Flacco: 4 Years And 44 Wins

[Ravenslifer]

Just for kicks, here are some fun facts about Joe's receviers vs other receivers:

AFC leaders in YAC: Wes Welker 761, Ray Rice 696, Rob Gronkowski 668, Arian Foster 641, Aaron Hernandez 534

Including Deion Branch (342), Tom Brady has 4 receivers in the top 20 in the league in YAC, and it looks like well over 2000 of his yards are YAC yards.

NFC leders in YAC: Darren Sproles 724, Victor Cruz 603, Percy Harvin 566, Calvin Johnson 545 Jonathan Stewart 519, Larry Fitzgerald 508.

Jimmy Graham and Pierre Thomas each have 485 YAC Yards, so together with Sproles over 1500 of Brees' yards are YAC. And just because everyone loves comparing Joe to Matt Ryan, Julio Jones has 425 YAC yards and Roddy White has 376.

Just wanted to put this up here to demonstrate that Joe isn't the only quarterback in the league helped by having a receiver or receivers who excel in gaining yards after catch. But apparently since Ray Rice's title is "running back", other qbs get a pass while Joe doesn't.

[1/28/01]

[quote name='Ravenslifer' timestamp='1325853857' post='936332']
Just for kicks, here are some fun facts about Joe's receviers vs other receivers:

AFC leaders in YAC: Wes Welker 761, Ray Rice 696, Rob Gronkowski 668, Arian Foster 641, Aaron Hernandez 534

Including Deion Branch (342), Tom Brady has 4 receivers in the top 20 in the league in YAC, and it looks like well over 2000 of his yards are YAC yards.

NFC leders in YAC: Darren Sproles 724, Victor Cruz 603, Percy Harvin 566, Calvin Johnson 545 Jonathan Stewart 519, Larry Fitzgerald 508.

Jimmy Graham and Pierre Thomas each have 485 YAC Yards, so together with Sproles over 1500 of Brees' yards are YAC. And just because everyone loves comparing Joe to Matt Ryan, Julio Jones has 425 YAC yards and Roddy White has 376.

Just wanted to put this up here to demonstrate that Joe isn't the only quarterback in the league helped by having a receiver or receivers who excel in gaining yards after catch. But apparently since Ray Rice's title is "running back", other qbs get a pass while Joe doesn't.
[/quote]
Good post! Something that certainly gets overlooked. Amazing that Brady has 3 with over 500 yards YAC each!

[H8R]

[quote name='PurpleCorsair' timestamp='1325825517' post='936258']

Uh...No. Bert had one spectacular year. Other than that he was rather pedestrian.
[/quote]

Yea, I can see why you say that but he was the league MVP and even Bill Belichik said Jones was the best pure passer he had ever seen. He was hampered by injuries, and came back too soon each time. He was one of the best in his era.

[Ravenslifer]

[quote name='H8R' timestamp='1325620098' post='933568']

Yea, you see the point though. Right?
[/quote]

Absolutely. I've always maintained that, aside from the receiving corps Joe has had the last 2 seasons, earlier Ravens quarterbacks had much more to work with. Boldin. Housh, Mason & Boldin, Evans, Smith are maybe the best sets of receivers we've ever had. But Heap was better than Dickson and Pitta now, so it's somewhat of a wash. Other quarterbacks had better offensive lines, a better running back, and a far superior defense (who gave up a lot of the points it did because our offense was so bad and kept them on the field). If we took Joe as he is now and put him on the 2001-2006 teams, I honestly think we'd have made one or two Superbowls, at least.

[Moderator 2]

Had Bert Jones not gotten hurt--who knows?

I still maintain Flacco's numbers are down because of the new receiving corp.

[flaccofan02]

Congrats Joe! This guy knows how to win. What really annoys me is the people who criticize him. Sure, he's not perfect, and can get inconsistent, but give the guy some credit. It takes a good quarterback to lead his team to the playoffs four straight years and get 44 wins in four years. He's definitely better than Mark Sanchez, that's for sure. Keep the wins coming!

[ravensdfan]

[quote name='H8R' timestamp='1325860044' post='936356']
Yea, I can see why you say that but he was the league MVP and even Bill Belichik said Jones was the best pure passer he had ever seen. He was hampered by injuries, and came back too soon each time. He was one of the best in his era.
[/quote]

Also hampered by the somewhat mess the entire Colts' organization was in at that time.

I loved watching him pass for sure. Pretty through the air.

[Ravenslifer]

[quote name='Moderator 2' timestamp='1325961582' post='937271']
Had Bert Jones not gotten hurt--who knows?

I still maintain Flacco's numbers are down because of the new receiving corp.
[/quote]

And the new offensive line that's been reshuffled several times, together with the fact that there were only a month's worth of offseason practices and a preseason before the start of the regular season.

Joe isn't the only young quarterback who's struggled this season. Bradford, Sanchez, and Freeman all struggled, and even Philip Rivers had a big down season. Take away a lot of those drops and the ridiculous amount of deep passes that went incomplete, Flacco's completion percentage goes up and his qb rating goes up. Not to mention games like Arizona where he threw 3 passes that ended up on the 3 yard line or closer and probably an elite receiver like Roddy White or Andre Johnson scores from there, and the pick that bounced backwards off Torrey's hands into the arms of the defender. That one game is the difference between 23 TDs, 11 picks and 20 TDs, 12 picks. Too many people, I think, spend a lot of time playing fantasy football and not much time actually watching what happens on the field.