The Ravens are 3-5 at the midway point of their season and that means quarterback Joe Flacco isn’t hearing the same kind of praise he was hearing back in February when the team won the Super Bowl.
Flacco hasn’t done much to earn that kind of praise. He’s got a lower passer rating than the likes of E.J. Manuel and Mike Glennon and he’s thrown more interceptions than all but five quarterbacks, a level of play that many have pointed out is out of whack with the lavish contract extension that Flacco signed during the offseason.
Those issues have been exacerbated by dismal offensive line play, shortages at receiver and a non-existent running game, creating a situation that Flacco said he can’t overcome all by himself.
“It’s tough in the NFL to go out there and try to be Superman. It’s just impossible to do that,” Flacco said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com. “So, I think that kind of keeps you in check and allows you to go out there and just play your game. It’s frustrating when you’re running off the field, and you’re not getting first downs, and you’re not scoring points. And that obviously has something to do with it -- not being able to get that going -- but we’ve got to be better in other parts of our game in order to help that out and in order to overcome that in certain times. We haven’t been able to get it going enough, and we haven’t been able to overcome it enough when it hasn’t worked for us.”
Being Superman isn’t an option for Flacco, but neither is being a mild-mannered Clark Kent-type who acts as just another cog in the wheel. That’s not the way it works for quarterbacks in the NFL. The success or failure of the Ravens offense is going to reflect on Flacco whether he deserves it or not and, right now, he’s gotta find some way to get things moving in the right direction.