By BOB GROTZ
Journal Register News Service

PHILADELPHIA — With six games left in the season, and possibly an era, it’s fairly obvious the Eagles will go as far as their defense takes them as opposed to their rulebook-challenged quarterback.

Paradoxically the key to beating the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at M & T Bank Stadium hinges on how well the other quarterback plays.

Rookie first-round draft pick Joe Flacco has done the job surprisingly well as the Ravens are 6-4 despite his rather unseemly 8-to-9 touchdown to interception ratio.

The University of Delaware product is every inch the 6-6, 230-pound notation in the game day program, according to Eagles practice squad product Shaheer McBride, who played catch with Flacco during a private workout for the Atlanta Falcons at the Tri-State Sports complex in Chester Township prior to the draft last spring.

Delaware State and Chester High product McBride recalls newly appointed Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, among others, on location to give Flacco the up-and-down. The Falcons instead wound up selecting quarterback Matt Ryan of Exton and Germantown Academy who also is having an outstanding rookie season.

“Joe Flacco throws a real catchable ball with a nice tight spiral,” McBride said. “He’s 6-6 so the ball is going from high to low. I think coming from high to low it always comes at you faster as opposed to coming from a short guy. Plus, at 6-6, he can see over the line and the defense.”

Eagles defensive backs Sheldon Brown and Quintin Mikell watched film of Flacco throwing a 60-plus yard pass off his back foot against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“I don’t know who else can do that,” Brown said. “But I know the guy playing against us this week can.”

Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who beat Ryan and the Falcons earlier this season to improve to 9-3 record against rookie quarterbacks, thinks Flacco is every bit as polished. Additionally Johnson has heard so much about Flacco his curiosity is piqued.

“I’ve never seen this guy in person,” Johnson said. “I hear he’s 6-6 and he’s got a gun (for an arm). We always emphasize getting our hands up on defense but I’m not sure our arms are long enough. He hasn’t had many batted balls. Like last week with Ryan Fitzpatrick, we kind of knocked some balls down but he hasn’t had many batted balls.”

The Ravens like to run the ball with Willis McGahee and rookie Ray Rice of Rutgers University, the latter viewed by the Eagles as a breakaway threat. The offensive line is banged up with injuries and the New York Giants exploited that in a 30-10 victory over the Ravens last week. Hounded by a stellar pass rush, Flacco took off on his own rushing six times for a team-best 57 yards, including a 30-yarder.

“They do that little read option stuff and get the quarterback involved with the running plays, a wrinkle not a lot of teams do but they do it well,” Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley said. “But I don’t think he’ll want to

stay up and try to break tackles. Probably if the quarterback is smart, the quarterback will slide but we’ll see.”

Mikell, who tips the scales at 208 after a triple-helping of Thanksgiving repast, shook his head when asked about the mechanics of putting a man so big on the ground.

“I’ve seen him slide but he’s a big guy, man,” Mikell said. “Hopefully I won’t be tackling him. If I’m tackling him, that’s not good.”

The teams that have had the most success against Flacco, who’s been sacked 18 times, have disrupted the run game and made the offense one-dimensional. It’s vital to get to get the Ravens off schedule.

“This quarterback is very good,” Johnson said. “A lot of quarterbacks are when it’s third-and-three, third-and-four or third-and-five. That’s why they’re one of the top teams in the NFL right now on third down conversions. We’ve got to force them into third-and-long situations and a lot of times, that means stopping the run.”

When teammates ask McBride for a scouting report on Flacco — and they were interested to learn he roomed with the product of Audubon, N.J. at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis — he will tell them Flacco is everything they’ve heard and more.

Part of the more is a pretty good sense of humor. McBride wondered what he did to deserve having Flacco as a roomy seeing as how Flacco’s Blue Hens defeated his Delaware State University Hornets rather soundly in the Division I-AA playoffs.

“The first time I saw him he cracked a couple of jokes about that,” McBride said. “He said something like, ‘how did you like playing on our field?’ “

All kidding aside, the Eagles don’t want to be answering the same question.