Ravens running back Ray Rice hasn’t been with the team this spring as he tries to score a long-term contract after getting the franchise tag earlier this offseason, but he’s kept in touch with what the team has been doing.
One thing Rice is aware of is Joe Flacco’s belief that he is the best quarterback in the game. Flacco, who is also looking for a new contract from Baltimore, made those comments in a radio interview in April as an expression of the confidence he has in himself as a quarterback. Rice thinks the confidence springs from a very real place.
“It was his show. It was his show on offense and as much credit that I was getting and as much respect I was getting from defenses, all Joe really had to do is prove that we can drive the ball down the field and score, and he did that,” Rice said in an interview with 790 The Zone in Atlanta, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “Quite frankly, he outplayed Tom Brady the last game. He outplayed Tom Brady, and Tom Brady — he’s the trademark for a quarterback. So Joe Flacco feeling the way he feels is only right, because he did it on a high level. He did it on the peak of his performance.”
Flacco did have a strong AFC Championship Game, although Lee Evans’ drop in the end zone and Billy Cundiff’s ensuing missed field goal stopped him from getting the rewards he might have received after a victory. It’s also true that the amount of respect teams pay Rice, as well as the play of the Baltimore defense, gives Flacco the chance to win even when he doesn’t play all that well.
That likely impacts the kind of financial commitment the Ravens plan to make to Flacco now or in the future and it usually isn’t something that comes so quickly to mind when discussing the best quarterbacks from the game.