Joe Flacco

     First of all, obviously the Ravens made a very good choice when they made their trade during the draft and brought in Joe Flacco with the first round pick. I wondered how he would be in the NFL because he’s not very fast and he played in the shotgun for most of his college career.  As it turns out, it didn’t matter. This guy has a rocket for an arm and he kind of throws like a young Brett Favre. However, as I watched him during the last couple games of the year it occurs to me that the you beat this guy is to do to him what teams like Buffalo used to do to Dan Marino. Flacco is just like Marino in that you’re really not going to sack him. He has the great arm and crafty receivers just like Dan and the “Marks” brothers.
     Ok, so how were the Dolphins stopped in those days? The first thing was that we never had a chance to have a running game. Yes, we lacked talent in many of those years but we were almost always forced to pass especially on 3rd down. Secondly, what I remember was that teams would take away our short game and we would have to go down field further than we wanted to. This would frustrate Dan Marino, as he and the receivers wouldn’t be on the same page with some of the reads at times although they made spectacular plays as well. Lastly, teams would be successful when they controlled the clock. This Baltimore Raven defense has too much football IQ to get beaten by plays like the wildcat. The Dolphins will have to control the clock and try to win an ugly 13 to 10 game and live to play next week.