Back for his second stint with the Browns, Joe Flacco is the clear elder statesman in a QBs room that also includes Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders.
Flacco, 40, quipped that the other QBs likely get a kick out of Flacco being around because he’s old enough to be their father. But when a player entering his 18th season is surrounded by players at the ages of 26, 24, and 23, mentorship often becomes at least a quasi-expectation.
Flacco discusses mentorship as if it’s clearly a loaded topic for him. But while he’s competing to be the Browns’ starter, he’s not gatekeeping information from his fellow QBs.
“It’s a talking point,” Flacco said of mentorship in his Wednesday press conference. “You can kind of, like, use it. It’s a good question to bait somebody into answering, and no matter how they answer, it kind of makes the guy that’s answering it look bad. If I say I don’t want to be a mentor, I look bad. If I say I do want to be a mentor, then I look like an idiot that doesn’t care about being good and playing football. So it’s one of those questions that no matter what I say, you guys can write what you want to write about it.
“And there’s a lot of questions like that, and that’s why you end up having to try to avoid them. I tend to try to be honest, and I’ve said I’m not a mentor. I play football. And in a quarterback room, there’s been already a ton of times where there’s learning experiences, and I have a lot of experience, and I can talk on things, and hopefully they listen, but it’s not necessarily, like, my job to make sure they listen to me. And, you know, hey, hopefully you have a really good relationship with the guys that are in the room, and you naturally want to do that, you know, but that was a long-winded answer. But that’s ultimately why I think you guys ask it.”
Flacco also pushed back a bit when asked as a follow-up if he thinks that his view is more predominant around the league than some might think, because he’s actually willing to talk about it.
“Listen, here’s the thing is because of what I just said, like, you’re acting like I wouldn’t want to be a mentor. Once again, it’s not really about that,” Flacco said. “It’s just not the main focus. I see myself as a guy that can play in this league. So if your main focus was just like, hey, but I’m going to get you ready. You’re just not taking care of business.
“The best way to be a mentor, honestly, is show people how you go to work and like I said, hope that they pick up on that stuff, but not necessarily force them to pick up on the things that you do.”
To that point, Flacco mentioned that both Gabriel and Sanders have asked for advice on elements of their game, and Flacco has been willing to share.
“\[T\]he first day we’re out here throwing routes, like, Shedeur was asking me about steps and things like that,” Flacco said. “I mean, Dillon was calling me up, trying to mimic my cadence, for whatever reason, he wants to get it similar. So, you know, even down to the cadence. I mean, there’s questions, things, and conversations that are happening and they’re fun, you know?”
So, despite the four-way competition, the Browns’ QBs room seems to be a healthy environment so far.
“We spent a lot of time together, all the quarterbacks do,” Flacco said. “I think that’s the nature of the beast. When you’re in this business and you’re in a room together a lot, you better ways to get along and find common ground with people. And that’s what we’re doing in there. We’re having a blast and having a lot of fun, talking football and then just laughing at things that come up on a daily basis.”