Joe Flacco quelled some very-real concerns on Friday

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — So you wondered if Joe Flacco still had an edge, huh?

You wondered if sitting on the sidelines during the playoffs behind a quarterback who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn took away a piece of his love for the game?

You thought maybe he was just coming to Denver to collect a paycheck and ride out his final few years in the NFL? That he’d leave the family back in Baltimore to hang out for a year or two years before heading home for retirement?

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

Joe Flacco still has a burning desire for football inside of him. And he’s in Denver—with his whole family—on a mission.

It’s Feb. 13—just hours after news had surfaced that the Denver Broncos were trading for the veteran quarterback—and Joe Flacco is in Denver. Per league rules, he’s allowed to come into town for a physical even before the trade was allowed to be made official a month later.

With his physical not scheduled until the morning, he heads to his hotel room down the street from the Broncos’ facility. As it turns out, a very convenient hotel room.

“He stayed at the hotel that I’m staying at,” new Broncos head coach Vic Fangio said with a smirk as the team introduced their new QB on Friday.

Despite the trade having already gone down, Fangio—like many others—admits that on that evening he was still a bit concerned that Flacco wouldn’t be excited to be in Denver. After all, he had been on the East Coast his entire life, but all of the head coach’s concerns were quelled that night.

Fangio and Flacco scheduled a hotel-room rendezvous to get to catch up, and it couldn’t have gone better.

“I know Joe from his past after being there with him his first two years in the league and then competing against him a couple times after I left, but [that meeting] is what really got me excited.”

“He came up to my room, and I had to kick him out of the room about two hours later. He’s fired up. He’s fired up to be here, and that’s what really made me happy.”

Of course he’s fired up. Joe Flacco is not in Denver to send it in, Joe Flacco is in Denver to send a message. After 11 years in Baltimore, including a Super Bowl in which he was the MVP, he was kicked to the curb. And while he says that’s only a small part of his motivation—behind his love for the game and desire to be the best—there is a fire burning inside of him.

“It was miserable,” he said with disgust of his time as a backup quarterback. “Sitting there on the bench, not being able to contribute and not really feeling like you’re a part of the team.”

Now, though, a chance for redemption.

“If that’s what I had to go through to get where I am now, then I’m happy to have done it.”

Starting in September, the former Super Bowl MVP will have at least 16 chances to show the Ravens that they made a big mistake, and if all goes to plan, he’ll have more than that.

“I don’t care what the expectations were for people at some point, everybody’s real expectations are to go win games and be in the playoffs. Then from there, see what happens and go win a Super Bowl. That’s what everybody’s trying to do, and that’s what I’m trying to do the rest of my career—win the Super Bowl.”

On Friday, Joe Flacco put to bed some big question’s about his future.

Desire to play: Check.

Excitement about the Broncos: Check.

Embracing the city: Check.

Chip on the shoulder: Check.

Obviously, the biggest questions revolve around his ability to succeed on the field, but the new quarterback in Denver passed his first test with flying colors on Friday. Just like Vic Fangio on that fateful February night, you can put your non-football concerns to bed.