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When the Cleveland Browns officially named Joe Flacco their starting quarterback for Week 1 of the 2025 season, it didn’t exactly draw the best reaction from fans around the NFL.
A team in desperate need of a long-term answer under center after the Deshaun Watson trade turned out about as bad as any deal in NFL history, fans watched Shedeur Sanders shine in Preseason Game 1 and Dillon Gabriel turn in mixed but promising results in Game 2 and openly wondered why Kevin Stefanski would march out a quarterback almost as old as he is heading into Week 1, especially with his job potentially on the line after a major flameout in 2024.
One such detractor of the decision is ESPN’s Ryan Clark, who used some time on NFL Live to blast the Browns for being unwilling to make a tough decision.
“Well, first off, they just didn’t want to make a hard decision, right? To figure out who’s going to be number two is going to be a difficult decision. It would have been a much harder decision to figure out which one of those young men would start. And when you look at what the Cleveland Browns are doing, this is why people spin the block in relationships, right? You remember, ‘Hey, man, I had a great relationship with this person. Then I moved to this person, and it wasn’t so good. This person is available on the market again. Let’s spin the block and try it, right?’ And that’s what they’re doing,” Clark noted.
They caught fire late in the season two years ago with Joe Flacco. You’re talking about Kevin Stefanski, a guy who’s won the coach of the year two times. He thinks that he can go out and win games early this season with Joe Flacco. They could be coaching for their jobs. Joe Flacco is what you know. It’s the stability that you trust. I think this team will be okay. But I still think this team finds itself in a position where they’re going to have to figure out who their franchise quarterback is, whether it’s this season or next offseason. And Joe Flacco gets you no closer to that and also no closer to winning a Super Bowl, which should ultimately be the goal of this team.”
On paper, giving Flacco the nod right out of the gate isn’t some major swerve; if anything, it was actually widely expected. The issue many have is that Sanders and even Gabriel have played well in the preseason and present more upside than a 40-year-old heading into Year 17. Even if Flacco can turn in one more quality season, he’s not the Browns’ future, and for many fans, figuring out a long-term direction has to be priority No. 1 for the 2025 season.
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