The curious case of Joe Flacco and other NFL thoughts

(1) In this day and age of short attention spans, it seems like it is much easier to go from a downward trend to an upward one very quickly. Nowhere is this statement more true than the National Football League, where yesterday’s worst team in the league is today’s Kansas City Chiefs riding a four-game winning streak back into the middle of a division race. The cult of ‘any given Sunday’ and ‘what have you done for me lately’ that has prospered in the NFL over the last 20 years has created an environment where individual teams and players are exalted one week only to be torn down the next. This phenomenon has only been exaggerated by a 24-hour media cycle that is desperate to one-up each other with better analysis, more breaking news and bolder statements about the major sports. One of the more recent examples of popular opinion changing faster than it takes to tweet what you at for lunch is the curious case of Joe Flacco. After a generally underwhelming beginning to his fourth NFL season, including two attempts to set back the position of quarterback to the days when the forward pass was illegal, there were red flags being raised all around Flacco. Why was he seemingly regressing in his fourth season? Why was he barely completing 50% of his attempts? Was he the right quarterback to take the Ravens to the next level? Anyone that witnessed Flacco playing against the Jets or the Jaguars or against the Cardinals in the first half would have thought that the Ravens’ chances of making the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl, were being sabotaged by his inability to hit the side of a barn with the football. Sure this looked like the same guy that had led Baltimore to three road playoff victories in his first three seasons, but he definitely was not playing like the same guy. Flacco was looking like one of those athletes that had completely lost his mojo.

Fast forward to today and the public dialog about Flacco has undergone a complete 180 degree shift. Gone were the questions about his ability to play consistently from week-to-week. The memories of Flacco’s horrific performances against New York and Jacksonville had been swept away by a collective case of Alzheimer’s caused by the big victory over Pittsburgh. If you allowed Ray Rice to tell the tale, he would have you believe that the guys in the Baltimore locker room have believed in Flacco the whole time. Rice’s sentiment was supported by offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, who stated after the game that he doesn’t “get all the stuff everybody talks about Joe” and that he’s been “fortunate to be around a lot of really good ones” and that Joe is a “great one.” I know that hyperbole is common in sports, but I don’t believe for one minute that the Ravens’ locker room has been steadfast in its confidence in Flacco nor do I believe that Flacco is anywhere close to being a great quarterback. However, the one thing that Cam, Ray and I can all agree on is that Flacco produced the defining moment of his career when he engineered the game-winning 92-yard drive on Sunday night. This moment was so huge for him because he succeeded despite the fact that his teammates, especially Torrey Smith and Anquan Boldin, appeared to have wanted no part of making a big play on that last drive. There have been a lot of quarterbacks through the years that look good when everything around them is falling into place. The mark of the truly great quarterbacks is when they show the ability to overcome obstacles and find ways to win games on a regular basis. As a result, I’m nowhere close to being interested in crowning Joe Flacco as the greatest thing since Joe Montana. He needs to demonstrate that he is capable of raising his level of play on a weekly basis rather than alternating one great game with a game where he doesn’t complete a pass for the balance of two quarters.

(2) I am on the record as saying that I believed the New York Giants would not stay in first place in the NFC East for long because they lacked a marquee victory on their resume. In addition, they have the stain of losing to the Seattle Seahawks at home and they were extremely fortunate to beat Arizona and Miami. They had the look of a team that was merely keeping the seat warm for the inevitable rise of the Philadelphia Eagles. Just like the narrative has quickly changed about Joe Flacco, the Giants’ road victory over the New England Patriots has the football world viewing New York through a different prism. This is what happens when you beat Tom Brady at home during the regular season for the first time in five years. This is what happens when the manner in which the Giants won the game had people reminiscing about the fantastic finish to Super Bowl XLII. Is it possible that the Giants have assumed the title of the second-best team in the NFC? You can certainly question the quality of some of their victories, but don’t good teams find ways to win no matter the aesthetics. It shouldn’t matter that they had the football gods on their side against the Cardinals or that they had to scramble in the second half to defeat the Dolphins. We should only care about the results. Although they have six victories, I can’t shake the fact that they have the most brutal schedule in the NFL over the next eight weeks. If they had a few more convincing wins during the first half of the season, then I would be better prepared to hand them the division crown. Unfortunately, I don’t see more than four wins down the stretch against a schedule that includes San Francisco (road), Philadelphia (home), New Orleans (road), Green Bay (home), Dallas (road & home), Washington (home) and New York. If we just look at the schedule, I’m starting to lean towards the Dallas Cowboys as the team to beat in the NFC East. I would not be surprised at all if they are riding a five-game winning streak when they host the Giants on Sunday Night Football on December 11th. The Eagles are still in the mix because of the talent on their roster, but they missed a golden opportunity to keep pace with the leaders in the division by losing to Chicago. Ultimately, I think that the NFC East is going to provide some of the most compelling football down the stretch.

(3) Quick Hits
• There figures to be about ½ dozen teams that will be in the market for a quarterback in the first two rounds of the 2012 NFL draft. One of the teams that had been hoping that they wouldn’t be in this market are the Cleveland Browns, who have to be losing faith in Colt McCoy as each week passes. Among quarterbacks that have started every game, McCoy has the worst QB rating, worst yards per attempt average and the second worst completion percentage. He doesn’t have great weapons to work with, but he still hasn’t shown that he can be a starting NFL quarterback.

• Devin Hester better keep returning kicks for touchdowns because young Patrick Peterson appears to have the goods to one day be mentioned along with the greatest returners in NFL history. He is already the first player in NFL history to have three punt returns for touchdowns in his first eight games. Also, his game-winning return in overtime was just the second punt return to come in overtime in NFL history (Tamarick Vanover to beat San Diego on 10/9/95).

• The New Orleans Saints need to figure out what kind of team they want to be. Are they the world-beaters that killed the Colts and dismantled the Bucs or are they the team that couldn’t get out of their own way against the Rams?

• The Buffalo Bills are picking the wrong time for their offense to go into hibernation as they stare a three-game road trip in the face. The question on the minds of everyone in Western New York is will the loss to the Jets kick start the inevitable swoon.

• Who is beating the Green Bay Packers? The best chance for them to lose would be either on the road at Detroit or at New York. These are the two best candidates because they are on the road and they both feature opposing offenses that should be able to exploit the surprisingly suspect Packers’ defense.