There's been a lot of talk about this quarterback, maybe too much talk. This post is not a rebel post, this post is,

via i137.photobucket.com

Joe "Cool" Flacco. (Apologies to Bono)

For a guy that has won a playoff game every year he has been in the league, and will probably continue that trend at least for this year, he sure has a lot of detractors. So I decided to compare his first four years as an NFL quarterback with some of his contemporaries that he is constantly compared to and also against some Hall of Famers for, comparison sake.

Granted, each quarterback had a unique situation when they entered the NFL, and it is probably not completely fair to mix eras. Some rode the pines for a while, some were pegged to be the starter from Day 1, some got injured, some got traded so I agree this is not the best possible true comparison, but it does shed some light onto how good Joe really is, given a lot of circumstances and variables. And for those of you who scream, "Unfair!" because someone didn't play very much early in their career, Flacco had the starting job thrust upon him from the start. He could have pulled a Boller, and we would all be lamenting the lack of QB's for the Ravens. But he didn't, and we are all better because of it -which I believe is a credit, not a detraction, to Joe.

The table below shows the QB's and relevant stats I used.

These are all existing Hall of Fame quarterbacks, or will be, except for Joe and Ryan, whose careers are too young to make any judgments such as that. Joe has more wins than anybody and will probably catch Big Ben in terms of playoff wins. Everybody downplays this, and there is a reasonable argument about wins being more correlated with the overall team, but you cannot deny that Joe has had a hand in those 44 wins for his team.

His QB rating is right in the middle of this pack (with Marino, Big Ben and Rodgers being the outliers). Notice that Joe's QB rating is very close to Brady's, and better than Peyton's, Favre's and Brees' -who also had Cam as his coach the early part of his career. Hmm...

Joe's percentage is right in line with everybody else's; or within a percentage point or two. Over the course of a season, that amounts to maybe one additional completion per game. Yes, Ryan has more yards, but Flacco is ahead of everybody else (including Big Ben) save for Peyton and Marino who are the outliers for this particular stat.

Further, you cannot discount Joe's durability. Big Ben has missed time due to injures/suspension, same with Ryan, Brady, Montana, as have a few others on this list. Because of Joe's durability and smart off the field decision making, the Ravens have had one of the most stable quarterback situations, save Peyton and Favre.

All of these QB's have won a SuperBowl except for Marino, Ryan and Joe. Flacco is tracking right with these guys, and in many areas is ahead of where some of these guys were at this point in their respective careers. I see multiple SuperBowl's in the Raven's future and a stellar career for Joe. As other folks have mentioned, Joe will be a Raven's fixture for the next ten years, and we couldn't ask for anything better.