Russell Street Report Flashback Friday Stats Place Flacco Among Playoff Greats

General consensus would say (unless you work for ESPN or something) that Joe Flacco is an above average QB during the regular season and elite during the postseason. Today’s Flashback Friday looks back over the years and tries to determine where Joe Flacco currently ranks amongst the best postseason quarterbacks of all-time.

The following chart documents, in order, the top 17 quarterbacks in terms of career postseason wins. Joe Flacco is currently tied for 9th all-time (10 wins) with the man he knocked out of the postseason last year, Ben Roethlisberger. Also included in the chart are relevant statistics needed to accurately paint a picture of each quarterback’s relative success, such as yards/game, total touchdowns, interceptions, overall quarterback rating, and Super Bowls/Championships. Flacco’s numbers are highlighted in purple.

The numbers above may not mean much at first glance, as it is admittedly hard to pin-point the worthwhile statistics. With respect to Flacco, he ranks in the top half in terms of winning percentage and in the top third in terms of TD-INT ratio and overall quarterback rating. He also has the 9th most playoff wins in NFL history, and out of the top 17 quarterbacks listed, has done so in the 6th fewest games.

It’s also worth noting that five of the eight QBs with more playoff wins than Flacco are in the Hall-of-Fame. The other three: Tom Brady, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning, are guaranteed future Hall-of-Famers.

Just based on the raw numbers, Flacco probably deserves to be put somewhere in the middle in terms of ranking the best postseason QBs of all-time.

The next chart is more revealing: It quantifies the percentage of home playoff games vs road playoff games, and how many times each QB had a one-and-done postseason.

*The percentages do not take into account neutral site games – Super Bowls/Championships

One guy’s numbers jump off the page right away — Joe Flacco’s!

Think about it. Only 13% of his career playoff games have been played at M&T Bank Stadium, compared to 80% on the road. EIGHTY PERCENT!

Twelve out of 15 games. Not 52% or 56% or some other close-to-equal percentage. But 80%. Only one other QB on this list has played in more road games than home games. That’s Eli Manning. Joe has had to play in places like Indianapolis, Denver, Pittsburgh (3 times), and New England (4 times). And still has one of the best postseason winning percentages of all-time, one of the best TD-INT ratios, and one of the best playoff QB ratings. He also has the most road playoff wins in the history of the world.

Oh, and he’s never had a one-and-done postseason in his career. In fact, he’s the only one that can say that. The great Peyton Manning has been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round nine times. Nine freaking times!

Tom Brady has played in 15 playoff games since the year 2007. Only one of those have been on the road. Yet he’s been knocked out in the first round twice in that span.

As a side note: I know the Patriots earned the right to home field advantage in these games, as have other teams and quarterbacks. This isn’t about that.

Flacco has only been in the league seven years and is arguably entering the prime of his career. After their 7th season, only one other quarterback in league history had more playoff wins than Joe currently does, that being Tom Brady. Both Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Aikman also had 10 after their seventh year, but Ben hasn’t won one since, and Aikman only won one more the rest of his career.

Tom Brady will be entering his 16th season in the league. Flacco is entering his 8th. Flacco is currently on pace to have 22 career playoff wins following his 15th year in the league. Assuming Brady doesn’t win any more (he probably will), Flacco would have the most career playoff wins in NFL history. And he’s done it all on the road up to this point, which makes it all the more impressive.

I’m not trying to say Flacco is the best playoff quarterback of all-time, but he’s certainly on pace to become one of the best.

There are only two 21st Century post season quarterbacks I’d rank ahead of Flacco at the present time: Eli Manning and Kurt Warner. Warner was a monster. Look at his stats in the first chart. Eli Manning is the best road playoff quarterback in league history, despite Flacco being #1 all-time in career wins. Take a look at his road numbers compared to Flacco’s:

All things being equal, however, Joe Flacco should already be considered one of the 10 best playoff quarterbacks of all-time.

And he’s just entering his prime. There’s more to come.

January Joe will see you in, ahem, January.

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