It was all the way back in Week 2 when Joe Flacco looked befuddled, when he threw four passes to the Cincinnati Bengals in a five-point Ravens' loss and looked like he was ready to implode.
In the life of an NFL quarterback, it was an eternity ago.
Fifteen weeks later, the Bengals are on the horizon again and there is no befuddlement in Flacco. There was no implosion, either. He is, as expected, leading the Ravens into the postseason for the third straight year. He has, as was hoped, shown signs of blossoming into one of the league's elite quarterbacks.
Ask Flacco about that Week 2 loss in Cincinnati – when he was intercepted four times and worn the look of disgust after the fourth – and he breezes on past the question.
"I haven't really been thinking about it for [15] weeks," Flacco said. "Maybe [I've been hearing about it] from you guys, but not too much. We put that behind us pretty quickly and moved on, and we've had a pretty good season."
Moving on is the mantra of the NFL. But even with the Bengals arriving at M&T Bank Stadium for Sunday's season finale, Flacco has moved well beyond the specter of that September game. It's what he does best of all, perhaps. His teammates and his coaches recognize in him the stoic ability to play the game, accept the results and just be Joe. It's a consistency that mirrors his performance on the field. It's a consistency wide receiver Derrick Mason marvels at.
"It's because he doesn't get too high, he doesn't get too low," Mason said. "He threw … what? Three, four interceptions against Cincinnati? And he didn't get too low. He came in to work, hammered it out, and came back the next week and played a good game.
"Or when he's thrown three or four touchdowns, he's never gotten too high. He came back to work, he hammered it out another week. So that's the thing about Joe. Regardless of if he doesn't play so well or if he plays great, he's going to come in here the next day and be the same guy. He just wants to get better."
Cam Cameron, the Ravens offensive coordinator, has been predicting stardom for Flacco since the day the team drafted him in 2008. Quietly, steadily, almost imperceptibly, Flacco has put together numbers that portray a quarterback coming into his own.
He has thrown 60 touchdown passes in three years for the Ravens, with a career-high 25 this year.
He is the sixth player in NFL history to throw for 10,000 yards (he's at 10,081) in his first three seasons.
He has made 52 starts, including the postseason, the most by any NFL quarterback in his first three years.
But the numbers that really count — the numbers that truly separate Flacco from most of his generation — are the wins. Flacco has won 34 times since being rushed into the starting job as a rookie after Troy Smith was felled by a throat ailment.
"The bottom line is, the quarterbacks are in this business to win, and it really doesn't matter how they win," Cameron said. "This guy, we said Day One, is a winner, and he's continuing to get better. I think that's the most important thing. And it's easy to forget that, for whatever reason. This guy knows how to win."
Since 2008, Flacco's 34-18 record ranks third behind the Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning (37-14) and the New Orleans Saints' Drew Brees (35-14) in win total.
Sunday could very well be a measuring stick for Flacco. He beat the Bengals twice as a rookie and did not throw an interception in either game. But the last three times against Cincinnati, Flacco made some of his poorest decisions, threw eight interceptions and lost all three games.
What the Bengals had last year was one of the league's best defenses and one of its top cornerback tandems in Leon Hall and Johnathan Joseph. The toughest corners he's faced in the league?
"I don't know," Flacco hedged. "They're definitely really good ones. You see tough ones week-in and week-out, but these guys have done a great job against us. They've done a good job of getting a little bit of pass rush on us. And those corners have done a great job of being tight on the guys and making the lanes and the space for throwing very tight."
Cameron gave Cincinnati credit for its success defending Flacco the last three games, but he said disguised coverages were not the difference. Neither does he believe Flacco has trouble against cover-2 defenses, which Cincinnati plays ("There's nothing to back it up," he says).
Flacco reduced Cincinnati's defensive prowess to fundamentals.
"I don't think they're doing anything spectacular," Flacco said. "They're playing the game the way it's meant to be played, and they're doing a good job of doing it. So we've got to make sure we come in there and we run route full speed. I have to take my drops full speed and get back and set ready to throw, and make aggressive throws and really attack these guys to try to put them on their heels."
Since that Week 2 loss, Flacco has been otherworldly, if not Brady-esque. He has thrown for 24 touchdowns and only four interceptions in the ensuing 14 games. His passer rating of 105.1 over that period is second only to Tom Brady (112.1 with 29 touchdowns, two intercepts) of the New England Patriots.
Flacco has moved on nicely. He is just the third quarterback to take his team to the playoffs his first three seasons, joining the ranks of Miami's Dan Marino and Cleveland's Bernie Kosar.
"He doesn't live in the past," Cameron said. "Joe has a remarkable ability to move on. I think the great quarterbacks do. Not only from one game to the next, but it might be from one series to the next. I think that's why at some point in time — this guy [is] going to do nothing but get better and better — someday this guy is going to be a great one."