Joe Flacco: "We're Not Going To Apologize For Acting Like We're A Good Football Team"

The Baltimore Ravens began training camp on Tuesday. The starting quarterback, Joe Flacco, took to the podium to answer some press conferences about him and his team.

Flacco started out by getting a question about the center competition. Flacco obviously does not deal with executive decisions, so he basically just shrugged the question off.

After this, Flacco got a question about whether it feels different this year than last year, since they won a Super Bowl.

"Not really. It's still training camp and you're still happy to be here, but it's still training camp."

Flacco is then asked whether or not he becomes eager to get back to the field during the offseason.

"You definitely become bored pretty quickly. You always think you're going to go and enjoy 5 months or whatever you have off, but you definitely become bored pretty quickly. I don't know if I'm always eager to come back in here, but when you do get back in here it's refreshing. You realize how much fun you have doing it."

Flacco gets asked about if he is thinking about an "encore," or a Super Bowl repeat.

"Not really. I think we were a good team, we've been a good team, and I think our expectations on ourselves are to be a really good team again. I don't think we think about last year at all. Our team is different, just like it is every year. We've got a lot of guys that are hungry." says Joe. "I haven't really thought about an encore, I've just kind of thought about getting the best that we can get so we can go out there and win some more football games.

Flacco gets asked about Matt Elam. This is the main statement of his answer. He laughingly states:

"He seems like a cool dude."

Later on in the presser, Flacco gets asked about whether he needs to be a leader, since he has a new contract and they have lost some guys.

"Well, I'm always a leader. I'm not really going to change my role. We don't have Ray Lewis here anymore, if that's what you're asking. Me and him are probably different on terms that we lead anyway and I'm not going to change what I do at all just because I make more money. That has nothing to do with leading a football team." Joe says. "I'm going to go out there, I'm going to play well, I'm going to lead by example, I'm going to have fun with my guys, and I'm going to get them to trust me and we're going to be a good football team because of it."

After a few more questions, Flacco gets asked about if there is more pressure on him to perform this year after the Super Bowl win and the new contract.

"I don't know. I really don't know. I think if we didn't win, y'all would still be saying we suck. If we did win, y'all would still say the same. I don't think it really matters either way. All we can do is go out there and keep winning, just like we have every year we've been here and not really worry about what people say and what our expectations are and what the pressure is going to be. Who really cares? I can't really complain at this point. We won last year, I have a lot of money, or I'm going to get a lot of money, and we're going to win football games. That's the way it is around here. That's what we're going to get used to, and that's what we want to be used to, is winning football games. We're not going to apologize for acting like we're a good football team. Our expectations are high, and we don't care if that comes with pressure, or if it's not pressure, or whatever it is. We expect to win."

Flacco is then asked about how it is like without No. 52 around.

"He's taken like three reps out here at this practice, he wouldn't be here anyway. He would probably be taking like three reps, and all three reps that he was in there, you would know he was in there. He would be jawing back and forth with you and acting like he's Superman, but believe me, he brought a lot of fun to the practice field and that's never going to be replaced." says Joe with a smile. "He's just a little extra special."

These were the main questions asked in Tuesday's presser. Flacco laughed and smiled the entire time, especially when speaking about Ray Lewis. Joe brought energy to the camp and he let everyone know that they are here to win football games, and that's exactly what they're going to do.

The Ravens are officially set to begin camp on Wednesday.

FUN FACT: According to Jameel McClain, there are only 7 guys on this team now that were here in 2008.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED...

Watch the entire Joe Flacco presser: here.