Fantasy Upside
After losing his job, due to a hip injury, to rookie Lamar Jackson last season in Baltimore, Joe Flacco will be the Broncos clear-cut starting QB heading into 2019. Prior to playing in just nine games last year, Flacco had missed only six contests (all in ’15) during his career. In his 10 full seasons with the Ravens, he averaged 18 TDs, tossing a career-high 27 in 2014. He averaged over 3,200 passing yards in Baltimore, but was consistent, throwing for more than 4,000 yards once.
Fantasy Downside
Not known as a mobile QB, Flacco has been sacked over 330 times and, at 34 years old, isn’t getting any faster. Something the Broncos QBs have failed to do the past couple years is to not turn the ball over. Flacco has had some trouble in this area over his career, throwing at least 12 picks in a season eight times and he’s lost 56 career fumbles. While the Broncos offense is designed to utilize Flacco’s arm, long completions haven’t been part of his game the past couple seasons. In 2016-`7 with the Ravens, he finished 20th and tied for 26th in completions of at least 20 yards.
Bottom Line
Flacco is a big QB at 6’4” and 245 pounds and has a strong arm. He’ll have some good weapons to show off his arm to with a solid receiving corps that includes veteran Emmanuel Sanders and second-year players Courtland Sutton and DaeSean Hamilton. The Broncos drafted TE Noah Fant in the first round and you can be sure he’ll quickly become a part of the passing attack. Throughout Flacco’s career, something the Ravens seemed to lack was that big play WR, as the franchise has seen most of its success come from a vaunted defense. There’s still a lot of uncertainty with the Denver offense heading into the season and Flacco remains at best a middle of the pack QB and should only be drafted as a backup or second QB option.
