Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker TJ Watt was penalized for roughing the passer for tackling Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco during the second quarter of their NFL Week 11 game last November at Acrisure Stadium. The home crowd was not happy about the flag, and CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore said he thought it was a bad call.
“That’s football,” Flacco told reporters after the game. “He did a good job. He buried me in the turf.” Flacco had more to say about it during the third season of Netflix‘s “Quarterback.” “Man, he f—ed me up,” Flacco said of Watt’s hit. “He knew what he was doing, too. He was like, ‘I’ve got a chance to hit him here. I’m gonna take full advantage.’ But that’s football. That’s the Steelers defense.”
In June, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said he didn’t think he would watch Flacco on the Netflix show.
Watt and Flacco have squared off just seven times during their respective careers. And in those games, the Pittsburgh Steelers star edge defender has only sacked Flacco one time. But Watt did get one of Flacco’s biggest hits of his career last season while Flacco was the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. Flacco is one of the quarterbacks on this season of Netflix’s Quarterback and in the most recent episode, he recalled the huge hit Watt laid on him last season and didn’t mince words about the play, even hinting that Watt might have laid a dirty hit on him. The Steelers beat the Bengals in this game, 34-12. It was the battle of the backup quarterbacks as Mason Rudolph outdueled Flacco.
The show dives much deeper into the play in Episode 6, titled “Toughness Is a Choice.” After spending a lot of time on Flacco’s shoulder injury in Episode 5, the show circles back to the play in the Jets game when it happened as a way to set up his storyline for this episode. As the footage of the play rolls, Flacco says, “It’s just part of the game. In the back of your mind, you know you’re gonna get hit. You’re in a car crash that you have no awareness of.” There are scenes in Flacco’s condo with his personal trainer, Brian Kane, working on the shoulder during the bye week. After some quick clips of Tennessee’s Cam Ward and Washington’s Jayden Daniels, we see the Watt hit. In his postgame press conference, Flacco was asked about the hit and said “It’s just football. He did a good job of driving me into the turf.” Shown on the sideline right after it happened, he says, “Man, he f—ked me up. He knew what he was doing, too. He was like, ‘I’ve got a chance to hit him here. I’m gonna take full advantage.’ “It didn’t feel good,” Flacco adds. “But that’s football. That’s the Steelers defense.”
After another five-minute segment on Mayfield, the show returns to Cincinnati as the Bengals’ top two quarterbacks are moving in different directions. While Flacco is dealing with discomfort in both shoulders, Joe Burrow is inching closer to full health. There’s a shot of them at practice, comparing their grips and other mechanics. Burrow clearly has studied Flacco, recalling in detail his dropbacks and footwork. Flacco describes his thinking in why he does it that way, and Burrow says, “I’ve always been the opposite.” In an interview with producers, Flacco admits that Burrow returning to practice to open his window to return to play forced him to deal with some emotions that week. “I’m trying to figure out if he would be the guy that week, knowing that even if I was the guy, it would be the last one.” Head coach Zac Taylor says in an interview they felt Burrow could be ready to play against the Patriots but were concerned about the quick turnaround for a Thursday night game after he just came back, so the team elected to wait until Thanksgiving to play Burrow. Flacco says Taylor was up front with him before Burrow returned to practice that he had been in the building a lot and was eyeing Baltimore as his return. The show airs highlights of Flacco’s final game as Cincinnati starter and one final injury, when he dislocates his index finger by smashing it on the palm of a New England pass rusher on his follow through after a pass. Flacco missed one play to get it popped back into place, then came in and threw a TD pass to Mitch Tinsley. The show gets a close-up shot of the dislocation as Flacco walks off the field. “I’m assuming that knuckle is gonna be bigger forever,” he says. “You should see linemen and some of their hands. Here I am talking about one little finger.”
Daniels, the show returns to Cincinnati, showing Burrow, Flacco and Jake Browning walking out to practice ahead of the Baltimore game. “I knew I was going somewhere when as soon as he was healthy, he was gonna play,” he says. “I’ve been in his shoes, where if I’m ready to go and I say I’m ready to go, I’m playing. And I respect that. “It’s hard in the sense that you want to be the guy,” he adds. “I love playing the game. I want to be out there. But it was easy to wrap my head around because he’s obviously the guy there.”
