National Football League

Joe Flacco: Wildcat makes Ravens look like 'high school offense'

Published Nov. 26, 2013 3:38 p.m. ET

Ross Jones

Joe Flacco must’ve missed the fine print in his $100-million contract.

While he’s paid to take snaps from the center, the Ravens quarterback played a dozen plays lined up out wide because of Baltimore’s Wildcat offense. It’s safe to say Flacco isn’t a fan of it.

"I don’t like that stuff," Flacco told The Baltimore Sun. "I think it makes you look like a high school offense."

The Ravens continue to struggle finding any consistency in the running game and an attempt at the Wildcat offense was supposed to alleviate some pressure on Flacco’s right arm.

“I don’t care how we use it in the game – successful or not successful, after a big play, not after a big play. I don’t care where it’s used, I’m just not a huge fan of it,” Flacco said. “I’m the quarterback. I want to be behind the line of scrimmage, I want to be taking the snaps. That’s really the only thing. I don’t necessarily take it personally either in terms of our offense trying to get better. I just think it makes us look like not an NFL team.”

John Harbaugh and the rest of the Ravens coaching staff is aware that their starting quarterback doesn’t approve of the offense, according to Flacco.

“I don’t look at it as a slap in the face to me,” Flacco said. “It is what it is. I want as many chances as I can to get behind the line of scrimmage. I just don’t like that stuff in general. Me and Tyrod [Taylor] talk about it. It’s just interesting to me. I’m all for us doing things to get better but we’re not going to be good if we just can’t get good at the basics of what we do 90 percent of the time. We have to be good at those things or we’re not going to be good no matter what. I just want to make sure that we’re focusing on getting good at those things.”

The Ravens running game is averaging a league-low 2.9 yards per carry and it’s likely that Jim Caldwell installed the wrinkle in the offense to spark the unit. We’ll see if the whole Wildcat offense gets scrapped in Thursday night’s showdown against the Steelers.