In 12 seconds, Flacco stirs excitement, apprehension and pride

Keep in mind that Joe Flacco was barely two hours into his regular-season NFL debut when he broke away on a quarterback keeper, dodged a couple of Cincinnati Bengals and fought his way into the Ravens' record book.

His 38-yard touchdown run was the longest by a quarterback in team history, and it turned a solid individual performance into a dynamic statement by a young man from a Rodney Dangerfield university who was never supposed to be in this situation.

They say that all's well that ends well, but during the 12seconds that ran off the clock from snap to touchdown celebrations, there were a lot of people feeling a lot of different things.

Excitement?

Obviously. The sellout crowd of 70,978 went absolutely bananas as Flacco peeled off the right side and sprinted down the sideline. You could make the case that a star was born at that very moment.

Wonderment?

That, too. There were several Ravens players on the field who didn't really grasp what was happening.

"I didn't even know Joe had the ball," wide receiver Mark Clayton said. "I saw Joe shoot past, and I'm saying, 'What the heck is going on?'"

Apprehension?

Well, nobody likes to admit to having any negative thoughts, but Flacco was naked out there, and it's not like the Ravens were exactly knee-deep in well-prepared quarterbacks. There were a few people holding their breath.

"I thought he was supposed to hand it off to somebody," center Jason Brown said. "I didn't know it was Flacco, that he was going to keep the ball, and the whole time I was thinking, 'Please, if somebody's about to run and hit you, just slide.' But the kid, he has so much heart, I knew that he wasn't going to do that. He had his eyes dead set on the end zone. He was going to get in there no matter what."

Surprise?

The most surprised guy in the house was Flacco, who acknowledged that he never imagined that there would be so much light at the end of that particular tunnel.

"I started running, and I was thinking 'First down, first down,'" he said. "I got to the first-down point and I look and, 'Oh, God, there's nobody here!'"

Pride?

Coach John Harbaugh laughed about how easy it was to see the whole play ("He's so darned tall"), but what he enjoyed the most was seeing Flacco read the defense, diagnose that the Bengals had the handoff stacked up and make the split-second decision to keep the ball.

"The more impressive part about it was that he made the adjustment on the play," Harbaugh said. "You know Jason [Brown] said he expected a back to have the ball. That's because they ran a certain blitz and the play we had called was dead, and [Flacco] kept the ball and took around the back side on his own. That's something [offensive coordinator Cam Cameron] teaches, and [Flacco] works on it and he saw it. It was really more of a mental play than it was a physical one."

Wide receiver Derrick Mason watched in amazement and had only one thought.

"Score! If you can, score!" he said. "That's what Joe did. He played football. That's all you can ask a quarterback to do."

Nobody is anointing the kid as the next Tom Brady yet. It was just one game against a team that obviously has a lot of work to do to be competitive in the AFC North, but it was the kind of solid debut that builds confidence inside a young player and engenders it from his teammates.

"This was a beginning for Joe," Harbaugh said. "We talked about it before the game. This is going to be a beginning. This is going to be a jumping-off point. Now we've got an idea of where he's at and what he needs to do is get better. He played well, but he needs to take this week to next week and make the most improvement, maybe that he will ever make in his career. That should be his goal."

Listen to Peter Schmuck on WBAL (1090 AM) at noon most Saturdays and Sundays.

Related topic galleries: Derrick Mason, National Football League, Cam Cameron, Tom Brady, Rodney Dangerfield, Cincinnati Bengals

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