Obviously Joe Flacco has the brighter upside, but which guy do you want THIS SATURDAY?
We have heard all week about how remarkable Flacco is, and how much scarier the Baltimore offense is this time than when these two teams met in October. After looking at the numbers I just don't buy it. Flacco's season numbers are pretty much the same as Kerry Collins. People will throw out that looking at the numbers from the whole season aren't fair because Flacco is a rookie.
OK, let's take his last 6 games of the regular season:
| Rating | Comp | Att | Pct | Yds | TD | INT |
| 85.8 | 86 | 152 | 56 | 1,158 | 6 | 3 |
Pretty much the same.
Flacco is getting a lot of praise for his play in the game against Miami. Why? Because he made 1 nice throw to Derrick Mason on the sideline? He was 9 of 23 in the game against the NFL's 25th ranked pass defense. The Titans are 9th.
The closest comparision I can find between the two for this game is how they performed against the Steelers this season. We will just count Flacco's second game against them since the first one was in 3rd game as a starter (although it was the better game). Flacco was 11 of 28 for 115 yards with 0 TDs and 2 INTs in week 15 at home. (16 of 31 for 192 with 1 TD and 0 INTs in the week 3 game) Collins was 20 of 29 for 215 with 1 TD and 0 INTs week 16.
Advantage: Collins.
Collins has similar numbers, but he has been here before. If he has shown us anything this season, it is that he has learned a lot of lessons from his time in the NFL. There have been a couple of bad games this season, but overall he has been really good at protecting the football.
Collins has taken over some games for the Titans this season. The Ravens, Bears, and Colts games all come to mind as games where the Titans could not run the ball but were able to pull out a win simply because of Collins. Plus Collins has had some games in his career where he has put up some really good numbers. Flacco never has. It is crazy to think a rookie has an advantage over a veteran when the numbers are this similar.
I'll take Collins.
-Much thanks to August West for his assistance with this post.