Veteran Joe Flacco received criticism from members of the NFL community after he suggested this past spring he was more concerned with winning the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback job than with mentoring 2022 first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett, 2025 third-round selection Dillon Gabriel and 2025 fifth-rounder Shedeur Sanders.
During a recent chat with Michael Silver of The Athletic, Flacco insisted he’s not going out of his way to make Cleveland’s younger signal-callers feel unwelcome this summer.
“Listen, I can be an (expletive), but not necessarily in that way,” Flacco explained. “I feel like I try to be a good person, so all I can do is do my job to the best of my ability. If that means I’m not the guy, well, yeah, I might feel a certain way about it, but I’m not gonna be bitter about it towards other people that didn’t do anything to me. That quarterback room is a sacred room. I think you’ve got to treat people right in that room and help them — anything to help the team.”
It probably doesn’t hurt that head coach Kevin Stefanski has made it clear that he has Flacco penciled in atop the depth chart. The Browns confirmed on Monday that Flacco is their unofficial QB1 heading into their preseason opener at the Carolina Panthers on Aug. 8.
As of Tuesday morning, FanDuel Sportsbook
had Flacco as the betting favorite at -265 odds to start Cleveland’s Week 1 game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 7. That said, Flacco is a 40-year-old who could find himself featuring for one of the league’s worst teams this fall if projections shared by DraftKings Sportsbook be prove to be accurate.
Just last week, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam indicated he wants to see both Gabriel and Sanders take regular-season snaps later this year. For now, Flacco sounds confident that he gives Cleveland the best chance to earn a win over Cincinnati on the first Sunday of September.
“I mean, I think everybody’s probably a little bit unrealistic when they’re self-evaluating,” Flacco added, “but I’m honest with myself. Maybe I’m not my 29-year-old self, but I feel really good. I feel that I can still move, and my arm is all of what it’s ever been.”
Flacco became a Cleveland sports hero when he won four of five regular-season starts to guide the 2023 Browns to a playoff berth. If he can recapture some of that magic, he could keep the other active quarterbacks on the Cleveland roster sidelined through at least a portion of November.
