So, you think Flacco is a weak QB? Or are you just looking to nitpick my point?
How about 853 yards, 8 TD and 0 INT's in three playoff games this year? That enough for you?
No, I'm just pointing out your criteria of evaluation (his team winning against Brady's in one game) is flawed. While he played well, the real reason they won is the defense. Flacco had nothing to do with Ravens only allowing 13 points.
Flacco is very inconsistent, he has good games and bad games. Prior to this playoff run, most Ravens fans wanted him gone at the end of the season. I don't know about you, but I'll take a sample size of 16 games over three. I've just seen way too many games where Flacco looks totally lost. If you shut down the deep ball (which can and will happen) he's just not very good.
His 16th ranked passer rating amongst starting QB's over 16 games begs to differ.
16 out of 32 is exactly average.
? Dis-counting that Passer Rating is widely regarded as a useless stat, ESPN has him ranked 12th.
But if you want to accept it as a useful stat, how about Flacco currently having the highest rating of any postseason QB in like, 10 years? Defense doesn't boost your Passer Rating.
He's 5-1 the last two years in the postseason and Baltimore's defense hasn't been as dominant as it used to be. The D had a great second half against the Pats but they didn't account for 21 points. Flacco did.
At this point in his career, he is absolutely an above average QB.
? Dis-counting that Passer Rating is widely regarded as a useless stat, ESPN has him ranked 12th.
But if you want to accept it as a useful stat, how about Flacco currently having the highest rating of any postseason QB in like, 10 years? Defense doesn't boost your Passer Rating.
He's 5-1 the last two years in the postseason and Baltimore's defense hasn't been as dominant as it used to be. The D had a great second half against the Pats but they didn't account for 21 points. Flacco did.
At this point in his career, he is absolutely an above average QB.
Using only postseason games results in a very small sample size and therefore unreliable statistics.
You can't really use record to evaluate a quarterback. It is the most important position in sports, but there's still a ton of stuff that can determine the outcome of a game that the QB has no control over.
You're trying to refute my stat with the same stat in a much smaller sample size. That's not going to persuade me, nor should it.
The only people who regard passer rating as a useless stat are those who have had their anecdotal/opinionated arguments rendered useless by it. It is simply a number that takes into account yards per attempt, completion percentage, and TD/INT ratio, all of which are very important. It gives you a holistic view of a QB's play, instead of cherry picking a certain stat.
Joe Flacco is a top 10 QB. Ravens are probably Franchise tagging him but I'd still sign him to a mega contract and give up 2 1sts for him.
Flacco, when he's on, can be a top-10 QB. For most of the second half of this season, he was a bottom-10 QB. I can say with a fair amount of certain that the regular season version of Flacco this year maybe gets Buffalo to 7-8 wins, but certainly not to the playoffs.
I'd put him in that 10-15 range. Guys I'd most definitely rank above Flacco (in no order) looking ahead for the next 365 days:
Brady
Peyton
Roethlisberger
Luck
Eli
Rodgers
Brees
Ryan
Guys for whom you can make an argument that they're better options than Flacco:
RG3 (contingent on health)
Wilson
Kaepernick
Stafford
Dalton
And that's ignoring football-conversation poison pills like Romo (and Schaub), who tend to put up better regular season numbers than Flacco, but don't get it done when it counts. I'll say that Joe has that Eli-esque quality that he always seems to come up big in the playoffs, which is obviously very valuable. But week-in, week-out it's tough to argue he's top-10.
(I'm hopping in late here, so I want to be clear: I do not think Fitzpatrick is a better option than Flacco, or even an equivalent one. Much if this is moot, anyways, because he's staying here in Baltimore for his entire career.)
Using only postseason games results in a very small sample size and therefore unreliable statistics.
You can't really use record to evaluate a quarterback. It is the most important position in sports, but there's still a ton of stuff that can determine the outcome of a game that the QB has no control over.
You're trying to refute my stat with the same stat in a much smaller sample size. That's not going to persuade me, nor should it.
The only people who regard passer rating as a useless stat are those who have had their anecdotal/opinionated arguments rendered useless by it. It is simply a number that takes into account yards per attempt, completion percentage, and TD/INT ratio, all of which are very important. It gives you a holistic view of a QB's play, instead of cherry picking a certain stat.
And if you want to go by said stat, Alex Smith is a top 3 QB.
Flacco, when he's on, can be a top-10 QB. For most of the second half of this season, he was a bottom-10 QB. I can say with a fair amount of certain that the regular season version of Flacco this year maybe gets Buffalo to 7-8 wins, but certainly not to the playoffs.
I'd put him in that 10-15 range. Guys I'd most definitely rank above Flacco (in no order) looking ahead for the next 365 days:
Brady
Peyton
Roethlisberger
Luck
Eli
Rodgers
Brees
Ryan
Guys for whom you can make an argument that they're better options than Flacco:
RG3 (contingent on health)
Wilson
Kaepernick
Stafford
Dalton
And that's ignoring football-conversation poison pills like Romo (and Schaub), who tend to put up better regular season numbers than Flacco, but don't get it done when it counts. I'll say that Joe has that Eli-esque quality that he always seems to come up big in the playoffs, which is obviously very valuable. But week-in, week-out it's tough to argue he's top-10.
(I'm hopping in late here, so I want to be clear: I do not think Fitzpatrick is a better option than Flacco, or even an equivalent one. Much if this is moot, anyways, because he's staying here in Baltimore for his entire career.)
Always interesting to get another perspective. I definitely agree with the Eli comparison, he's not consistently impressive during the regular season but he seems to play above himself during the playoffs. After the number of times he's done it, it might be more accurate to describe him as a top level QB that plays below himself in the regular season.
I would put Flacco behind Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Brees, and in the next level down of Ryan, Eli, Stafford. The really promising youngsters (Kaep, Wilson, Luck, Griffin, Newton) sort of deserve a tier of their own, they need a larger sample size before we know for sure. I have all of the above ahead of Ben easily, no idea why he is in your top tier. Dalton I guess should go in the youngster tier but I have by far the least confidence in him.
Flacco is an average QB... don't kid yourselves. His team is loaded with A great #1-2-3 WR set. Pitta is also a really good TE and lets not forget Rice. He starts forcing throws when his team falls down by two scores and rarely auto-corrects. Talib going out opened the door for Boldin to destroy the Patriots. He should of lost to the Broncos. If he was playing on a team like Buffalo this year he'd be exposed.
Always interesting to get another perspective. I definitely agree with the Eli comparison, he's not consistently impressive during the regular season but he seems to play above himself during the playoffs. After the number of times he's done it, it might be more accurate to describe him as a top level QB that plays below himself in the regular season.
I would put Flacco behind Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Brees, and in the next level down of Ryan, Eli, Stafford. The youngsters (Kaep, Wilson, Luck, Griffin, Newton) sort of deserve a tier of their own, they need a larger sample size before we know for sure. I have all of the above ahead of Ben easily, no idea why he is in your top tier. Dalton is also out of place in this conversation.
Dalton and Flacco have almost identical numbers over the last two seasons, and Dalton has three fewer years of experience. I said one could make an argument. Personally, I'd probably take Flacco. But Dalton has taken a pretty average team to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. I think if you threw him on the Ravens, the Ravens would be a very similar team.
Are you being serious about Ben? If you polled Ravens fans and assured anonymity, 80% of them would take Ben over Flacco, and the other 20% of those are just fundamentally opposed to Roethlisberger on principle. He's a better QB than Flacco.
? Dis-counting that Passer Rating is widely regarded as a useless stat, ESPN has him ranked 12th.
But if you want to accept it as a useful stat, how about Flacco currently having the highest rating of any postseason QB in like, 10 years? Defense doesn't boost your Passer Rating.
He's 5-1 the last two years in the postseason and Baltimore's defense hasn't been as dominant as it used to be. The D had a great second half against the Pats but they didn't account for 21 points. Flacco did.
At this point in his career, he is absolutely an above average QB.
QB Record is a junk stat, just like a pitchers record. QB's don't play defense. Just like in some instances pitchers don't hit.
