Spoken like a true Jersey boy!
Flacco said that Harbaugh spared him the indignity of having to watch the tape in front of the team. “Well, it was a bad pass, but I ran pretty hard so they wouldn’t have had anything to make fun of me about.”
Giving effort was never going to be an issue or a criticism of Joe Flacco.
Flacco, more than anyone, was seeking redemption for that ill-advised throw and the 14-point swing in the game. He respected the task in Denver. “They’re a good football team, and they got up on us early,” Flacco said. “We made a couple of mistakes in the first half, and the game kind of got away from us. They’re a good football team, though, they’ve got a couple of good pass rushers, a good defense, and it’s going to be a good challenge. We’re excited about it. We just didn’t feel like we played up to par the last time we played them.”
But the question kept coming back to the Harris Pick Six and whether it stuck with him. “It stuck with me a couple minutes, and then I moved on and went out there and played some more snaps,” Flacco said. “And then when we lost, it stuck with me for a couple minutes again, and then we started getting ready for the next game and we went out and won it. We didn’t play well enough to win the first game. We had some turnovers. It was a touchdown. Stuff like that happens sometimes, and believe me, I’m the last guy that wants it to happen. But you’ve got to go out there and keep your head up and play the game, and I think I did a great job of rebounding from that, and I think our whole team did. That’s why we are where we are right now, and we have to just … That’s not in my mind at all going up to Denver this week. We feel confident, and I think we should.”
The real story inside Owings Mills from the Ravens’ perspective wasn’t as much concern about Flacco, who just had two very good games against the Giants and Colts, and who was starting to get more comfortable moving around in the pocket with Jim Caldwell calling plays. Flacco’s challenge was executing the no huddle in Denver under frigid conditions, where the “incomplete” shouts are famous throughout the NFL. It’s perhaps the most intimidating fan cheer in all of sports. After an opposing quarterback has been getting chased in the thin Denver air by the relentless Broncos pass rush, the mere notion of hearing 75,000 bear down in unison with “IN-COM-PLETE” as the public address announcer gives the play’s poor outcome is daunting. Flacco had never heard this taunt since this would be his first trip to Denver in his five years in the NFL.
“So all I have to do is not throw any incompletions and I won’t have to hear it?” Flacco said. “OK, I’ll make sure I work on that,” he told a reporter with a laugh, although you had the sense that he really did consider perfection a possibility. At least you knew it crossed his mind.
The Ravens felt that this time, heading west, they were a different unit on defense and stopping Manning was possible. Forcing bad decisions and hitting him was the key to getting back to the AFC Championship Game. For the defense, it was almost like going from the preseason into the regular season because five players who weren’t on the field in December would be back against Manning. Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs, and Haloti Ngata – who represent four Pro Bowlers and $40 million of cap space were as healthy as they’d been in recent memory. They would be playing in their second game together in a year. Everyone realized that Lewis and Suggs made a difference in the win over the Colts.
Any NFL coach would say that you need your best players healthy in January to have a chance. The Ravens were a better team than they were in December, and Harbaugh did everything he could to get them into a position for this kind of game.
“It was a hard-fought game [last time],” Reed said. “We had some internal stuff going on that definitely affected the way we played. We were not a team that day at all. This is the playoffs. We know what we got, and they know what we got. We’re going down there with all of our weapons and all of our tools. And we’re coming to bang. Somebody is going to get the bye. We didn’t get it, and we know the reason why. We’re going forward. We don’t have time to complain. They had a week off. Whatever. So be it. We’re still coming strong.”
