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About nine days before the Cincinnati Bengals took down the division-leading Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday Night Football last week, they traded for a quarterback named Joe Flacco. And, before the Cleveland Browns agreed to send him to their intra-division, cross-state rivals, they asked one extremely important person for his opinion. Joe Flacco. “Now I don’t know if they would’ve done it anyway, if I wasn’t interested. If I said, No, I really don’t want to do that, guys, I don’t know if they would’ve said, O.K., yeah, that’s cool, we won’t do it then,” Flacco told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. “But, it did seem like [GM] Andrew [Berry] was like, Listen, man, we appreciate what you’ve done. Would this be something you’d be open to? So we had a conversation about it, for sure.” It’s the Browns, so maybe they really were waiting for him to give the okay before making a trade. Heck, they’d probably consult him before trading Deshaun Watson and Flacco isn’t even associated with the organization anymore. It’s the Browns, so we just don’t know. Joe Flacco is having fun with the Bengals While Flacco didn’t say he wasn’t having fun in Cleveland, one could surmise. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of fun handed out in the Browns’ locker room. My impression of the Browns’ facilities always involves stalactites, stalagmites and no electricity while water slowly drips from the cavernous ceilings. I have no evidence to back that up whatsoever. Flacco talked to Breer about spending extra time with the Amazon Prime post-game crew following the win over the Steelers. “You have to,” Flacco said on Friday. “Because, listen, it is fun. It’s enjoyable when you’re doing things like last night. And there’s a lot of pressure, man, with this game. And even though I’ve been playing it for so long, I still get those feelings before a game. They’re not that much fun—I don’t want to have those feelings. But fighting through that, you don’t get to experience the level of fun that I had last night, unless you’re able to get over those feelings. And, yeah, that takes it to a whole other level.” Is Joe Flacco ready to hand the team back over to Joe Burrow? Flacco has been there, done that in the NFL. He was a first-round pick in 2008 by the Baltimore Ravens and he’s been a starter, a Comeback Player of the Year winner, a Super Bowl champion, a backup, a seat warmer, you get the idea. So, he’s well aware of the situation. One can only imagine how well he’d have to play for the Bengals to tell Joe Burrow to take his time returning from his toe injury. So, would Flacco be ready to hand the keys back to Burrow in December with a chance to win a Super Bowl? “I’m not necessarily looking that far ahead—but, sure,” he said. “Is that my job? Is that my task? Well, then I’m gonna do that goddamn task as best as I possibly can. I sure hope that’s the case, yes.”
