Wisest Move the Ravens Could Make: Trade Flacco

After completing a Super Bowl winning season that saw Joe Flacco, Baltimore's self pro-claimed best quarterback in the NFL, throw for 11 TDs and no interceptions en route to MVP honors, the Ravens are faced with a daunting decision:  Offer Flacco a $100+ million long-term contract, or give him the franchise tag--pay him upwards of $20 million for one season and re-negotiate the long-term deal after the 2013-14 season.

If I were in GM Ozzie Newsome's shoes, the decision to me would be quite simple.  None of the above.

Flacco's "value" is as high as it will ever be, and there are teams desperate for a quarterback.  But Joe Flacco is fool's gold.  He isn't anywhere near as good as he thinks he is, nor is his level of play in the postseason sustainable over the course of the next several seasons.

If I were Ozzie Newsome, I'm on the phone TODAY with 20 other NFL GMs advertising that Joe Flacco is available for trade to the highest bidder.


Watch video where Merril Hoge states Flacco is "without question" the best QB in the NFL

The attention given to mediocre QBs who happen to play on winning teams is nauseating.  Mainstream media, and especially former players, appear clueless using wins, a bona fide team earned statistic, to measure an individual player.  Merril Hoge stated that Flacco is the best QB in the NFL on ESPN (By the way, Merril, where are Drew Brees and Peyton Manning on that list?).  Bob Fescoe, a sports radio personality out of Kansas City, indicated that Flacco is a better quarterback than Peyton Manning because Manning threw the ugly interception in overtime of the playoff game and Flacco's Ravens beat Manning  in Denver.  A myriad of various football numbskulls will tell me Flacco deserves the money because he beat Manning, as well as Tom Brady, in the playoffs.

Look, Flacco is a nice player, and he seems like a great guy.  But he's not even one of the five best players on his own team, let alone one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL.  Flacco's legendary playoff luck is a small sample size in relevance to the vast majority of his mediocre career.  Great quarterbacks, great offenses, great defenses, nor great coaches reach or win Super Bowls.  It's typically the most balanced team that wins, or at least that plays the most balance in the playoffs.

The Ravens got some great QB play this post-season, no doubt about it, and in my opinion, Flacco deserved the Super Bowl MVP.  Baltimore also forced at least 2 turnovers in every playoff game.  They scored multiple touchdowns on special teams and defense.  Their field goal kicker did not miss a field goal.  And they were lucky (all teams that win a championship in any sport are lucky, so I'm not going to hold it against the Ravens).

Baltimore would not have even made the playoffs if Ray Rice didn't miraculously convert a 4th-and-29 in the regular season.  And if a the Denver secondary doesn't brain fart to allow the 70-yard Jacoby Jones game-tying touchdown with 14 seconds left, then it's another Manning-Brady showdown in the AFC playoffs.

There are a plenty of ways to evaluate quarterbacks.  Winning percentage, fourth-quarter comebacks, and Super Bowl rings should never be one of them.  Those are all reliant on the 52 other players and dozen or more coaches.  I'm a big numbers guy, and looking over Flacco's numbers tells me all I need to know.

According to Pro-football-reference.com, Flacco ranked 19th among NFL quarterbacks in completion percentage (59.7%) this past season.  Among those better than him were Ryan Fitzpatrick, Nick Foles, and Christian Ponder.  He threw only 22 TD passes, tied for 17th with Carson Palmer and Matt Schaubb.  His 7.2 yards per passing attempt ranked 17th, notably behind Josh Freeman and Tony Romo.  He was 12th in rating (87.7), and 22nd in QBR (total quarterback rating).  Ahead of him in QBR were Jake Locker, Andy Dalton, Sam Bradford, Jay Cutler, Ryan Tannehill, Freeman, and Ponder.

Advanced passing statistics (such as the ones shown in the table below) are not easily calculable, but very easy to understand because they are made so that an average player will score exactly 100.  Flacco's career numbers are about as close to average as any player can come.

There just isn't enough here to suggest that Joe Flacco is worth the kind of money he's asking for.  Fortunately for him, the economics of the NFL are heavily in his favor, because far too many teams emphasize the QB position (I could argue that this emphasis is wrong based solely on the fact that since the Ravens won a Super Bowl with an Average Joe at QB, so can anybody else with the right mix of players around him).  Fescoe, the sports talk show from Kansas City's 610 AM, stated on air that he thinks the Chiefs should offer two first round draft picks to the Ravens in exchange for Joe Flacco.  If Fescoe is dumb enough to make such an asinine trade, I have to believe there are more like him out there, and a few probably occupy careers as an NFL General Manager.  In fact, I would estimate a team might offer three first round picks, and maybe a couple of second and/or third round picks too.

The Ravens have serious needs, as key defensive players Ed Reed, Dannelle Ellerby, Paul Kruger,  Cary Williams, and Arthur Jones are all unrestricted free agents.  Ray Lewis just retired.  Signing Flacco to big money could mean losing all those other players in a salary cap era.  Acquiring upwards of 3-6 premium draft choices in exchange for a mediocre quarterback is like buying Google stock for $85 in 2004 and selling for $765 today.  Any real estate agent would say "sell high."  The price for Joe Flacco will never be higher!

I imagine this move wouldn't be popular with Ravens fans, but it would be the coup of the century.  Baltimore frees up millions of valuable cap dollars, is able to retain all the defensive players it wants, and can use those draft choices to draft another younger QB for the future.  They could even double down by trading all those extra picks to move up in next year's draft and pick up Aaron Murray (Georgia), Tyler Bray (Tennessee) or AJ McCarron (Alabama).  Let the 12th best QB in the league and worst contract in NFL history be somebody else's problem.

I'm sure Ozzie Newsome sees Flacco as an A or B situation.  But to me, he's missing out on a big opportunity to execute Plan C and make the Ravens even more dangerous for years to come.

Follow me on Twitter: @JimScheffres