The Cleveland Browns’ game of 53-pickup includes five quarterbacks and has invited controversy from every angle. The albatross of Deshaun Watson hangs over the group, and the team added the class’ most polarizing passer, Shedeur Sanders, after taking Dillon Gabriel two rounds prior.
The only debate surrounding the Browns’ two healthy veterans, Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, should be which one will start. Instead, Cleveland’s quarterback room has entered the news cycle again.
Flacco, the elder statesman of the group, was asked about his willingness to mentor the young passers joining him on the depth chart. Rather than giving an emphatic “yes,” he pivoted to calling the question a “gotcha” and suggesting that saying yes would be to surrender his drive to start.
He insisted that he’ll do his best to start, and that Sanders and Gabriel will pick up on how he shows up to work every day.
Flacco made some good points during his response, but fans are justifiably annoyed by anything less than a full-throttle acceptance of his role as a veteran mentor. They aren’t alone. Flacco was questioned by Chris Canty after dismissing the needs of other Browns quarterbacks.
"Mentoring a young player is only going to make that player better, which makes the team better," Canty said, via Brad Crawford of CBS Sports. "You're only as strong as your weakest link. The whole point of the exercise is that everybody makes everyone better. That's why you practice. You're making each other better. It's what you're supposed to do. You do that with the reps on the practice field, but you also do that by sharing points and notes in the film room."
Notably, Canty spent three seasons as Flacco’s teammate with the Baltimore Ravens from 2013–2015.
Flacco has had no shortage of understudies in recent years. He started over Lamar Jackson in 2018 and Drew Lock in 2019. He joined New York Jets busts Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson from 2020–2022, and after a one-year stint in Cleveland, relieved Anthony Richardson.
"It's stupid to not consider trying to do everything that you can to coach these other guys up," Canty continued. "Nobody is saying you have to do your job at a lesser level in terms of performing on the field, but if you can happen to impart some wisdom onto those guys who you're spending 16 hours a day with in training camp, why wouldn't you do that?"
It’s certainly not Flacco’s fault that most of those quarterbacks have stumbled, but it doesn’t lend itself to optimism, either. Flacco isn’t withholding information from the Browns’ quarterbacks, and it would be a stretch to call his relationships adversarial. Even so, fans expect someone to be an adult in that quarterback room.
Regardless of whether he starts or succeeds in Cleveland, that role could prove to be paramount in piloting the Browns through 2025.
