In March of 2022, the Cleveland Browns infamously signed Deshaun Watson to a five-year, $230-million contract, thinking that they had finally put an end to their quarterback miseries. Fast forward to the Spring of 2025, and they now have four quarterbacks on their roster who each have a legitimate chance at becoming the starter at some point this season.
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The circus is in town, and the town is Cleveland, Ohio. At least now, there’s plenty of potential ring leaders. During an appearance on the ESPN Cleveland radio show, the Browns’ head coach, Kevin Stefanski, provided an update on the team’s QB race.
In light of one of the team’s minority owners having vocalized their support for a particular signal caller already, Stefanski explained that they are far removed from picking a starter for the upcoming season.
“We’re not even there yet. For us, we’re really worried about OTA, number one. And then we’re worried about Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday of next week. If you’re on our roster, you’re competing for a role…We don’t have to set a roster until late August, we don’t have to set a depth. We have to get the football team ready to play, certainly, but you’re competing for a role in what you do. I would hope every player on our team, quarterback or otherwise, is competing for a role.”
While the answer may not be the most satisfactory one available, it also keeps as much pressure off the situation as possible. Nevertheless, everyone seems to have an opinion on which quarterback the team should go with in 2025.
According to the aforementioned minority owner, who happens to be the NFL legend Charles Woodson, Joe Flacco is the obvious choice for the job. In a recent interview on CBS Sports, the NFL Hall of Famer suggested that it’s going to be difficult for the field to beat out Flacco on account of there being a limited amount of reps to go around.
“There’s only so many reps that you can get, and there’s a lot of quarterbacks in that room… I suspect that it will be Joe Flacco just because he has that experience. I would expect that, day one, he would probably be the guy. But whatever reps that you do get, if you’re Dillon, or you’re Shedeur, or Pickett, whatever reps you get, you have to show us, in a limited amount of reps, your value to the team.”
Between Pickett, Sanders, and Gabriel, there are three total years of NFL experience, all of which come from Pickett. Flacco alone has more than five times that amount, with a Super Bowl MVP to boot.
Simply put, to see anyone else taking snaps under center for the Browns in Week 1 would be nothing short of a miracle. Considering that their front office just made Myles Garrett the highest-paid edge rusher in NFL history, right after he voiced concerns about the team wasting valuable years of his prime, it seems rather safe to say that they will be doing everything in their power to win ball games sooner rather than later.
Should Cleveland hope to avoid living up to their perennial title of being the “same ol’ Brownies,” then they’ll need their best signal caller to announce his presence early and often throughout this offseason. Whether that happens to actually be Flacco or not remains to be seen.
