Joe Flacco has been officially traded to the Broncos for a 4th round pick

The Denver Broncos have officially announced that they have acquired quarterback Joe Flacco from the Baltimore Ravens for a 4th round pick.

This trade was agreed on and reported one month ago today exactly by ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Since then, neither the Broncos or Flacco could talk about this deal publicly, but now that the league year is officially here, they can finally talk about this deal.

Now, Joe Flacco will step in as the Denver Broncos starting quarterback replacing incumbent starting quarterback Case Keenum who was traded away to the Washington Redskins.

Joe Flacco was a first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens and enjoyed a successful 11-year run with the team that included a Super Bowl victory. During that 11-year career, Flacco totaled 38,245 yards, 212 touchdowns, and 136 interceptions. He has completed 61.7% of his passes during his career and has a career 84.1 quarterback rating

This past season for the Ravens, Flacco was enjoying a solid start before suffering a hip injury and eventually getting replaced by 2018 first-round pick, Lamar Jackson. Through 9 games, Joe Flacco totaled 2,465 yards, 12 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions. He was completing 61.2% of his passes and had a quarterback rating of 84.2.

I personally feel like Flacco is an upgrade over Case Keenum. Not a big upgrade, but definitely a better quarterback for the team moving forward. He has years of starting experience and playoff experience under his belt and gives newly hired Head Coach a veteran quarterback to lean on during his first year as a Head Coach.

Another thing that factors in here is the scheme fit. I think this something we will hear about a bit from the Broncos staff now that they can talk about it. Look for newly hired Offensive Coordinator Rich Scangarello to implement a run-first offense that will use the play action passing game to get chunk yards through the air. Basically, your typical Mike Shanahan offense. Having a quarterback who can sling the football down the field is needed and that is exactly what Flacco can do. This, however, was something that Case Keenum could not do or do well at all. So again, this was an upgrade at the quarterback position.

Another thing I like about this deal is Joe Flacco’s contract. He has ZERO guaranteed money left on his deal. Meaning the Broncos can release Flacco whenever they want and avoid any dead money hit while clearing plenty of cap space.

Flacco’s cap hit for 2019 is only $18.5 million dollars which isn’t awful. However, it balloons up to $20,250,000 in 2020, and up to $24,250,000 in the final year of his deal. Now lets be real here, it is unlikely that Flacco will be here in 2021, and the Broncos will hopefully have a young quarterback taking over that job by then. Plus, we all know General Manager John Elway loves to restructure deals and basically tell veterans to take a pay cut or be cut. So in the end, I am not at all worried about this moving forward since the Broncos have a very easy out.

This move basically swaps out place holders on the position and gives the Broncos a better stop gap that fits their scheme better moving forward. What they do next will be the most important move they make at the quarterback position. Will they select Missouri’s Drew Lock or Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins in the first-round of April’s NFL Draft? Or will they select a Jarrett Stidham to develop and eye a quarterback like Justin Herbert in the 2020 draft?

We shall see.

For now, we just know that Joe Flacco has officially joined the Denver Broncos and is now their starting quarterback in 2019 and potentially longer.