4 Denver Broncos among top 20 highest-paid quarterbacks ever

Highest-paid Denver Broncos QB no. 3: Joe Flacco

Career earnings: $171,074,999 (13th-most all-time)

Over time, these numbers and rankings will fluctuate, but Joe Flacco being one of the top-13 highest-paid quarterbacks in NFL history has got to be considered among the great heists ever.

Flacco, a former first-round pick out of Delaware, did exceptionally well for himself early on in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens.

Known mostly as a game manager until the 2012 season, Flacco had a Nick Foles-like explosion late in the season and in the 2012 playoffs, helping propel the Ravens to a Super Bowl title which included a victory in the playoffs in Denver.

Flacco played in 15 career playoff games, and we’ll see what the future still holds for him, but assuming his playoff starts are all in the books at this point, he can certainly hang his hat on what he accomplished in 2012.

Although the Baltimore Ravens played excellent as a team that season, it was Flacco’s utter dominance in the playoffs that nobody, to this day, can really explain.

In four playoff games that year, he threw for 1,140 yards and 11 touchdowns — zero interceptions.

He became the Super Bowl MVP and wound up as one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league the following year.

The Broncos traded a fourth-round pick to the Ravens to acquire Flacco back in 2019 and things simply didn’t work out. He landed on injured reserve and the Broncos parted ways with him in 2020.