Donald Trump weighs in on whether Joe Flacco is an elite quarterback

By Fusion Staff  |  September 21, 2015 | 8:24pm
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@PFTCommenter, the world’s best Twitter account, launched late in 2012 to mock the subliterate commenters on the website profootballtalk.com, but quickly morphed into something so beautiful that it resists description. The character eschews logic for clichés, unabashedly touts white players’ “grit” and “hustle,” and generally occupies the stereotypical political worldview of an unintelligent bigot masking his views in coded language.

@PFTCommenter has created an impressive amount of memes in his brief time in this internet universe, but by far the most ubiquitous is the question of whether Joe Flacco is an elite quarterback. This meme sits at the nexus of @PFTCommenter’s particular brand of humor: it’s an inane and ultimately empty question, oft repeated by talk radio hosts and pundits with time to fill.

It seemed “is Joe Flacco elite” reached peak saturation when MSNBC cameras picked up the man behind @PFTCommenter holding up a sign reading “Is Joe Flacco a ELITE Quaterback?” at a recent GOP debate. The image proceeded to get shared all over Twitter:

But today, during a Twitter Q&A, someone (a troll) asked Donald Trump: is Joe Flacco elite?

He actually responded:

I think Joe Flacco is actually a very elite quarterback. He won a Super Bowl, he did it, really, to a certain extent, with that great arm of of his. I would say, absolutely, he is an elite quarterback.

There was much rejoicing: https://twitter.com/PFTCommenter/status/646012544583266304

Counterpoint: Joe Flacco is obviously not an elite quarterback, but because he won a Super Bowl (and, presumably, because he’s white), those who trump him as “elite” point to his “intangibles” while ignoring, well, facts, such as that Flacco ranks solidly middle-of-the-pack by any objective metrics.

Big day for Joe Flacco, @PFTCommenter, and people who think Donald Trump is a very silly man.

Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.

 
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