After star quarterback Joe Burrow suffered a brutal injury and back up Jake Browning didn’t meet expectations, the Cincinnati Bengals made a surprising trade for veteran quarterback Joe Flacco.
Despite this, one question remained: would it be Browning or Flacco who will start this Sunday against the Green Bay Packers?
Now, it seems that Cincinnati has made their decision.
According to a report from Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Bengals are going with Flacco as their QB1.
This was later confirmed by Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, saying, “He'll take all the reps, get ready to go."
Whether this will be enough to turn the season around for Cincinnati remains to be seen.
Currently, the Bengals sit at second place in the AFC North with a 2-3 record behind the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, they have not looked promising ever since Burrow went down with injury and Browning to control behind center.
With Browning as the starting quarterback, Cincinnati has lost three games in a row by multiple scores against the Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, and Detroit Lions.
While Flacco doesn’t appear to be a statistical improvement over Browning, the hope seems to be that his veteran status and play style will work well with the Bengals.
“Played him a lot. Watched him a lot. Brings great, great experience, great leadership,” Taylor said, per Russ Heltman of Cincinnati Bengals on SI. “His style fits our play style, so excited to get him out there. We’ll start him this week, so he’s gonna take all the reps. Get ready to go. Already spent a lot of time meeting with us getting up to speed. So feel really good about where he’s at.”
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