Quote Originally Posted by redmike34 View Post
I just don't see it. Again, no question Flacco has been the QB for a lot of games won by the Ravens... but that happened as a result of not only him.

Flacco had a QB rating of 80.9 last year, which put him 18th in the league. Admittedly, QB rating isn't the be-all-end-all, but it does serve as a measure of efficiency that does have some correlation to winning games. So... the Ravens were capable of winning 12 games last year with a QB rating of 80.9. How many more games do they win if it's 90? What's a QB rating of 80 worth? What's the record of other teams who had a QB rating of ~80? Newton 84.5 rating/6 wins, Hasselbeck: 82.4/9, Dalton 80.4/9, Jackson 79.2/7, Fitzpatrick 79.1/6, Sanchez 78.2/8... That works out to an average of 7.5 wins, and a standard deviation of 1.37. So the Ravens got more than three standard deviations more wins than other teams with similar QB play.... that's a pretty FAR outlier. The big difference is the team with 12 wins also had the 3rd-ranked scoring defense... IMO.

I don't think Flacco gets any kind of a mega-deal from anyone else based on his body of work so far. That's why I'd be willing, were I the Ravens front office, to see what 2012 brings. If Flacco improves, great--it may cost more money, but it could also be a good problem to have. If he doesn't... well, it's frankly not that hard to find QBs who can average a rating of 80 for the year.
Oh Really??..We were struggling to find a franchise type QB for 12 years before Joe came along.