t win anything!!!!!!!!!”  O….K….or perhaps you lost big money on a game you thought was a gimme since Charlie Batch was starting for the Steelers?

How soon they all forgot how he was a dropped pass away from going to the Super Bowl last season and quite possibly winning that Super Bowl (they matched up better with the Giants than the Pats did), how soon they all forget a clutch drive to win a huge regular season game in Pittsburgh the season before.  If those critics thought he couldn’t get the job done before yesterday they had damn well believe he can now.

It wasn’t just the throw to Jones to tie the game at 35 (I’m sure his detractors will say it was horrendous coverage).  On 3rd and 13 in his own endzone in O.T. he made a great, clutch throw to get a 1st down.  That drive stalled so it may not have seen like much, but if he didn’t complete that throw the Ravens would have been done right there.  The Broncos likely get that ball at mid field which opens up more of the playbook in O.T. and it’s lights out for the Ravens.

Now they roll into Gillette for a rematch of last year’s AFC title game, a game where Flacco out played Tom Brady.  I don’t know if the Ravens will win this one and move on to the Super Bowl, but all I know is that ONCE AGAIN Joe Flacco proved himself as a QB more than capable of leading a team to a Super Bowl.  He’s never going to win the hearts of gamblers and fantasy GM’s because he’s inconsistent when it comes to betting on him and he won’t put up huge numbers.  But he is smart, has a big arm and is clutch.  I don’t know what more people want.

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