CLEVELAND – Before Joe Flacco threw his first pass in a Browns jersey, tight ends coach TC McCartney tried to warn them.
No one knew what to expect from a 38-year-old quarterback who looked like his best days in football were 10 years and three teams ago, but McCartney still believed. He spent the 2019 season as Flacco’s quarterbacks coach in Denver and knew the old man could still do it.
Flacco then took the practice field to lead the scout team and quickly scored a touchdown against the Browns’ league-leading defense. He then he did it again. And again. And again.
Depending on who you ask, Flacco tore up the defense for five or six touchdowns leading the scout team. Or maybe there were seven or eight. Flacco’s brief time leading the scout team is legendary, as is the rest of his six weeks here. He immediately caught the attention of everyone in the building.
The Cleveland Browns are back in the playoffs because they beat the Jets 37-20 on Thursday night and because Joe Flacco is the best story in the NFL this year. He is the Comeback Player of the Year. He is Cleveland’s Man of the Year. He could run for office and get a domed stadium built here, too, if he stayed long enough.
GO DEEPER
Browns clinch playoff berth as Flacco dominates Jets
Flacco was wonderful Thursday against his old team, cooking the Jets for 296 yards and three touchdowns. in the first half. He stands in the pocket and throws darts like the all-time quarterback in a schoolyard pick-up game.
The Browns were without leading receiver Amari Cooper. They lost the second threat, Elijah Moore, to a possible concussion. Flacco keeps spinning it. He has turned David Njoku into an elite tight end over the last month.
He has played five games in a Browns uniform and already ranks 33rd on the team’s career passing list. They’ve had 37 quarterbacks since they returned to the league in 1999. By the way, he ranks 18th among those guys, and he’s 59 yards away from passing Browns legend Johnny Manziel.
He’s been here six weeks.
Is this real life? 🥹
‘Rome makes them look stupid out there pic.twitter.com/OAlQSNv2t4
—Cleveland Browns (@Browns) December 29, 2023
He has surpassed 300 yards in four consecutive games, the first time in his career that has happened. I walked around the locker room after the game in a daze trying to find an offensive player to explain all of this to me like I was a third grader. How does this kid, at this age, get off the couch after not playing well for years and put up these kinds of numbers?
I received a lot of blank stars and shrugs. No one knows how to adequately describe this because there is no logical explanation. Aaron Rodgers won the league MVP award at age 38, but he had been among the elite for more than a decade. Tom Brady threw for 4,700 yards in his age-38 season, but he is the greatest of all time and played at an elite level into his 40s.
Flacco’s last great season was 2014. His last good year was 2017. He was irrelevant and at times terrible during his three seasons in New York. Now this.
His 13 touchdown passes already equal or exceed the total of five NFL teams this season: the Jets, Steelers, Titans, Panthers and Giants. His 13 touchdown passes equal the career total of the Steelers’ Kenny Pickett. He ranks Flacco 22nd on the Browns’ career list, one behind Deshaun Watson, in fact.
Flacco is doing things that 38-year-olds who were sitting on the couch six weeks ago aren’t supposed to do. So I had to ask him.
When Cincinnati quarterback Jake Browning came off the bench to unexpectedly throw for 300 yards after Joe Burrow went down, he posted on Instagram that the league tagged him for a drug test. Everything is supposed to be random, but it’s also become a league-wide joke: Do something out of the ordinary for long enough and randomness somehow seems to find you.
So, as Flacco sat at his locker and began to take off his uniform Thursday night, I asked him if the league had drug tested him yet. He laughed out loud.
Typically, those PED and illicit drug tests are given to all players during training camp, but since he wasn’t in camp with any team and didn’t sign anywhere until November, Flacco said he was tested for PEDs. and other drugs as early as when he signed with the Browns. The league hasn’t flagged him since.
“I’m sure it will come,” he laughed.
Flacco’s best season in Baltimore came with Gary Kubiak as his offensive coordinator, and Kubiak spent a season with Kevin Stefanski in Minnesota. But Flacco and Stefanski were never in a relationship before six weeks ago.
When Watson went down with a broken shoulder, the Browns needed another quarterback. They thought Flacco was the best of the veterans left, so they brought him in for training and paired him with some catchers he had never thrown to before. Immediately, Browns coaches and executives were mesmerized by the strength of his arm. McCartney was right. The old man could still turn it. They didn’t bother to investigate anyone else. They had their boy.
Unfortunately, Manziel’s place in Browns history could be secure.
The Browns still have a chance to win their division if Baltimore loses and a few more things break Cleveland’s way. But if the Ravens win in Miami on Sunday, they will clinch the division and the Browns will have nothing more to play for in Week 18 in Cincinnati. It makes a lot of sense to rest Flacco and several other veterans like Cooper and Joel Bitonio, who could use the time off.
Cleveland fans celebrate after the Browns defeated the New York Jets on Thursday night to clinch a playoff spot. (Ken Blaze/USA Today)
If this is it for Flacco’s regular season, it’s the kind of tear that can never be duplicated. He breathed life into a franchise and city that looked disappointing when Watson’s season ended. How could the Browns compete with a rookie quarterback like Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a washed-up veteran that no one else in the league wanted?
That is how. The sold-out crowd serenaded their new quarterback with chants of “FLAAAAACCO, FLAAAACCO” throughout the night. This town, which has always been a Browns town, has been captivated by a team that never goes away and the quarterback they never knew they needed.
After the game, Flacco stayed on the field with his children, all dressed in his jersey, standing next to him. He smiled and chatted with fans, many of whom have waited their entire lives for this from him. The stadium was virtually empty when the Browns made the playoffs in 2020. Before that, their last playoff season was 2002.
Baltimore will always have Joe Flacco’s heart, but Cleveland is showing everyone that he can find love again. The feeling is mutual.
(Top photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
