Joe Flacco, 40, was named Cleveland’s QB1 on Monday.
Graybeards like Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers are also set start in 2025.
Why not opt for a youth movement behind center immediately? Let us count the ways.
Joe Flacco is once again a QB1 in the NFL. So is Russell Wilson. And Aaron Rodgers. Geno Smith, too. Heck, even Daniel Jones might be.
A kneejerk reaction of “Why?” would be understandable as it relates to these apparently faded stars and/or has-beens, yet there’s no one-size-fits-all NFL answer to that question. However old men – in terms of football years anyway – serving as Band-Aids for teams in some manner of distress actually make a lot of sense for nearly all parties involved.
It’s no secret franchise quarterbacks don’t grow on trees. There are maybe 12 teams in the league that can confidently claim they’re securely settled at the position for the foreseeable future, both in terms of performance and finances. Maybe. (And, admittedly, ‘the foreseeable future’ in the NFL has been known to shift as suddenly as the timeline of a “Terminator” movie.)
There might be another dozen or so clubs hoping they’ve got the right guy on their roster, and early returns from the likes of C.J. Stroud or Drake Maye or Bo Nix, for example, suggest that’s probably at least a solid assumption.
Then you’ve got Flacco’s Cleveland Browns. And Rodgers’ Pittsburgh Steelers. And Wilson’s New York Giants. And Smith’s Las Vegas Raiders. With the probable exception of Smith, each of these organizations will likely start 2026 with another guy behind center. So why tread water with any of these temps now given each of these teams − save Pittsburgh − seems very likely bound for a last-place finish in 2025?
Because pro football is a unique game. It requires collective buy-in and, to some degree, selflessness other team sports don’t while also featuring a position – the ever tone-setting quarterback – which typically determines the fates of so many others on and off the field. A wideout can’t just post 25 points and 10 rebounds and call it a night – and certainly won’t routinely catch nine balls for 130 yards and TD without a reliable guy throwing to him. A linebacker on a great defense can’t hit .350 for an otherwise bad team and go home under the illusion his job is secure. Head coaches and general managers can’t opt to tank in the NFL with the assurance they’ll retain their posts after a 2-15 death march … or that such a theoretical gambit would even actually bring the can’t-miss player who would undoubtedly revitalize an organization and fan base … or that the other guys on the roster would even co-sign burning one of the (maybe) four years they get in the league with the consequential poor tape that may not earn them a subsequent shot to play elsewhere.
And so you turn to retread field generals and hope for the best – whatever that might be.
In 2023, free agent Flacco, now 40, literally rose from his couch and saved Cleveland’s season with a Comeback Player of the Year performance that landed the Browns a surprising playoff berth. He was reinstalled as the starter Monday. Last season − rightly or wrongly − Wilson took the baton in Pittsburgh and got the Steelers back into postseason. Smith surprisingly managed it, too, while supplanting Wilson in Seattle in 2022. What did it mean for those squads? Galvanized locker rooms. Captivating runs for their cities. Maybe fleeting hopes of a Nick Foles-esque magic carpet ride like the Philadelphia Eagles experienced in 2017 – or even the memorable heater Flacco and the 2012 Baltimore Ravens converted into a Super Bowl 47 triumph 12 years ago.
But more than likely, you’re enjoying short-term gains in exchange for playoff disappointment and probably another ticket to the QB hamster wheel. The Browns, Steelers, Seahawks, New York Jets – four-time league MVP Rodgers, 41, wasn’t the savior they’d hoped for – and Giants have been stuck in neutral for years while playing quarterback roulette rather than meaningfully solving the position. Same goes for the Indianapolis Colts, who continue wondering if Anthony Richardson is their post-Andrew Luck solution … even as the layovers of Flacco, Jones and Gardner Minshew suggest otherwise.
Yet what’s the alternative?
All 32 teams are deadlocked with 0-0 records ahead of their 2025 regular-season openers. Now is the time to hope Flacco or Wilson can catch lightning in a bottle, unlikely as it is that they contain it for 18 or more weeks. Yet young teammates can hope the graybeards get them on the road to the promised land and provide wisdom that seeds their own careers.
If not? Then time for new prayers.
That’s when Cleveland turns to Shedeur Sanders and/or Dillon Gabriel after they’ve had an opportunity to observe the gargantuan ask ahead of them while the Browns wait to see if Tom Brady 2.0 − or even Tom Brady 0.7 − emerges from the QB chrysalis. Similar situation for Giants rookie Jaxson Dart, confident and ready as he already seems. But why deploy him if there’s an experienced alternative like Wilson to navigate the outset of what is the league’s hardest schedule based on opponents’ 2024 winning percentages?
If the vet sinks instead of swimming, then the rook gets the belated benefit of better-informed playing time while the team likely continues sailing toward a poor record that provides better options the next year anyway.
It’s rare to see a young quarterback start, struggle and later come through a potentially confidence-shattering benching intact. It would also be folly to prematurely tab a youngster who either isn’t ready or saddled with a substandard supporting cast − think Sam Darnold with the Jets − watch him flounder and then ask someone like Wilson to make lemonade with a 2-9 record. As former running back Ricky Watters once infamously said, “For who, for what?’
At least Rodgers, his teammates and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin know they’re all chips in for 2025 … even if they’re gambling that a pair of jacks will help them secure the pot no matter how bad a hand and draft bankroll that might produce six months hence.
And so these franchises forge ahead – hoping for the best, knowing worse is likelier − desperately wishing their circumstances in the NFL’s version of purgatory have miraculously changed a year from now.