Joe Flacco made it clear that it's not his job to be a mentor to his fellow quarterback teammates.
The 40-year-old free agent rejoined the Cleveland Browns this offseason and entered an intriguing competition for the starting job with former prodigy Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.
When the 17-year veteran was asked about his role as a mentor to the rest of the room during OTAs, he delivered a noteworthy response.
*"*I tend to try to be honest, and I've said, 'I'm not a mentor. I play football,'" Flacco said.
"... it's not necessarily my job to make sure [teammates] listen to me. Hey, hopefully you have a really good relationship with the guys that are in the room, and you naturally want to do that."
It appears, however, the Flacco may be coming around to offering some advice to his young peers.
At Browns minicamp, a reporter caught a glimpse of what looks like Flacco giving Sanders some pointers during practice.
Turns out, it was in fact a teaching moment.
Shedeur gave context to the interaction during his latest meeting with the media.
""How to get through the reads quicker and those type of things," Sanders said about what Flacco was telling him.
"I asked him, 'Hey, let me know what you think, what I need to do.' He's seen and he's played it. He's a pro. I'd be dumb, I'd be a fool to not get insight from somebody that has success over all the years that he has."
The Browns starting QB position remains a toss up as the team breaks up before training camp. Once they reconvene, the battle will intensify.
So at this stage, Flacco may be letting his guard down and realizing the mentorship position he is naturally in as an experienced player surrounded by rookies.
But according to his past remarks, Flacco was stern about his drive to play, and we don't expect that has changed.
I see myself as a guy who can play in this league, so if your main focus was just, 'Hey, bud, I'm going to get you ready,' you're just not taking care of business," he said earlier this offseason.
That "business" now seems a little more collaborative after this interaction with Shedeur, who added that he will continue pursuing knowledge from the Super Bowl MVP Flacco.
"Every day there's room for improvement in a lot of different areas in my game," Sanders said. "I would say I'm always hungry. There's a lot of aspects in football that you could get better at—it's knowing the plays, it's physical, it's throwing, you could always get more precise with more things. I feel like I put in my day's work, but I know I'm far from where I want to be."
It will be interesting to see this relationship develop in training camp as the two compete for a spot in the starting lineup.