{"id":695882,"date":"2026-01-22T08:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T08:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/695882\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T08:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T08:34:13","slug":"bengals-free-agent-talks-about-his-playing-future-before-offseason-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/695882\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals free agent talks about his playing future before offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 21, 2026, 8:21 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

The Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> would probably love to have veteran quarterback Joe Flacco back as Joe Burrow\u2019s backup in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Easier said than done, though, as Flacco is scheduled for free agency and he might be willing to wait around and see if any real starting opportunities arise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One thing for sure about Flacco\u2019s future? He doesn\u2019t have any plans to retire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flacco stressed that during exit interviews in Cincinnati and just did so again on the BMore Football podcast<\/a> this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve tried to come up with a good answer for everybody, but it\u2019s a hard question to answer,\u201d Flacco said, according to the Baltimore Sun<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve played football most of my life. I think you think about an end. You do think about one day being done, but at the same time, year to year, you don\u2019t really think about that. You\u2019re just like, \u2018Oh, offseason. Time to work out and get ready for the next season.\u2019 And I think that for the most part, my head is still in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED:Bengals draft outlook: The last 10 picks at No. 10 overall<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the first step in good news for the Bengals<\/a> on the Flacco front. One would imagine after the happenings this past season that they won\u2019t be re-upping with Jake Browning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One would also think that, provided a starting job doesn\u2019t open up, a Bengals return might be the most appealing thing out there for Flacco, given how well he meshed right away with Ja\u2019Marr Chase and the offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Depending on how long Flacco wants to take to make his decision, news on this topic could happen pretty soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED:Bengals players who regressed the most in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 21, 2026, 8:21 p.m. ET The Cincinnati Bengals would probably love to have veteran quarterback Joe Flacco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[95878,228,227,256,2296,7,6,13078,95905,95882,95913,96124,96121,96119,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-695882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-bengals","10":"tag-cincinnati","11":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","12":"tag-cincinnatibengals","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflbengals","16":"tag-sstsnbengals","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagcincinnati-bengals","19":"tag-tagjake-browning","20":"tag-tagjoe-burrow","21":"tag-tagjoe-flacco","22":"tag-tagnfl-hub","23":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115937834971739436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695882","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=695882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}