Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Week 5’s Quarterback of the Week may be riding the bench in Week 6.
Though it may be controversial to award a player the QB of the Week award for a game his team lost, we just do not know how many more chances we are going to get with Joe Flacco. He’s the only quarterback in the NFL who could either never see the field again or lead his team to the Super Bowl.
Joe Flacco, the quarterback with the worst best career of all-time.
In his first start of the season in Week 5, Flacco threw for 359 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, but you probably already knew that. Flacco’s been a hot topic all week, not just for throwing multiple touchdowns in his seventh straight appearance dating back to last season, not only for five 300-yard games in that span, but also for the highlight I saw more than any other this week.
And the Colts, hands tied behind their backs, are going to bench the quarterback with the NFL’s highest passer rating (115.6) for the quarterback with the league’s lowest passer rating (60.2). Regardless of whether or not that is the right decision or the wrong decision — and there is no clear answer because Indianapolis’s entire objective for the last 18 months has been to make a team for Anthony Richardson — it is still one of the most wild decisions that will happen in the NFL this year.
Playing for his third different offense and offensive coordinator and supporting cast in the last three years, Flacco’s dominance against the Jacksonville defense proved that he can still do certain things at the quarterback position that we aren’t seeing from a lot of the league’s young quarterbacks today. How many teams that immediately handed the keys to a rookie or a second-year player are doubting the decision to not make an offer to Flacco like the Colts did?
It is INSANE that the #Colts were the ONLY team to offer Joe Flacco a deal after last year’s run with the #Browns. He brought Indy back from a two-TD hole with 5 mins to play, this game is prob different if he has Jonathan Taylor healthy and Flacco clearly has a lot of magic left
— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) October 7, 2024
Jim Irsay and Chris Ballard trusted their awareness of Richardson’s volatility and recent injury history, so why didn’t we see that same sense of urgency from the Dolphins as an insurance policy for Tua’s new contract? The Titans were sure that Will Levis could out-play Joe Flacco? The Raiders and Giants, obviously. Is it considered sacrilege to suggest that Flacco would have been a better veteran signing for the Steelers than Russell Wilson?
Hindsight is 20/20. And Joe Flacco is 172/274 for 2,143 yards with 18 touchdowns in his last seven games.
According to Next Gen Stats, Flacco’s +6.1% CPOE (Completion Percentage Over Expected) ranked as the fifth-best of the week, his +0.18 EPA per dropback was tied for the eighth-best, and he managed these numbers despite his receivers ranking 23rd in average separation. He was even better on throws of 10+ air yards, averaging a +9.7% CPOE and going 9-of-15 for 249 yards on those plays.
Flacco went 15-of-18 for 208 yards and two touchdowns off of play action and he has the fifth-most EPA of any quarterback on play action despite only playing in two games!
And the place that Flacco is most likely to be standing in the next Colts game is on the sidelines.
It’s not necessarily injustice, but it is mildly insane.
How many teams could use a quarterback like Joe Flacco this season? About as many as the number of teams that didn’t call Flacco this offseason.
