CLEVELAND, Ohio — Joe Flacco returns to Baltimore next week for his first game against his former Ravens team there, knowing that he’s still got it and will have a chance to win.
He also knows he’s surrounded by a young team, and that it will have to jell in a hurry to get on the winning track. Flacco not getting many reps in the early part of training camp while the Browns conducted a four-way quarterback competition didn’t help matters, and they have some catching up to do.
But Flacco proved during Sunday’s 17-16 loss to the Bengals in the opener on Sunday that he’s still got it, and that he hasn’t fallen off the proverbial cliff just because he’s turned 40. There was some question about that heading into the opener, because Flacco went 2-4 with the Colts last season, turning the ball over nine times in his last four starts.
But Flacco, who lit it up on the lakefront here in 2023, picked up where he left that off during that magical season with another stellar performance in Sunday’s loss, going 31 of 45 for 290 yards, with one touchdown and two interceptions for a 75.2 rating. He’s now averaged 317 yards in his six starts, going 4-2 here.
The interceptions, however, get an asterisk because both went off the hands of his trusted receivers and into those of a defender.
One was dropped by Jerry Jeudy with 4:47 left in the third quarter, and snatched by safety Jordan Battle. Fortunately for the Browns, the resurgent defense held Cincy to a field goal for a 17-16 lead. The second one was dropped by Cedric Tillman near midfield with 1:24 left in the game and the Browns still trailing 17-16. Fans headed towards the exits after that one, knowing it was one too many mistakes for the Browns.
First-year Kicker Andre Szmyt had already pushed a costly extra point wide right after Tillman’s 5-yard TD catch on a slant that put the Browns up 16-14, and then sailed a 36 yard field goal wide right with 2:22 left in the game after Flacco got him in position for the potential gamewinner. The drive featured two nifty passes to Jeudy that converted third-downs.
“It’s football,” Flacco said. “I’m wishing that I had the ball a little bit better and maybe I’m wishing I just threw it on his chest as opposed to doing what I did. And I think we’re all looking at those plays and probably thinking about them and just like we’re going to have to go home tonight and try to fall asleep with those things on our thoughts and it’s hard.
“Those guys played a really strong game for us today. Like I said, I think when you look at this film, you’re going to see a lot of guys that did a lot of really good things. We just had some (missed assignments) that really, really bit us.”
On the one to Jeudy, Flacco was under siege, and threw it low. Jeudy dove for the catch, and the ball glanced off his hands.
“The interception where I dived -- low ball?” Jeudy said. “I had to try to make a play. Just (expletive) happens.”
Jeudy acknowledged that “no matter where the ball’s at, if it touches your hands, you’ve got to make that play.”
He complimented Flacco, who completed passes of 14, 17, 22, 25 and 25 yards, and gave the Browns plenty of chances to win.
“Flacco did a great job today,” Jeudy said. “He gained completions, driving the ball downfield. We had chances to get field goals, get points, and two turnovers were unfortunate -- hit our hands. Tough grabs hit our hands -- unfortunate picks. But I think he did a great job today by getting all his playmakers the ball and driving the ball downfield.”
Tillman also took full blame for the late drop that was intercepted by D.J. Turner II.
“Shoot. Just a regular hook route and we didn’t connect -- as simple as that,” he said. “We’ll get it next time. Obviously, disappointed as a team, but I know we’ll learn from it, and we’ll move on. But for sure, we’ll connect, and I’ll make the play next time.”
Flacco also endured a tough stretch late in the third and early fourth after the Bengals went up 17-16. He found Tillman for a 25-yard slant into Cincy territory, but rookie tight end Harold Fannin Jr. bobbled dropped a pass on third and 5 at the Cincy 26, and Jeudy dropped the fourth and 5 over the middle after Kevin Stefanski opted to go for it.
The truth is, Flacco has some young talent around him and it will take some time. He also mentioned several times in camp that more time-on-task with the offense would’ve been helpful for him. In the early going, when the Browns had him competing with Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, Flacco stood around a lot, taking mental reps. He was all padded up with nowhere to go. He finally started getting more of the first-team work around mid-August, but a lot of reps were left on the cutting room floor by then, especially with such a young supporting cast.
There is, however, plenty reason for optimism. Flacco still has a rocket arm, and can move well enough to run the keepers and bootlegs. He’s got a young running back in rookie Dylan Sampson, who caught all eight of his targets for 64 yards.
“He looked really good,” Flacco said. “When you get him the ball in a little bit of space, the first guy wasn’t making the tackle and it keeps those chains moving, wears the defense out that extra little bit and make sure they’re running to the ball, that was the key today for him is just making that first guy miss and I think he did that a lot.”
Flacco also found a new favorite target in rookie third-round tight end Harold Fannin II, who caught 7 of a team-high 9 targets for 63 yards. Third-year pro Tillman (5 of 8, 52 yards, 1 TD) made some big plays including the TD catch, but he’s still young after missing the last six games of last season,
Drops aside, it was an encouraging performance by the new offense, with a great gameplan and enough juice for 327 yards to Cincy’s 141. What’s more, the Browns could get rookie workhorse running back Quinshon Judkins back as soon as next week in Baltimore. That will help with some of those tough, inside yards they weren’t able to get vs. the Bengals. Jerome Ford was held to a 1.3 average on his six carries, and Judkins will take over the first- and second-down role. Sampson only rushed for 2.4 yard per carry on his 12 chances, and big, bruising rookie Rocket Sanders scored on a 1-yard run on fourth and 1 in the second quarter for the Browns first touchdown.
Flacco, who fits well in Stefanski’s traditional West Coast scheme, knows he’s got something to work with here, and that winning is within reach.
“For sure,” he said. “There’s some things that we can be better at and I think obviously the more time you spend together doing things and the more confidence you get from doing things well. That’s part of my job this week, and we talked about it earlier, is making sure that we get motivated from the things that we didn’t do well and kind of getting in the right mindset to come out and do it next week.
He noted that “there’s a lot of pressure in this league. You feel like everybody’s looking at you. I don’t necessarily think that’s the reality, so we’ve just got to make sure that nobody kind of falls into that trap. We’ve got a lot of good football players, a lot of guys that did a lot of good stuff and we didn’t do some stuff that well.
“That happens. We got to be able to overcome that and be strong mentally if we want to be the team that we think we can be ... it might as well happen now and let’s face it head on and see who we are.”
This week, the Browns will correct their mistakes and get refocused. The receivers who dropped passes will spend more time on the Jugs machine, and Flacco will work on the nuances of ball placement and communicatr even more with his receivers like he did with Amari Cooper. But for a first time out, with one-fourth of the reps pie during camp, Flacco can feel good about the future.
“You can’t listen to the outside noise,” he said. “There’s definitely things that we’re going to be able to look at and build off of for sure and say, ‘man, look how well we did that.’
“If we’re in the locker room in Baltimore at 4:25 next week and we won the game, we’re going to be feeling really damn good.”
Especially, Flacco, who played 11 seasons there, earned a Lombardi Trophy and Super Bowl MVP honors there, was shown the door when they drafted Lamar Jackson, and is out to prove he can still play.
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