Joe Flacco‘s season might be over. The Broncos are expected to place the quarterback on injured reserve, according to Mike Klis of 9News (on Twitter). 
On Monday, the Broncos ruled out Flacco for Week 9 with a neck injury. That means Brandon Allen, who has never taken a regular season snap, will start against the Browns. He’ll have the newly-activated Drew Lock behind him, and possibly Brett Rypien, if he’s promoted from the practice squad. They haven’t taken an NFL snap yet either.
The Broncos are no stranger to the injury bug this year and Flacco has been familiar with it throughout his entire career. He missed time in 2015 and 2018 with maladies and also dealt with back pain in 2017.
The good news for Flacco is that surgery probably won’t be required and his career is not in jeopardy, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com hears (on Twitter). Still, Flacco is looking at a 5-6 week absence, at the least. He’ll get a second opinion on Tuesday, which should inform the Broncos’ roster decision.
The Broncos are tethered to the 34-year-old through at least next season. After trading a fourth-round pick to acquire Flacco from the Ravens, they restructured the QB’s deal, which previously had no guaranteed money beyond 2019. If released after this season, Flacco would count for $13.6MM against the cap.
Without Flacco or a realistic shot at the postseason, the Broncos may look to ship out key players in advance of the trade deadline. Emmanuel Sanders is already gone and star cornerback Chris Harris Jr. could be the next to leave Denver.
In eight games this year, Flacco completed 65.3% of his passes, higher than any previous season in his career. He also threw only six touchdown passes against five touchdowns and turned in his lowest TD% ever.
The team probably jumped at the opportunity to put him on IR after he called out the play calling. Not saying he isn’t injured, but the team probably isn’t complaining.
It’s obvious they are going into Full Tank mode.
Is this because of the press conference? Can they say Flacco’s “injured” to pull him off the field without things getting visibly dramatic?
He never had a chance with the Broncos awful offensive line..
He was terrible period. How he ever got the $$$ he did from Baltimore is beyond imagination. I don’t care if he won a SuperBowl or not. Has anyone looked at his body language during games? Several QB’s don’t have lines and make plays. He has QUIT on the Broncos.
It’d be great to see the league investigate the franchise. Flacco played the whole game (if injured where’s player safety?), Why wasn’t his problem announced on the weekly injury report if it happened before in a prior game? And why was a person with a neck injury not taken to a hospital, but able to clearly speak (no meds) after the game?
Goodell doesn’t have the fortitude to do that, but this is clearly a make believe injury.
This injury clearly happened during the 3rd quarter and was believed to be a minor injury with the neck muscle which is why the team medical staff was seen massaging and working on his neck before his next series and on the last play of the game he took a shot that could have worsened it. Only with an MRI can a herniated disc be seen.
Like I said, it should be investigated; it won’t. He clearly didn’t look in any physical pain during his press conference; Joe looked PO. There’s a difference.
What does “he threw 6 touchdowns against 5 touchdowns” mean?
Seems like Flacco was put on IR for loose tongue by Denver!