Regardless of who the Cleveland Browns select during the 2025 NFL Draft, veteran Joe Flacco seems to understand he'll be asked to serve as a mentor as part of a quarterback room that will feature 26-year-old Kenny Pickett and at least one rookie.
On Wednesday, Flacco spoke openly about wanting to handle such a role as a QB1 through at least the 2025 season.
"I don’t think anybody ever really views themselves as a mentor, solely as a mentor," Flacco said, as shared by Dan Labbe of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I think we all want to go out there and compete and play. I think if you’re in the quarterback room for a day or two, you can probably understand that things like that naturally come up."
Pickett made it known earlier in April that he plans to start ahead of Flacco and a first-year pro in September. The 2022 first-round draft pick lost his spot atop the Pittsburgh Steelers' depth chart before the end of his second pro campaign, and he then spent the majority of last season sitting as a backup for the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. That said, he's made just 25 career starts at the highest level and, thus, is still an unproven commodity.
The fact that some think that Cam Ward, the consensus top quarterback in this year's draft class, should sit "for a year or two" suggests that the Browns will leave the player-selection process holding the rights for a project signal-caller who will learn about life in the NFL working with Flacco. Flacco believes young quarterbacks should learn more by seeing than doing until they're deemed ready to face live defenses in meaningful games.
"I’ve played a lot of football and I have a lot of different experiences, and there’s a certain way that I see it, and there’s a certain way I can talk about footwork and reads and those things, and I think they naturally come up," the 40-year-old added during his comments. "And I think when you have a competitive, good quarterback room, you don’t really have to worry about being a mentor. You just kind of do you. You compete and you have fun and conversations come up and everybody learns from it."
As much as Flacco wants to play for as long as possible, a Browns team coming off a 3-14 season will likely want to give Pickett at least some playing time during the second half of the upcoming campaign. In the end, the best thing Flacco can do during his second stint with the Browns is help the coaching staff get the best out of his younger teammates from springtime workouts through January.
