Russell Street Report Street Talk Season in Review: Joe Flacco

With the 2017 season in the books, and a few weeks to settle down from the outage that was the Week 17 debacle, it’s time we start taking a look at the season in review for several of the stars of Baltimore, how they fared compared to previous seasons, and what we can expect moving forward.

What better place to start than our $28 million face of the franchise, Joe Flacco?

WARNING: It’s, uh… it’s not pretty.

2017 vs 2016

Looking at Joe’s first full year under OC Marty Morhinweg versus his previous split season between Marty & Marc Trestman, who was fired after Week 9 of the regular season raises a few major questions, concerns, and possibly a bright spot.

The only positive? The noticeable difference in pass attempts.

Last offseason at the Ravens annual (perhaps no longer, but at the time) State of the Ravens address, owner Steve Bisciotti said (paraphrasing) ‘I don’t want a quarterback dropping back to pass 600+ times.’ It appears Steve got his wish, with Flacco dropping back 549 times – a drastic drop-off of 123 pass attempts from the 2016 season in which the Ravens forgot how to run the ball.

Outside of that moral victory? Thing’s look a bit uglier for the Ravens quarterback:

-More fumbles on fewer drop backs

-Lower QBR

-Lower completion percentage

-Lower QB Rating (not that stupid ESPN wannabe QB Rating- although that dropped too)

-Worse picks per pass attempts (1 per 44.8 PA’s in 2016 vs 1 per 42.2 PA’s in 2017)

substantially fewer yards (1,176 to be exact), and while the easy logic would be ‘less pass attempts equates to less yards,’ Joe’s lower yards per completion (8.92 in 2017 vs 9.9 in 2016) is just as much a factor.

Jumping back to last year’s State of the Ravens address, Stevie Biscuits had vehemently supported Joe Flacco, suggesting that he struggled at times in 2016 due to recovering from his ACL injury, and predicted that 2017 would be a much better year for him.

With predictions like that? It’s safe to say that I’m not going to Bisciotti looking for winning lottery numbers anytime soon.

2017 vs Career Averages

While looking at Joe’s 2017 in contrast to the previous season may give us a glimpse into a short-term improvement, ultimately it cannot be discredited that his 2016 was marred with the ‘recovering from ACL injury’ narrative, and that perhaps his season could have been better had he not been on the mend.

As such, it’s worth looking at Joe’s career average over a decade and seeing how his 2017 stacks up in comparison.

More dismay.

In contrast to his career averages, Flacco had a better year in terms of completion percentage and fumbles; however his QB Rating was down versus the average over a decade, and his interceptions were spot on – maybe not a bad thing, but surely not a good thing with 13 picks.

Doing quick math, we see that Joe has averaged 10.94 yards per completion in his career, which is nearly 2 yards higher than his 2017 average (8.9), and his touchdown rate of 1 per 18.4 completions in 2017 is a step down from his career average of 1 per 16.6 pass completions.

Not good, Joe.

And it gets worse.

Looking at individual stats over his career, Flacco’s 2017 completion percentage was his lowest since 2014, while his 18 touchdowns were the 3rd lowest in his 10-year career (rookie year he had 16 total touchdowns, and in his 10-game injury-shortened 2015 season he had 16 total TD’s). His QB Rating of 80.4 was also the 3rd lowest of his career, and if you want to use ESPN’s QBR stat?

2017’s 46.0 QBR was the lowest of Flacco’s career.

Positives

Oy… kinda hard to find many positive from this season for Flacco, but I think looking at his post-bye stats should provide some semblance of hope for the future:

Following the Week 10 bye, Joe Flacco finished the season (7 games) with 11 touchdowns (10 passing, 1 rushing) and only 3 interceptions.

Hooray!

To make matters better, you have to remember what he was dealing with in terms of ‘weapons.’ At the beginning of the season, the offense looked pretty solid on paper: Ravens fans were expecting an improvement from Breshad Perriman, another solid year from Mike Wallace, and the addition of Jeremy Maclin to fill Steve Smith Sr’s void. Coupled with a plethora of tight ends – Dennis Pitta, Maxx Williams, Crockett Gillmore, Ben Watson, Darren Waller, Nick Boyle – the Ravens offense looked like it had serious potential.

Then, reality happened.

Pitta blew his hip out once again, and was done. Waller was suspended (again), and Gillmore was knocked out before the season started. Maclin was essentially a bust, as are Perriman (it’s official now), and Maxx (also official).

What Flacco was left with was 16 games featuring quite possibly the worst WR1-WR2-TE1 trio of any NFL team out there.

So I guess, what I’m driving at here is that Joe’s biggest bright spot is that he wasn’t worse with such little talent around him?

That’s an ugly truth that’s surely hard to swallow…

Concerns

The biggest concern with Flacco?

The unknown.

Once again, the Ravens go into an offseason having no idea what they truly have in their franchise signal caller.

On one hand, you have a guy who struggled statistically due to lack of weapons, a susceptible offensive line, a lack of preseason reps, and an offensive coordinator that fans believe should be run out of town.

On the other hand, you have a 10-year veteran who is still throwing interceptions that even rookies don’t make, being careless in the backfield with the ball, and who struggles to sense pressure coming. It’s one thing for fans to cringe, but when broadcast teams on TV are calling out his picks on a weekly basis?

NOT GOOD.

Of course, it becomes a battle of chicken and the egg: does Joe look bad because he lacks talent around him? Or do his weapons look insufficient because he struggles as a quarterback and is on the backside of his career?

Unfortunately, until the issues surrounding Joe are addressed, I’m not sure we’ll know the answer to that question…

Looking Ahead

I don’t think this is really rocket science, but in order for Joe to improve? The Ravens need to give the man some damn weapons!

Both Wallace and Michael Campanaro are free agents, and likely to move on. Maclin is likely cut fodder for cap purposes, and unless Stevie Biscuits, Ozzie & Harbs want the tall task of keeping a straight face while telling fans that their receiving corps in 2018 is focused on Chris Moore, Quincy Adeboyejo & Tim White at wide receiver, with Boyle holding down the TE1 slot?

Ya gotta give the man some weapons!

Given the lack of cap space, I think it would be foolish to expect the Ravens to add a top-tier wideout, a la Jarvis Landry, Allen Robinson, or even a Sammy Watkins, nor do I expect them to pursue Jimmy Graham for the tight end void.

Instead, I expect the Ravens to address the wideout position early in the draft, as well as tight end, then look to add a 30-something free agent wideout.

In my perfect world? The Ravens land Bama WR Calvin Ridley in the 1st round of the draft, follow up with Oklahoma TE Mark Andrews in the 2nd round, then wait for the Packers to release WR Jordy Nelson. IF by chance Ridley is gone, I think the Ravens could drop back, add a pick, and land the big-bodied WR Auden Tate from Florida State late in the first round, but of course this is all wishful thinking when it comes to the Ravens and drafting receivers on Day One (or Day Two for that matter)…

In addition, this is now two straight seasons of “is he really healthy?” questions for the Ravens’ previously “Iron Man” quarterback. While Joe toughed it out, it was obvious that he was never really healthy until the second half of the season, and his lack of reps in preseason and training camp undoubtedly affected him. Joe turned 33 earlier this week. The Tom Bradys and Brett Favres of the world aside, that’s getting into mid-life crisis time for NFL QBs. Could the Ravens look to draft Joe’s eventual replacement sooner rather than later? That’s something else to keep an eye on as we move into the offseason.

One thing is for sure in 2018 – if the Ravens manage to finally surround Flacco with the weapons we’ve all begged for since 2008, coupled with a healthy offensive line that should be top-10 in the NFL? Our signal caller is officially out of excuses, and enters put-up-or-shut-up mode.

Here’s to hoping he can be the quarterback we all came to love once upon a Super Bowl…