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

When Joe Flacco plays football, he gets a certain kind of look in his eyes.

The quarterback, now in his 17th season in the NFL, carries himself with exactly the kind of poise you would expect from such an experienced veteran. He’s calm, cool and collected and doesn’t show a lot of emotions when he’s on the field. He doesn’t pound his chest, he doesn’t yell. He just throws the football and does what he’s supposed to do.

But he gets a look in his eyes.

“You talk to Joe during the game, he looks like a killer,” wide receiver Josh Downs said. “So I mean, yeah, Joe came in there and played really good.”

Flacco entered the Colts’ matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers near the end of the first quarter, when QB1 Anthony Richardson headed to the sidelines after sustaining a hip injury. Richardson stayed on the sidelines for two plays – a short pass from Flacco to running back Jonathan Taylor and a rushing play by Taylor – before coming back into the game. But when he still felt his injury after the next play, Richardson went back to the sidelines.

There were three minutes and 17 seconds left in the first quarter. Flacco played for the rest of the game.

The 39-year-old quarterback, playing in his first game of the 2024 season, completed 16 of 26 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns in the Colts’ 27-24 win over the Steelers, routinely connecting with Downs and Taylor, as well as wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. like they had been working together for much longer than the few months they’ve spent practicing together.

“(He’s a) veteran presence,” head coach Shane Steichen said. “Obviously, he’s played a lot of football, went in there and operated pretty darn good.”

And yet, Flacco still had to tell himself to calm down when he first got out on the field. He’s only human, after all.

“I’m glad I’m not wearing some kind of heart rate monitor,” Flacco said with a laugh. “It’s just one of those things where you have to kind of go back to the basics and let everything else take care of itself.”