When you’ve been in this thing for 18 years like Joe Flacco has, you’ll never meet a stranger. And that’s exactly what happened Wednesday on his first day of work as a Bengal at Paycor Stadium.
His new right tackle, Amarius Mims, turned six the fall Flacco broke into the league, and those Flacco-Ben Roethlisberger AFC North matchups helped him fall in love with the game.
His new left tackle, Orlando Brown Jr., was one of his ball boys in Flacco’s first couple of years in the league at Ravens training camp. Not to mention one of his old right tackles from Brown’s rookie year in Baltimore.
One of his new tight ends, Noah Fant, caught his first pro touchdown pass from Flacco as a Broncos rookie on a 25-yard screen pass.
“Never met him. I’ve been a Joe Flacco fan, and it’s nice to have him on my side,” said center Ted Karras, a kid at 32, after their first snaps in Wednesday’s practice.
“He’s a big Q back there. He gets the ball out on time and rockets that thing in there. Recipe for success.”
The Flacco trade has all the ingredients of a spark for a team at 2-3 and looking to break out. “Looking forward to getting to even,” is what Karras calls it.
His new teammates were like running back Chase Brown, 12 years old when he watched Flacco named Super Bowl MVP after he led the Ravens’ win in one of the tightest title games ever.
“The lights went out,” Brown recalled astutely of that Superdome circuit breaker.
Most of them were playing two years ago when Flacco came off the bench to lead the Browns to the playoffs in the last month and was named the NFL’s Comeback Player.
“I think it definitely brings positive energy into the building anytime these types of moves are made,” said Orlando Brown, who got the day off from his Baltimore school for the Ravens parade after that Super Bowl.
“I hope so,” said Mims of a spark. “I know we have full faith in him. He’s a pro. He’s been a pro for a very long time. He knows the ins and outs of every team. He’s probably played them all more than once. Very smart quarterback. I feel we’ll be fine with him in there.”
Chase Brown: “Any time you have a new face, you have new energy.”
Mims admitted he had “a moment,” in Wednesday’s walkthrough when he found himself next to Flacco in the huddle. Now, at 6-8, 340 pounds, no one towers over Mims. But the 6-6, 245-pound Flacco metaphorically did because Mims remembers him as a giant.
“I didn’t have a favorite team growing up. But I loved watching Flacco and Big Ben go at it. I don’t know why, but those two big guys always stood out to me. I loved watching Ravens-Steelers. I just liked the way they played the game. To be in the same huddle, yeah, it was definitely a moment.”
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