Even if Joe Flacco is elite, his knee braces aren’t.
The Ravens quarterback destroyed another protective device Monday night with another awkward slide, the latest in a series of equipment malfunctions. Flacco says he’s only broken two, it just seems like more.
The latest one was just before halftime Monday, when his slide tore up a chunk of turf and broke the brace. The same thing happened during a slide against the Steelers last year, and then again against the Bengals. Flacco said he’s only destroyed two braces.
“It’s definitely a lot easier to slide without it,” Flacco said, via Edward Lee of the Baltimore Sun. “So they had a backup one for me, and I didn’t put it back on. So it was quicker at the time just to take that one off and get back in the game.”
Ravens coach John Harbaugh has been consulting with baseball experts, and has come to the conclusion there may be no fixing Flacco’s slide.
“Joe blames the knee brace, and he swears he knows how to slide well. He’s adamant about it,” Harbaugh said. “[Orioles manager] Buck Showalter – I think I got a text from Buck saying that he’s available to show him [how to slide]. That doggone knee brace, that’s getting in the way too much. We have to figure something out there. I thought Joe played a really courageous game. He made some plays with his legs that were just critical plays in the football game. That was pretty awesome.”
Flacco said he’s considered ditching the brace, which protects the left knee which was surgically repaired in 2015, but didn’t think it was a big deal one way or another.