{"id":207979,"date":"2025-07-15T03:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/207979\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T03:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:27:09","slug":"joe-flacco-starting-the-2025-season-is-best-for-cleveland-browns-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/207979\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Flacco starting the 2025 season is best for Cleveland Browns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even though the last five seasons haven\u2019t been rainbows and butterflies for the Cleveland Browns, we have at least have clarity on the quarterback situation. Baker Mayfield was the clear start for three of those years, and even though the Deshaun Watson era has gone terribly, we have at least known he was the guy heading into Week 1.<\/p>\n<p>Now we head into a season where the $230 million <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/44615336\/deshaun-watson-everyone-doubting-believe-myself\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:quarterback is injured for the season;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">quarterback is injured for the season<\/a> and it feels like that gives the team the best chance to win.\u00a0 Andrew Berry has left no doubt bringing back the veteran Joe Flacco, trading for former first-rounder Kenny Pickett, and then drafting two quarterbacks in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>You counted correctly, four quarterbacks currently on the roster with likely only three spots heading into the season.\u00a0 And while Berry <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clevelandbrowns.com\/news\/browns-acquire-kenny-pickett-in-exchange-for-dorian-thompson-robinson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:didn\u2019t give up much for Pickett;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">didn\u2019t give up much for Pickett<\/a> (Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a fifth-round pick), there is a good chance that he is on the move again.<\/p>\n<p>Unless Berry is truly trying to tank the 2025 season for Arch Manning, there isn\u2019t a shadow of doubt the Flacco should be the starting quarterback in Week 1.\u00a0 You know exactly what you are getting.\u00a0 A gunslinger who can make plays, but is going to turn the ball over.\u00a0 One would argue, almost what you got with Jameis Winston.<\/p>\n<p>And while Flacco should be the starter, there is no way that this team won\u2019t let Gabriel and Sanders attempt to develop and compete against each other.\u00a0 There are people who don&#8217;t love either QB, but Gabriel&#8217;s skillset is similar to that of Baker Mayfield&#8217;s, and Sanders&#8217; accuracy when not pressured immediately upon receiving the snap stands out on film.<\/p>\n<p>Berry created the glut of quarterbacks on his roster, and decisions have to be made. Ideally, Flacco the starter.\u00a0 He showed he can run this offense, and the rookies can fight to overtake his spot once out of playoff contention, which seems likely to be sooner rather than later.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s just hope one of the young guys can separate themselves throughout the season and we aren&#8217;t playing this game again the 2026 offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though the last five seasons haven\u2019t been rainbows and butterflies for the Cleveland Browns, we have at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[2007,615,1842,86,85,54,2337,563,8693,7,1801,562,570,6,43986],"class_list":{"0":"post-207979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-andrew-berry","9":"tag-arch-manning","10":"tag-baker-mayfield","11":"tag-browns","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-cleveland-browns","14":"tag-clevelandbrowns","15":"tag-deshaun-watson","16":"tag-dorian-thompson-robinson","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-jameis-winston","19":"tag-joe-flacco","20":"tag-kenny-pickett","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-rainbows-and-butterflies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114855126485766383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}