Joe Flacco's Ravens are tied with the Steelers, Patriots and Texans for the AFC's best record at 10-3, but is anybody paying attention?
"I just think we're disrespected as an organization when it comes to the media," Flacco told WNST-AM this week.
Baltimore's knocked off Pittsburgh twice this season in convincing fashion, and the Ravens have been one of the conference's consistently successful teams for over a decade, but Flacco sometimes wonders about a dearth of national love.
"We're not a very big market," he said. "The bottom line is we don't need a lot of help because we have a great fan base every week and we win football games. We're not a losing football team that needs to be out there in the media and be talked up like we are all-world. We are."
"I mean, look at Tim Tebow," he said. "I like Tim, but you have a tendency to want to -- I don't want to see Tim do bad -- but look what happens after he wins a football game. If you watched SportsCenter today, it was Tim Tebow then something else, Tim Tebow then something else, and Tim Tebow then something else. When we beat the Steelers, were we on TV? No. I couldn't even find a Baltimore Ravens highlight. I think that's kinda the way it is around Baltimore. We don't always get our respect but you gotta deal with it and go out there every week and just win football games."
As for Flacco's complaint about not getting Tebow-level coverage, honestly, Obama could make that gripe right now. (As a sidenote here: Can anyone argue that Ray Lewis, for instance, isn't well-covered? The average football fan has seen him lead his little pregame, sideline pep session every Sunday since Bill Clinton was in the White House.)
This quarterback and his team will get their due if they achieve the heights many feel they are capable of this season, especially in an AFC ripe for the picking.
