Flacco Making Push for Fantasy Football Stardom

PREMIERE QB: Joe Flacco wants to be known as a premiere NFL quarterback and his performance on Monday Night Football certainly helped his case.

When you think of the top quarterbacks in fantasy football, the Ravens’ Joe Flacco does not automatically come to mind.  That’s because a typical Baltimore team wins on defense, not offense, and the Ravens’ Ray Rice is really the offensive star of the team, at least from fantasy football standards.

The Ravens, however, made a statement on the NFL’s first Monday Night Football game last night when it won the toss and inexplicably chose to start on offense.  Baltimore is no stranger to wanting to start on defense and usually that would be the natural move that you’d expect from a hard hitting defense with fearsome Ray Lewis in the middle.

Flacco engineered three scoring drives to rack up 17 points to start the game for the Ravens as they cruised over the Bengals 44-13.  The fifth-year QB finished 21 of 29 for 299 yards, two touchdowns and a passer rating of 128.4.  He looked polished and like a quarterback ready for a major push in fantasy points this season.  On a team with such a good defense, you know he’s going to get his chances to hold the ball as Baltimore looks like a team that will lead in offensive plays and possession time in almost every contest.

Flacco looked off of his receivers well all night.  His 34-yard touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin in the second quarter was called off of an audible at the line.  You can’t draw it out any better than that.  Only experience can teach it and Flacco looks like his experience is going to make him a winning move for fantasy football owners that drafted him this season.

If Flacco can perform this way all season, your fantasy football team, like the Ravens, looks playoff bound.