Aaron Rodgers Made Joe Flacco the Younger Starting QB for First Time in Years

Joe Flacco felt young in the lead-up to the Bengals' Thursday Night Football game against the Steelers in Week 7. While he probably felt all of his nearly 41 years after taking a few hits from the Pittsburgh defense, he came into the matchup against the Steelers as the game's younger starting quarterback for the first time in years.

A combined 84 years and 226 days old on Oct. 16, this was the second-oldest starting quarterback matchup in NFL history. With Rodgers turning 42 in the beginning of December, he's older than Flacco, which is something the new Bengals quarterback hasn't experienced since 2020.

How long since Joe Flacco was the younger QB?

While Flacco has played against a few guys who played into their 40's—including Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers—those all came before anyone was marveling at Flacco's age.

In fact, the last time Flacco was the younger player in a QB matchup was against Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Almost five years ago to the day—Oct. 18, 2020—Fitzpatrick, about to turn 38, started for the Dolphins and threw three touchdown passes against the Jets. New York had a 35-year old Flacco. Miami won 24-0 and the Dolphins were far enough ahead in the fourth quarter that rookie Tua Tagovailoa got to see his first NFL action. Tagovailoa then took over the starting job during the bye week.

Fitzpatrick would sign with the Washington Football Team during the offseason and start the season-opener before getting hurt. He would end up going on injured reserve and retire after the season. A few weeks later he joined Amazon Prime's Thursday Night Football broadcast team where he's been ever since, which means he was in the stadium when Flacco took the field as the younger quarterback Thursday night for the first time since he outplayed Flacco in '20.

What is the oldest quarterback matchup in NFL history?

That honor unsurprisingly belongs to Tom Brady, but he couldn't do it alone. Brady and Drew Brees met three times during the 2020 season when Brady was in his first season with the Buccaneers and Brees was in his final season with the Saints. New Orleans won both regular season games, but Brady and Tampa Bay won in the divisional round on their way to win the Super Bowl.

Brady and Brees were a combined 85 years and 172 days during the playoff game. If Rodgers and Flacco can hang around with their current teams just one more season they can break that record.