Flacco's fault?

[Pugger]

beats2rock should have added "all of the above" as a choice in the poll in this thread.

[TheKillerNacho]

Really depends on what you mean by "fault".

The problem is he isn't as good as his contract. So the fault lies with the combination of Flacco's ability and the front office's willingness to give him that contract.

[MWil23]

I mean, the Ravens were kind of at a crossroads, so I get it. In 2012/2013 when that horrific deal was signed, Flacco was 27 years old and coming off of a Super Bowl run where he played as well if not better than anyone else in playoff history. They thought that maybe they caught lightning in a bottle and that Playoff Flacco was who they'd be getting, so they bet on him, and Joe used (very smartly) that leverage coming off of Rahim Moore's laughably horrific blunder and subsequently great playoff performances to get himself PAID. 5-6 years later, here we are. Baltimore incorrectly bet on Flacco, who was/is an average at best QB in the right situation. He never could single handedly carry a team, but is an elite game manager who can make some big throws occasionally. 

[Danand]

A run on numbers recently showed, that Baltimore had the least amount of cap space invested in the offense. That has pretty much been the case through Flaccos career, especially since the 2014.

He could have played better, but when Ray Rice was fired shortly after getting a big contract, pitta went down after getting a big contract, a couple of others went down after getting big contracts, Ravens had a whole lot of money invested in players who wasn't on the field. I believe it was in 2015 that the Ravens had 7 out of its 8 highest paid players on injury reserve.

The injury bug has also really hit the Ravens hard in the last couple of years, which doesn't help. In the 2014 playoff run, especially cornerbacks where literally picked off the street and put in the starting lineup.

Investing heavily in the defense without the results to show for it - and while the stats looks great, they mostly came against bad offenses. 2017 where the best example, where the defense put up several shutouts, but lost 3 games on last drives - especially against the steelers and the bengals it was bad.

And while the investments mostly was on defense, the investments on offense (flacco, pitta, yanda, Perriman, Maxx williams) have all missed significant time. The offensive players that should have been our cornerstones have busted, and players like Osemele, Wagner and Jensen has all been let go.

Flacco has been Aaron Rodgers esque, but if we look at the games he has played the last two years, he has equally good games and bad games with a bad supporting cast. Thats still better than several other QB's in the league who are paid almost the same or more. Flacco has been hurt as well. 2016 he came back from and ACL/MCL and was bad the first half of the season and then got way better. In 2017 he sat out all of training camp with a herniated disc and it showed, and after the bye week he played well and the Ravens offense where the 2. most scoring offense in the AFC.

Had the defense held up on game ending drives in 2016 and 2017, the Ravens with Flacco would have had 2 more playoff appearances. Then we would talk about Flacco in a completely different way.

[BayRaider]

Not Joe Flaccos fault at all. Ravens Front Office knew who Joe Flacco was. Jim Harbaugh knew who Joe Flacco was. Joe Flacco knew who Joe Flacco was. Yet they gave him a huge contract anyways really limiting their team. Definitely the Front Office fault here. You don't "reward" guys in the NFL. You pay for the future.

[Vladimir L]

Flacco contract now is an avg contract time for them to spend money and draft better. Ozzie use to hit the spot on defensive picks but not so much now.

[patriotsheatyan]

During that time, who has done worse at QB than Baltimore?

Cleveland, Jacksonville, Rams, Houston, Tennessee, NYJ?

Even Houston has had decent numbers from Watson, Fitzpatrick, and Hoyer in long stretches, and the Rams have a elite statistical season Goff. 

Chicago had a great season from McCown in 2013 and a decent season from Cutler in 2015, so they likely did better. 

Tennessee has two decent seasons from Mariota, so I don’t think they have done any worse

Buffall has three solid seasons from Taylor, which I consider better than Flacco.

The Jets have a decent season from Fitzpatrick and a good 3/4 season from McCown. They have probably done about as well.

 

Flacco has basically been on par with the journeyman backups, usually outperformed by two of them any given season,  during this stretch of time. Flacco has been paid like a top ten starter while leading the Ravens tonthe bottom quarter of the league in passing during this time. Their teams have typically been solid in spite of that. Flacco is by far the biggest problem, and every Ravens fan defending him in this thread and arguing he isn’t the problem believed he was a good QB as recently as two years ago and supported his contract extensions both times. 

[Danand]

30 minutes ago, patriotsheatyan said:

During that time, who has done worse at QB than Baltimore?

Cleveland, Jacksonville, Rams, Houston, Tennessee, NYJ?

Even Houston has had decent numbers from Watson, Fitzpatrick, and Hoyer in long stretches, and the Rams have a elite statistical season Goff. 

Chicago had a great season from McCown in 2013 and a decent season from Cutler in 2015, so they likely did better. 

Tennessee has two decent seasons from Mariota, so I don’t think they have done any worse

Buffall has three solid seasons from Taylor, which I consider better than Flacco.

The Jets have a decent season from Fitzpatrick and a good 3/4 season from McCown. They have probably done about as well.

 

Flacco has basically been on par with the journeyman backups, usually outperformed by two of them any given season,  during this stretch of time. Flacco has been paid like a top ten starter while leading the Ravens tonthe bottom quarter of the league in passing during this time. Their teams have typically been solid in spite of that. Flacco is by far the biggest problem, and every Ravens fan defending him in this thread and arguing he isn’t the problem believed he was a good QB as recently as two years ago and supported his contract extensions both times. 

Some of us still believe he is a good QB and that he could do enough to win another super bowl if healthy and with a better supporting cast.

[Hunter2_1]

Argh, too simplistic to blame just the QB. There's probably a number of underlying issues. You've probably got to look at lack of weapons, lack of competition behind him driving him, scheme etc

[Malik]

4 hours ago, BayRaider said:

Not Joe Flaccos fault at all. Ravens Front Office knew who Joe Flacco was. Jim Harbaugh knew who Joe Flacco was. Joe Flacco knew who Joe Flacco was. Yet they gave him a huge contract anyways really limiting their team. Definitely the Front Office fault here. You don't "reward" guys in the NFL. You pay for the future.

Was going to say something along these lines. Joe Flacco has played exactly like he has always played in his career. I mean 2012 was his 5th season as a starter in the NFL there was no reason for anyone to believe he would have significantly better play to warrant that contract. Alex Smith is really the only QB that I can think of that played that long and then had a significant shift in production.

[wackywabbit]

Flacco not reaching out to Lamar is such a dead nfl period storyline. It's not like he's complained about it. He's making headlines for doing nothing.

As for the question... Flacco is taking up less than 14% of the cap. The LAST thing I would blame is cap space. That's really not the issue that fans/media make it out to be

Other people have pointed out that that the issues are multi-faceted. He's looked really bad at times, he's had significant injuries, he's been given terrible WRs (and I don't think that's changed at all for this year, we just have new names to our recycled veterans). All of those answers given are right. Except the contract one, that's pretty insignificant TBH.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is luck/natural variance. It's unusual for a team with the point differential/DVOA rating that the Ravens had last year to miss the playoffs. They lost almost every close game they were in, and what most analytics would suggest is that there isn't anything more than luck in clutchness. Maybe I'm being too dismissive about discrete outcomes, but this team could have been in the playoffs 3 out of 5 times (after a SB victory and 5 straight year playoff run) and it wouldn't have meant anything different about the approach (or any of the options in the poll). The team has been out of the playoffs at the very end of the season only one time in a decade with Flacco, the 2015 season that he didn't even finish. The last two years they were eliminated by two of the most incredible plays in recent regular seasons, the immaculate extension and Dalton converting a 50 yard TD on a 4th and 12. Both happened with Flacco sitting on the bench with a lead. If those two plays didn't happen then the perception of a successful operation would be much different, without anything actually being any more effective.

 

[sp6488]

1 hour ago, wackywabbit said:

Flacco not reaching out to Lamar is such a dead nfl period storyline. It's not like he's complained about it. He's making headlines for doing nothing.

As for the question... Flacco is taking up less than 14% of the cap. The LAST thing I would blame is cap space. That's really not the issue that fans/media make it out to be

Other people have pointed out that that the issues are multi-faceted. He's looked really bad at times, he's had significant injuries, he's been given terrible WRs (and I don't think that's changed at all for this year, we just have new names to our recycled veterans). All of those answers given are right. Except the contract one, that's pretty insignificant TBH.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is luck/natural variance. It's unusual for a team with the point differential/DVOA rating that the Ravens had last year to miss the playoffs. They lost almost every close game they were in, and what most analytics would suggest is that there isn't anything more than luck in clutchness. Maybe I'm being too dismissive about discrete outcomes, but this team could have been in the playoffs 3 out of 5 times (after a SB victory and 5 straight year playoff run) and it wouldn't have meant anything different about the approach (or any of the options in the poll). The team has been out of the playoffs at the very end of the season only one time in a decade with Flacco, the 2015 season that he didn't even finish. The last two years they were eliminated by two of the most incredible plays in recent regular seasons, the immaculate extension and Dalton converting a 50 yard TD on a 4th and 12. Both happened with Flacco sitting on the bench with a lead. If those two plays didn't happen then the perception of a successful operation would be much different, without anything actually being any more effective.

 

[JAF-N72EX]

1 hour ago, wackywabbit said:

Flacco not reaching out to Lamar is such a dead nfl period storyline. It's not like he's complained about it. He's making headlines for doing nothing.

As for the question... Flacco is taking up less than 14% of the cap. The LAST thing I would blame is cap space. That's really not the issue that fans/media make it out to be

Other people have pointed out that that the issues are multi-faceted. He's looked really bad at times, he's had significant injuries, he's been given terrible WRs (and I don't think that's changed at all for this year, we just have new names to our recycled veterans). All of those answers given are right. Except the contract one, that's pretty insignificant TBH.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is luck/natural variance. It's unusual for a team with the point differential/DVOA rating that the Ravens had last year to miss the playoffs. They lost almost every close game they were in, and what most analytics would suggest is that there isn't anything more than luck in clutchness. Maybe I'm being too dismissive about discrete outcomes, but this team could have been in the playoffs 3 out of 5 times (after a SB victory and 5 straight year playoff run) and it wouldn't have meant anything different about the approach (or any of the options in the poll). The team has been out of the playoffs at the very end of the season only one time in a decade with Flacco, the 2015 season that he didn't even finish. The last two years they were eliminated by two of the most incredible plays in recent regular seasons, the immaculate extension and Dalton converting a 50 yard TD on a 4th and 12. Both happened with Flacco sitting on the bench with a lead. If those two plays didn't happen then the perception of a successful operation would be much different, without anything actually being any more effective.

 

This is a good post overall and you make some solid points. Couple of things though...

I strongly disagree that winning close games are just luck. It's the old saying "good teams find a way to win". You play for 60 minutes. Not 59.

Your explanations for missing the playoffs these last 2 years  are reasonable -- but this also begs the question that if your team put themselves in a position to let one play become the deciding factor while playing in the same division as the 1-31 Browns, did you really deserve to be in the playoffs to begin with? 

Now I understand that division games are always tough, but this is the Browns that we're talking about. Just something to consider. 

[lancerman]

I think virtually everyone thought Flacco got his contract because of the Super Bowl and that he didn’t really deserve it. He’s not elite, he proved that. Not saying he was Trent Dilfer. But he’s average to below average who gets occasional hot streaks. 

[wackywabbit]

38 minutes ago, JustAnotherFan said:

This is a good post overall and you make some solid points. Couple of things though...

I strongly disagree that winning close games are just luck. It's the old saying "good teams find a way to win". You play for 60 minutes. Not 59.

Your explanations for missing the playoffs these last 2 years  are reasonable -- but this also begs the question that if your team put themselves in a position to let one play become the deciding factor while playing in the same division as the 1-31 Browns, did you really deserve to be in the playoffs to begin with? 

Now I understand that division games are always tough, but this is the Browns that we're talking about. Just something to consider. 

Wasn't talking about "deserving" to make the playoffs. You deserve to win the games you win. I was suggesting there wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the approach/composition of the team that kept them from making the playoffs. If you are that close, that proves it that you could. That's my point/feeling on close outcomes.