How Joe Flacco came off the bench and helped Colts beat Steelers in Week 4

When Joe Flacco performs soccer, he will get a sure form of look in his eyes.

The quarterback, now in his seventeenth season within the NFL, carries himself with precisely the form of poise you’d count on from such an skilled veteran. He is calm, cool and picked up and would not present quite a lot of feelings when he is on the sector. He would not pound his chest, he would not yell. He simply throws the soccer and does what he is presupposed to do.

However he will get a glance in his eyes.

“You discuss to Joe in the course of the sport, he seems to be like a killer,” broad receiver Josh Downs stated. “So I imply, yeah, Joe got here in there and performed actually good.”

Flacco entered the Colts’ matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers close to the tip of the primary quarter, when QB1 Anthony Richardson headed to the sidelines after sustaining a hip harm. Richardson stayed on the sidelines for 2 performs – a brief go from Flacco to working again Jonathan Taylor and a dashing play by Taylor – earlier than coming again into the sport. However when he nonetheless felt his harm after the subsequent play, Richardson went again to the sidelines.

There have been three minutes and 17 seconds left within the first quarter. Flacco performed for the remainder of the sport.

The 39-year-old quarterback, enjoying in his first sport of the 2024 season, accomplished 16 of 26 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns within the Colts’ 27-24 win over the Steelers, routinely connecting with Downs and Taylor, in addition to broad receiver Michael Pittman Jr. like that they had been working collectively for for much longer than the few months they’ve spent working towards collectively.

“(He is a) veteran presence,” head coach Shane Steichen stated. “Clearly, he is performed quite a lot of soccer, went in there and operated fairly darn good.”

And but, Flacco nonetheless needed to inform himself to settle down when he first received out on the sector. He is solely human, in spite of everything.

“I am glad I am not sporting some form of coronary heart fee monitor,” Flacco stated with fun. “It is simply a kind of issues the place you must form of return to the fundamentals and let all the things else care for itself.”