I was a huge Flacco apologist too and I think we failed him and thought he would of won the Chargers game but I also realized Lamar is special. It almost reminds me of Reddit political arguments where it’s always one extreme or the other, no one allows for a middle ground
I don't think there's any chance he wins the Chargers game. I think he would have done better than Lamar, but still lost. If people remember that game, the Chargers basically got relentless pressure on the Oline without hardly ever blitzing. Joe Flacco was never known as a great QB who could get pressure against him without blitzing. Cincinnati played that style for like a decade against him, and he rarely had good games against them.
Plus, even if he had beaten the Chargers, its still highly unlikely that a) he starts the next game and b) he's back the next year. The moment he got injured and Lamar took over and start winning more games, that was it for him. His days in Baltimore were over.
Joe get's a lot of shit from the fans because of his limitations, of which there are many. And he was basically never a strong regular season QB, even in his good years. But dude had one of the best probably 7-8 game playoff stretches you'll ever see from a QB. People think it was just 2012. It wasn't. He was very good in the 2011 AFC Championship game, he had a very strong game in the Wildcard round in 2010 against KC, and he was very good for both of the 2014 playoff games.
He just fell off a cliff in 2015 and never recovered.