Whereas the ink nonetheless isn’t dry on Joe Flacco‘s contract with the Browns, there’s already hypothesis that the veteran could not make it to the common season along with his new squad. Based on Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, Joe Flacco is probably going the odd man out within the Browns quarterbacks room.
The crew’s positional depth has clearly modified a bit since Flacco inked a cope with Cleveland in early April. The Browns added a pair of big-name rookies through the draft, and it sounds just like the crew is dedicated to giving roster spots to each third-round decide Dillon Gabriel and shocking fifth-round decide Shedeur Sanders.
Because the Browns navigated Deshaun Watson‘s harm and tenuous standing on their squad, the crew went out and made a commerce for Kenny Pickett earlier this offseason. Cabot believes the previous first-round decide is in prime place to retain his roster spot, and that would go away Flacco on the skin wanting in.
The crew would absolutely solely commit three roster spots to the quarterback place, however Cabot says the crew may hold on to 4 QBs for the primary iteration of their 53-man roster. The crew did one thing comparable final 12 months, after they stored Tyler Huntley with the hopes of a commerce popping up. A deal by no means got here to fruition, and the group moved on from Huntley earlier than Week 1.
It’s laborious to examine a protracted line of suitors for Flacco. That has nothing to do along with his high quality of play — even throughout his age-39 season, Flacco received a pair of video games whereas tossing 12 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. Reasonably, groups will probably be cognizant of Flacco’s spot on Cleveland’s roster, and so they could wait out an inevitable launch if they honestly have curiosity within the veteran.
On the flip aspect, Flacco may merely play himself into a job, doubtlessly resulting in a tough state of affairs for the Browns. The almost definitely path would see them transfer on from Pickett, but when each vets are actually deserving of a spot, then it wouldn’t be out of the realm of risk for them to ditch a draft decide or attempt to sneak a rookie onto their follow squad.
In the meantime, we’ve lastly gotten some particulars on Flacco’s contract (via OverTheCap.com). His one-year, $4M pact consists of $3M in assured cash, though a bit of that complete is tied to roster bonuses that could possibly be averted. Flacco can also be hooked up to a $2.85M cap hit, and the Browns could be left with half of that on the books in the event that they outright launched the quarterback.
