How Joe Flacco could make NFL history against the Packers in Week 6: QB has chance to pull off this rare feat

The Green Bay Packers only have one loss this season and it came against the same quarterback that they'll be facing on Sunday: Joe Flacco. 

Flacco's win over Green Bay came back in Week 3 while he was still playing for the Cleveland Browns, but this time around, he'll be taking the field for the Cincinnati Bengals after a shocking trade on Tuesday that sent the QB from Northeast Ohio to Southwest Ohio. 

Thanks to the trade, Flacco now has the chance to make some NFL history on Sunday by becoming the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to beat the same opponent twice in one season while starting for a different team. It's a feat that has been accomplished exactly once before and that came all the way back in 1962 before the first Super Bowl was played. Sixty-three years ago, Jack Kemp led the Chargers to a 40-14 win over the New York Titans (Jets) in Week 2 and then he followed that up 12 weeks later by leading the Bills to a 20-3 win over the Titans. 

Kemp's story is actually pretty bizarre: He was placed waivers due to an injury and the Chargers weren't expecting anyone to claim him, but the Bills pulled the trigger by paying the $100 waiver fee.

Flacco will be the seventh quarterback to start against the same opponent with two different teams in the same season, but Kemp is the only one who has won both games. Let's check out what happened the previous six times that a QB has been in this situation. 

As you can see above, the last time this situation even came up was in 2015 when Jimmy Clausen started two games against the Seattle Seahawks. That's notable here because Clausen's second start only happened because Flacco got injured. Flacco suffered a season-ending knee injury in 2015 and Matt Schaub took over at QB, but then he got injured, which opened the door for Clausen to start. 

The interesting thing here is that Flacco will have the shortest turn around between games. Every other QB on this list had at least six weeks between games, but not Flacco. By the time he takes the field on Sunday, it will only have been 21 days since his last meeting with the Packers. 

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John Breech

How the Packers feel about facing Flacco again

For the Packers (2-1-1), it's a bizarre situation to be facing the only QB who has beaten them this season. 

"Outside of a division game, I don't think I've ever seen the same quarterback on a different team, so it will be interesting," Packer coach Matt LaFleur said Wednesday. "I certainly was a little surprised."

Flacco will only have four days to prepare for his first start with the Bengals, but LaFleur definitely won't be underestimating Cincinnati's new quarterback. 

"I'd say that Joe Flacco has been playing this game for a really long time and he's been in a lot of different systems, so I'd bet that he'd have no problem picking it up in a short period of time," LaFleur said. "I think the hardest thing for them is going to be the nuances of your cadence, your snap count, the rapport you have with the other players. Now, he's pretty fortunate, he has some good guys to certainly throw to."

Back in Week 3, Flacco completed just 21 of 36 passes for 142 yards and one interception in Cleveland's 13-10 win over Green Bay. The Packers' interception came from Xavier McKinney, who knows that Flacco actually might have a slight advantage this week because he'll have new weapons -- like Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins -- and he already knows what the Packers look like on defense. 

"I was thinking about just kind of ways he might try to come into this game having different players and a different scheme, already having seen what we've done this year," McKinney said, via the team's official website. 

The Packers safety sounds like he wants to see defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley throw a few curveballs at Flacco.

"Trying to see if there's going to be different ways where we can mix it up and show different things and play different things," McKinney said. 

With Flacco only getting four days of preparation, Packers safety Evan Williams isn't expecting to see anything too crazy from the Bengals offense. 

"I'm assuming that they'll probably just try to get the ball out of his hands quick into some playmakers that they got and he doesn't have too long of a time to learn a whole system," Williams said this week, via ESPN. "So we're definitely expecting it to be pretty rudimentary as far as scheme goes, but you carry the little details that he has individually, but most of that doesn't transfer over."

Although Flacco struggled against the Packers, he threw for 41 yards in the fourth quarter, including an 8-yard pass with just 12 seconds to play that set up Cleveland's eventual game-winning field goal. So Flacco might not have been great, but he came through when the Browns needed him, and the Bengals will be hoping he can do the same thing on Sunday.