Should Baltimore choose Jackson or Flacco to lead a Ravens playoff run?

Joe Flacco

Jackson or Flacco? If you’re for Lamar Jackson, I don’t blame you. But before you make your final decision, let me make a case for Joe Flacco being the right fit to lead a Ravens playoff run.

Before going out with an injury, Flacco completed 61.2% of his passes for 2,465 yards, 12 TDs and six INTs. His passer rating was 84.2. As a passer, Flacco’s numbers make the case for him to take over the starting job again. His passer rating is much higher than Jackson’s, and his TD to INT ratio is two to one instead of Jackson’s one to three. Flacco has thrown twice as many INTs as Jackson on the season, but he’s also played three times as many games.

While Flacco is slightly better as a passer, he doesn’t bring the dual-threat ability Jackson does. Flacco only has 45 yards rushing on the season. Flacco doesn’t have the ability to make the big splash plays with his feet like we’ve seen from Jackson.

Even though Flacco doesn’t make too many plays with his feet, it’s tough to shy away from him as the starting QB moving forward this season. Like I did with Lamar Jackson, I want to take a look at the teams he’s beaten. Flacco led the Ravens to a 4-5 record. That doesn’t look too good, but let’s look closer.

I’ll start by arguing that Flacco would have just as easily led the Ravens to wins over three of the league’s worst defense’s. In addition to those games, Flacco has helped the Ravens earn wins over the Bills, Broncos, Steelers and Titans. The worst defense among those teams belongs to the Bills, who rank 18th in the NFL (24.4 points allowed per game). All of his wins have come against much better defensive teams than Lamar Jackson’s have.

Flacco could have had another impressive win over the Saints if it weren’t for K Justin Tucker missing an extra point at the end of the game. Flacco led the Ravens down the field to score a TD to put them down by just one. All Tucker had to do was simply make an extra point and the Ravens may have walked away with a victory in OT. That loss wasn’t Flacco’s fault.

While Flacco has had better wins than Jackson, he’s also had some bad losses. The Ravens lost to the Bengals, Browns, Panthers and Steelers in addition to their loss to the Saints. As mentioned with Jackson, the Bengals are the worst defensively, although that loss came in the second week of the season. The Browns rank 24th and the Panthers rank 21st in points allowed per game.

With all this in mind, would you choose Jackson or Flacco to lead a Ravens playoff run?

Wait! I forgot to mention one thing. This is perhaps the most important thing. Joe Flacco has not only been to the playoffs six times in his 10 full NFL seasons, but he’s won a Super Bowl.