Even before the Cleveland Browns officially reunited with veteran quarterback Joe Flacco on Friday, recent reports suggested Cleveland likely will select Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter or Penn State pass-rusher Abdul Carter over Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders with the second overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Later on Friday morning, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio shared how the details of Flacco’s contract show that signing him will have no real impact on Cleveland’s draft plans as it pertains to the club’s long-term quarterback situation.
“Per a source with knowledge of the terms,” Florio wrote, “Flacco will make $6M if he’s the 2025 starter and if the Browns don’t make it to the postseason. If he’s the starter and the Browns do make it to the postseason, he’ll make $8M. To get to $13M, certain unrealistic things need to happen. Including, most unrealistically, Flacco must be named the All-Pro quarterback.”
There’s no guarantee Flacco will win the 2025 Week 1 starting job over former Pittsburgh Steelers flop Kenny Pickett and a yet-to-be-drafted rookie. While Flacco became a Cleveland sports cult hero when he guided the 2023 Browns to a playoff berth en route to winning the Associated Press NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, he more recently played poorly in back-to-back November starts while with the Indianapolis Colts.
Specifically, he tossed four interceptions, lost two fumbles, took seven sacks and very much looked like a past-his-prime 40-year-old in those defeats.
“Per a source with knowledge of the situation,” Florio added in another article, “Flacco’s full guarantee at signing is $3M. With Kenny Pickett at $2,623,350 (fully guaranteed) and Deshaun Watson at $46M (fully guaranteed), that’s $51.623M in cash commitments to Cleveland quarterbacks for 2025. That doesn’t necessarily knock them out of the conversation for another quarterback in the draft. They still need three on the active depth chart (Watson likely won’t be one of them), and a rookie would come at a low cost, relative to a veteran.”
Watson likely won’t ever again play a meaningful down for the Browns after he suffered a torn Achilles this past October and then tore the Achilles again during his recovery.
Florio noted that the Browns could add multiple players to their quarterback room before the preseason comes to an end and eventually part ways with either Flacco or Pickett before Week 1. Thus, Cleveland could still either trade back into the first round for a quarterback or wait to grab a prospect such as Louisville’s Tyler Shough at overall pick No. 33.
In short, Friday’s developments truly don’t change anything regarding how Browns general manager Andrew Berry will handle the events of April 24.
“With Flacco back in the fold,” ESPN’s Daniel Oyefusi explained, “the Browns have a veteran quarterback on the roster who they can trust to run the offense. That would be an ideal scenario for an organization that understands it might not get a rookie quarterback ready-made to start from Day 1 but wants to be competitive and rebound from its 3-14 finish last season.”
