PFF: Joe Flacco’s overall grade among NFL’s best, but he’s struggling against pressure

Pro Football Focus released its QB overview for the season thus far. Here’s how Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco stacked up.

What immediately jumped out to me upon looking at this chart was the 25.8 passer rating versus pressure, the second worst in the NFL (the only quarterback with a worse rating is Jacoby Brissett). Flacco has never been great under duress, its been well documented that he isn’t the most athletic quarterback. He tends to throw off his back foot a fair amount when pressure builds. This grade is really something Flacco has to improve upon. The majority of quarterbacks on playoff contending teams are within the top 15 of this ranking.

However, Flacco’s 75.5 grade is the 11th best in the NFL this year. Flacco had a 82.2 grade in Week 2 against the Browns, the third best in the NFL.

Flacco’s 76.6% adjusted competition percentage is the tenth best in the NFL so far this year. This improvement could in large part be due to how well Flacco has thrown to both short (ranked 11th) and intermediate (ranked 10th) targets. Flacco has not been very good throwing the deep ball this year, he’s ranked 25th in that category, but that will surely improve given how much speed the Ravens have in Mike Wallace and Breshad Perriman, and due to the fact that Flacco is one of the NFL’s better deep ball throwers

Coming into this year, it was clear that for Flacco to have a bounce back season, the Ravens needed to run the ball more. That’s exactly what they’ve done, and Flacco has been much better so far this year. Not only have the Ravens run the ball, but they’ve done it well. Having a running game to back up on has surely helped Flacco’s performance this year.

Flacco will get his toughest test of the season thus far against a very good Jaguars secondary that features A.J. Bouye and Jalen Ramsey. But if the Ravens can keep a good balance between the run and the pass this weekend, then Flacco should be in for another good game.