Is Joe Flacco Elite?

About

Is Joe Flacco Elite? is a catchphrase about NFL quarterback Joe Flacco, asking if he can be discussed among other "elite" quarterbacks in the NFL like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Though Flacco has some impressive accomplishments in his career, he is generally not considered to be of the level of some of his Hall of Fame-bound peers, which has made the refrain a common joke surrounding the player, regardless of whether he performs well or not.

Origin

Joe Flacco, 38, has had a very respectable professional career, playing from 2008 to 2018 with the Baltimore Ravens and playing for myriad teams in the seasons since, including the Cleveland Browns, where he plays as of December 29th, 2023.^[1]

Conversations about whether Joe Flacco was an "elite" quarterback started around the 2012 season, as Flacco was due to be a free agent after the season, and while he had performed solidly in his first seasons with the Ravens, he had yet to take the team to a Super Bowl.^[9] In January of 2013, he put on a solid performance in a victory over the Tom Brady-led Patriots in the AFC Championship game, prompting the NFL on Fox^[2] Twitter account to ask on January 14th, "Is Joe Flacco Elite?"

The question was tackled by Bleacher Report^[4] after the game, and the publication weighed both sides of the argument. In the "pro" column, they noted that Flacco had an excellent winning percentage in his first five seasons, but they also wrote that could be attributed to the Ravens' stellar defense, and Flacco himself had not posted astounding statistics up to that point in his career (of note, despite his solid play, Flacco has never made it to a Pro Bowl in his career).

Flacco went on to lead the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory in 2013 and he won the MVP award for the game.^[3] The day after the game, the New York Times ran a story on Flacco titled, "Flacco's precision is typical of elite quarterbacks."

The Ravens eventually signed Flacco for $120 million, which made Flacco's status as an "elite quarterback" a common debate among sports pundits.^[4]

Spread

Over the following years, "Is Joe Flacco Elite?" became a common refrain in debates about the player. This was largely championed by Bartsool Sports and prolific parody Twitter account @PFTCommenter, who adopted "Is Joe Flacco elite?" as a catchphrase.^[5] The user was instrumental in making the phrase a meme during the 2016 United States Presidential Election. On August 6th, 2015, he crashed MSNBC's coverage of a Republican debate holding a sign with the catchphrase, earning the catchphrase media attention^[6] (shown below).

On September 21st, then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump posted a video where he agreed that Joe Flacco was an elite quarterback, gaining over 5,400 retweets and 6,000 likes in eight years (shown below).

On October 7th, he goaded Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley into saying he felt Flacco was an elite quarterback on Twitter^[7] (shown below).

In 2017, Flacco was part of a Tostito's Super Bowl commercial where he knowingly winked at the meme, calling himself an "elite" party guest and the bag of Tostito's an "elite" bag (shown below).

2023 Season

The conversation about Flacco's "eliteness" largely died down as he left the Ravens and became a journeyman quarterback, but it was revived in the 2023 season as Flacco stepped into the starting quarterback role for the Cleveland Browns after they lost their original starting quarterback, DeShaun Watson, to injury. Flacco began putting up terrific stats and helped the Browns secure a playoff berth. On December 27th, Sports Illustrated^[8] posted a piece saying Flacco had been "elite" since joining the team.

During Flacco's run with the Browns, the meme was largely revived thanks to Barstool Sports, who made several posts insisting Flacco was elite (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References