Everyone has a different way of motivating themselves. Joe Flacco's approach just happens to make it easy for people to crack jokes at his expense.
The Ravens' signal-caller didn't blush during a Monday interview on WNST-AM when asked if his agent was right to call him a top-five quarterback in the NFL.
"Without a doubt. What do you expect me to say?" Flacco said (via SportsRadioInterviews.com). "I assume everybody thinks they're a top-five quarterback. I mean, I think I'm the best. I don't think I'm top five, I think I'm the best. I don't think I'd be very successful at my job if I didn't feel that way.
"I mean, c'mon? That's not really too tough of a question," he added. "But that doesn't mean that things are going to work out that way. It just means that that's the way it is, that's the way I feel it is, and that's the way I feel it should be.”
This isn't the first time Flacco has puffed out his chest in self-defense. These comments are ripe for satire, however, since Flacco comes off sounding like the QB version of Rex Ryan.
After all, you'd be hard-pressed to convince anyone (friends and family excluded) that Flacco deserves a seat at the NFL big-boy table of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and the Manning brothers. That's eight rings and seven MVP awards there, people. We're living in a golden age of QBs.
This isn't a dig on Flacco, either. There's nothing wrong with a quarterback thinking he's the G.O.A.T., who can inspire confidence from teammates. And who knows how history would've played out had Lee Evans held on to Flacco's perfectly thrown ball late in January's AFC Championship Game?
Of course, Evans didn't catch the ball, so Joe Flacco remains, well, Joe Flacco -- a capable quarterback of a team unable to get over the hump. All the mountain-top hollering in the world isn't going to change that.