If you see Joe Flacco at a restaurant, or at the grocery store, please keep your chill.
Yes, Flacco is a nice guy who is (most times) willing to take his picture with you. But remember, he's also just a man sometimes looking to have a nice dinner out with his wife and three kids.
During a fun interview with 98 Rock, the eight-year NFL quarterback joked about his celebrity status.
"I don't think you ever get totally used to it," Flacco said.
"I probably don't notice as much as somebody with me would notice. I just try to walk in and be normal, and then if somebody says something …"
Flacco provided an example, saying he walked into a Royal Farms a couple weeks ago to buy 10 tickets when the Mega Millions Lottery hit $1.6 billion. He was there getting gas for his wife when he figured he'd stop in.
"A lady turned around and said, 'You don't need the money,'" Flacco said. "You're kidding me? That's 1.6 billion. That's a $989 million payout. That's going to change my life just as much as it would change anyone's. I wouldn't tell anyone if I did win, but, shoot, anyone could use that much money."
Good thing Flacco also said* *he'd restructure his contract to help the Ravens. It's not all about the money.
Moving on, pictures of Flacco with random fans around Baltimore and on the New Jersey beaches occasionally pop up on Twitter. Flacco isn't standoffish when it comes to being seen in public.
"I've had guys tell me, 'You should wear a disguise. We don't like coming out with you anymore,'" Flacco said. "To be honest with you, we don't go out a ton. We have three kids."
Flacco said that he often doesn't get bothered when he and his family go out to eat. But it takes just that one person to attract a crowd.
"The most annoying thing about it is that all of our cell phones these days have cameras on them. So if you get somebody that wants to take a picture, it's fine. 'Yeah, I'll take a picture with you,'" Flacco said.
"But very quickly, everybody else's fear of asking me goes away. Then everybody wants to ask you and you get a line, and, when you're trying to get out of there, it becomes impassible. And you eventually have to be kind of an ass to somebody. Somebody's going to walk away unhappy."
So the lesson here is, either don't ask for a picture and just say "hi." Or ask for a picture sometime when everybody else can't see you do it. Or don't be offended when Flacco has to say "no" to keep living his life.
Flacco still isn't comfortable with his own celebrity status. He doesn't like to see himself in TV commercials.
"I don't like doing any of them," he said. "I didn't watch that Pepsi [commercial] until we were on one of the West Coast trips and the team played it in a team meeting and I had to watch it. I was actually able to sit there and watch it. That's not a normal thing for me."
During the Ravens' final six games this season, Flacco was laid up on the couch mending his injured knee. It was then that he was forced to see himself in ads, and he was somewhat surprised with their frequency. When you're playing the game, I guess you don't realize how much your face comes up during breaks in the action.
"Where's the remote?" Flacco would say.
