Broncos Film Room: Is Joe Flacco an upgrade over Case Keenum?

The Denver Broncos have a trade in place for former Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco, making him the first big move of the Vic Fangio era.

Flacco’s stats dipped in 2017 but picked back up in 2018 before suffering a hip injury and opening the door for Lamar Jackson to take over as the Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback. The Ravens never looked back after that, going on a 6-and-1 run to the playoffs.

As we all try to digest the news and understand how this impacts the Broncos plans moving forward, here is a first look at Flacco’s 2018 season where he was on pace to throw for 4,382 yards—which would have been a career high—to go along with 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions on a career-high 42.1 pass attempts per game.

Strengths

The first thing that any casual observer can tell you about Flacco is his big arm, which certainly stands out on tape.

The 6-foot-6, 245-pound signal caller has easy cheese and can unleash deep bombs like they were two-yard dump offs. Paired with his quick release, Flacco has the tools to hurt defenses with his arm. The ball simply cuts through the air differently when Flacco throws it. It seems to sail through the air at a different rate, a common trend with big-arm QBs who just have another level of power.

The former first-round pick will stand tough in the pocket and can use his height to scan the field and unleash throws with a disintegrating pocket.

The towering quarterback will also showcase his arm power when needing to zip throws over the middle, where he can throw darts with elite velocity, threading the needle in tight windows.

Unsurprisingly, he was the NFL’s best quarterback in converting third-and-short throws for first downs in 2018, in large part due to that zip.

His power showed up on third-and-long, too, where he was 13th in the league converting 27.9 percent of those attempts for first downs—by comparison Case Keenum completed 27 percent and was tied for 14th.

A big selling point for the Ravens former QB in Denver is his familiarity and success in the zone blocking, play-action-heavy offense that Gary Kubiak ran in Baltimore back in 2014, where he threw a career-high 27 touchdowns. New Broncos offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello runs many of those same concepts which should significantly help Flacco.

As recently as last season, the Ravens ran a ton of 21 and 12 personnel sets—two RBs and a TE or two TEs and one RB, which all fits into what Scangarello likes to do.

While not the most mobile quarterback, Flacco completed some of his best throws on play action and even bootlegs and was surprisingly effective when scrambling away from pressure.

Flacco is at his best with simplified reeds in play action looks where all he has to do is plant his feet and get the ball out with velocity to all fields. He can look off safeties and is a savvy veteran who knows what matchups to attack, as he did in Week 3 against the Broncos where he picked on rookie corner Isaac Yiadom.

A true veteran quarterback, Flacco can throw guys open and not wait for his receivers to come open. He’ll attack defenses vertically and induce a good amount of pass interference penalties.

Since the Ravens won a Super Bowl in 2013, where Flacco was more of an all-or-nothing passer who took shots deep, he’s evolved. Flacco has become much better about taking what defenses give him, using his Howitzer arm to get the ball out quickly attacking open windows in coverage. This is how Flacco has become more of a chain mover rather than an all-or-nothing QB.

Denver’s new quarterback worked out of shotgun a decent amount in 2018 and was able to avoid costly interceptions. He was also very efficient in avoiding sacks, only getting sacked 1.7 times per game—Keenum was sacked 2.12 times in 2018.

Weaknesses

On paper, Flacco’s injuries and age are concerning, as his natural talent beyond his arm isn’t overwhelming. At 34 years of age, you’d expect his skills to decline in the next few seasons.

He already struggles to make plays beyond the X’s and O’s and needs to play within a structure to take deep shots with max protection. He won’t complete many throws off of awkward footing or from different arm angles and obviously doesn’t bring much as far as athleticism or ability to make throws on the run.

Flacco’s biggest issue is that he can take too long to get his feet set and is fairly inaccurate without a firm lower base.

Surprisingly for a big armed QB, Flacco’s accuracy wasn’t great outside the numbers. Balls would sail on him, and his ball placement was inconsistent when having to dart throws to the sideline.

In general, his accuracy is inconsistent in 2018 and wasn’t there even on shorter and deep throws.

Receivers will have to make mid-air adjustments on deep throws which will present a big test for the Broncos’ young group.

If he’s operating off secondary reeds, Flacco just isn’t very accurate, nor is he very reliable on intermediate throws. He was the 23rd best QB on third-and-medium in 2018, converting 45 percent of his attempts—which was still better than Keenum’s 37.1 rate. 

The other thing about Flacco is that despite still flashing supreme arm power on tape, his stats didn’t really stand out on deep throws.

For starters, his 6.5 average yards per pass attempts was 31st in the NFL which was even worse than Keenum’s 6.6 average. His pass completions over 20 or 40 yards didn’t stand out, either, even when adjusted to a per game rate, as Keenum exceed both those figures and ranked in the top 10.

So while Flacco has the ability to let it rip deep, he didn’t take many shots and wasn’t very accurate a year ago, despite having at least one deep weapon in John Brown that presented more separation vertically than anything Denver had by the end of the year.

In conclusion

The big question here is if Flacco is an upgrade on Keenum? Based on their performances in 2018 and over the entire span of their careers, he is and could be a significant upgrade if he can balance taking what defenses give him and be more accurate when taking shots deep.

Denver’s offense will need to be adapted to Flacco on the personnel side, where more speed at receiver is paramount, as is more talent at tight end. When he has had tight ends to dump the ball off to, Flacco has been much better.

In the short term, this is an upgrade for the Broncos at the position, but the tricky part of this is if  he’ll be enough of an upgrade to get the franchise back to winning, or if he’ll be just good enough to take them out of the running for a talented quarterback in the 2020 draft—assuming they address other need areas in 2019.

This is a risky move for the Broncos who are now committed to paying two QBs close to $40 million. Trading Keenum becomes essential now and the ramifications on this move for the rest of the 2019 offseason will be fascinating to follow.

Vic Fangio talked about not wanting to put “Band-Aids on every little problem”, Flacco feels like a Band-Aid, even in the best possible scenario.

The next steps in the offseason will prove to be huge for the Broncos in establishing a long-term plan to restore the franchise to greatness.