Joe Flacco Simply Isn't Good Enough to Carry These Baltimore Ravens

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For the entire 21st century, former Baltimore Ravens quarterback Trent Dilfer has been a poster child for those clinging to the notion that a bad quarterback can indeed win the Super Bowl.

After all, Dilfer completed fewer than 60 percent of his passes and posted a measly 76.6 passer rating when he and the Ravens won the championship in 2000, and he made only a single Pro Bowl while playing for five different teams in 13 NFL seasons. 

But it's possible current Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco provides us with an even better example, because the 30-year-old Flacco is actually the only starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl this century despite never having gone to a Pro Bowl, and it sure looks as though he's regressing in his prime. 

Right when the 2008 first-round pick should be hitting his stride, the 1-5 Ravens are off to their worst six-game start in franchise history. And had the Ravens and Flacco not been bailed out by the mistake-prone Pittsburgh Steelers in a Week 4 victory that contained two turnovers from Flacco, they'd be the only winless team in football right now. 

When he threw two interceptions Sunday in a loss to the drowning San Francisco 49ers, it became obvious that the Ravens are no longer talented enough to mask Flacco's shortcomings. 

On the first pick Sunday, he simply failed to see an extra linebacker in coverage. On the other, he needlessly threw up a back-footed prayer when under pressure on a first down. Both were rookie mistakes, as was his baffling second-quarter pick against the Steelers. 

Flacco tries to do too much and throws into spaces that would be too tight for Joe Montana, and he's been forcing the issue more often than usual with the Ravens in frequent holes early this season.

He no longer has the support of the departed Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata and Pernell McPhee, and the injured Terrell Suggs on defense. Throw in early-season injuries to key offensive cogs Steve Smith and Eugene Monroe, and there have just been far too many obstacles for a quarterback who has a career passer rating of 84.5.

It's not as though Flacco is surrounded by scrubs. Twelve quarterbacks, including Tom Brady, have had more dropped passes from their receivers than Flacco, and 21 quarterbacks have been pressured more frequently than he has. He has completed just eight of 27 attempts beyond 20 yards, and he has an accuracy rate that is lower than oft-criticized pivots Brandon Weeden, Kirk Cousins, Josh McCown and Matthew Stafford. 

Small sample size, but those numbers indicate he can't carry a so-so team on his back. 

His rating this season (80.1) is only a few points lower than his career rating of 84.5. Only once in his career has he completed more than 63 percent of his passes, which leaves him below the league average in that category during the course of his career. And it says a lot that he's averaging a career-low 6.5 yards per attempt, because his career average of 7.0 is also below the league-wide rate. 

Flacco helped the Ravens a lot more than he hurt them in 2012, and it's quite possible they wouldn't have won the Super Bowl had he not thrown 11 touchdown passes and zero interceptions during that unforgettable playoff run.

But as the eighth season of his professional career careens off the tracks, it's becoming obvious that was an aberration. 

The Ravens have won 10 playoff games with Flacco, and seven of those have come on the road. But we've reached a point at which we must assume that most of that success has come as a result of the fact Baltimore's defense allowed fewer points during Flacco's first seven seasons than any other unit in football. 

This year, only five teams have surrendered more points per game than the Ravens, and their most targeted receivers beyond Smith are dudes named Kamar Aiken and Marlon Brown. 

That explains why Flacco is being exposed like never before. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012. Advanced stats courtesy of Pro Football Focus.

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