Quarterback Joe Flacco has had somewhat of a career resurgence in recent years.
And at 40, he claims he's not even thinking about the "R-word.''
After losing his starting job to Lamar Jackson in Baltimore a few years back, Flacco has suited up for the Denver Broncos, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, the Jets again, the Cleveland Browns, the Indianapolis Colts, and now ... the Browns again.
The Delaware product turned 40 in January, but sees no end to his career, as many people has suggested maybe he should.
“I’ve gotten that question — players ask a lot. You know, ‘Why are you still doing this?’” Flacco said in a recent press conference. “And what eventually came to me is, I want to. I want to play. I think it’s easy to. It’d be easy to say, ‘all right, I’ve done enough,’ but I made a decision that I’m going to do this.
"And I feel like once I made that decision, in my mind, then I didn’t give myself an out, and I want to play, and I’m going to play until I can’t.”
Flacco will now not only be the Browns No. 1 QB ... he'll also be asked to mentor two rookies who were just drafted.
No, not just fifth-rounder Shedeur Sanders from Colorado, as lest we forget, Oregon's Dillon Gabriel was taken here ahead of Deion's son.
Meaning - gasp! - the Browns like Gabriel more than they like Shedeur.
Anyway ...
What can Joe teach to the 24-year-old Gabriel and the 23-year-old Sanders?
Flacco credits a few tweaks to his conditioning over the years as helping him maintain his career.
“I’ve had my trainer for the last 15 years, and we get after it and keep it simple and not trying to reinvent the wheel, but, you know, just staying strong, staying fresh,” Flacco said.” And I think the biggest thing when you get to this age is just kind of the mental side of it and not getting worn out with the daily kind of monotony. So, you just kind of have to keep that fresh.
"And I think, you know, the best way to do that is just kind of have good relationships and develop those relationships as much. And that kind of keeps everything fresh and exciting.”
Here come the kids. Let the relationships begin.
Browns missed out on chance to reunite Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter
The Browns clearly had a method to all of the madness but if the plan was to try and grab Sanders later on (though they had no way of knowing he'd plummet as far as he did), why not at least have a familiar face for him already on the team? It's also not like Hunter isn't a proven prospect and that he wouldn't have made Cleveland a better football team so this makes passing on him hurt even more.
While there was no guarantee that the Browns would have still been able to get Sanders had they stood pat and drafted Hunter, they wouldn't have necessarily had to let him slide as far as he did and the two former Colorado teammates could have teamed up in a dangerous way in Cleveland.
Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Hunter is in Jacksonville and Sanders will be competing with a few other guys for the starting quarterback job.
