BEREA, Ohio -- At 40 years old, Joe Flacco is by far the elder statesman in the Cleveland Browns' quarterback room.
Flacco, though, reiterated that he is not looking to take a back seat and mentor the team's young passers but rather to lead by example in an attempt to win the quarterback competition.
"It's not really about that. It's just not the main focus," Flacco said Wednesday after the Browns' second OTA practice. "I see myself as a guy that can play in this league. So, if your main focus was just like, hey, but I'm going to get you ready, you're just not taking care of business. The best way to be a mentor, honestly, is to show people how you go to work and, like I said, hope that they pick up on that stuff, but not necessarily force them to pick up on the things that you do."
Flacco is one of four healthy quarterbacks, along with 2020 first-round pick Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, who are vying for the Browns' starting job. Deshaun Watson remains sidelined by a right Achilles injury that the team has said will cost him a significant portion of the 2025 season.
In April, Flacco signed a one-year deal worth $4 million to return to Cleveland, where he won the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year award in 2023 and helped lead the Browns to the playoffs after being signed late in the season. Flacco spent the 2024 season with the Indianapolis Colts and went 2-4 as a starter.
"Joe physically has been gifted with the ability to throw the football. He looks the same to me," coach Kevin Stefanski said. "... It's just fun having some veterans in that room, some young guys in the quarterback room. They really feed off of each other. And certainly, Joe has a lot to explain to the guys or a lot of wisdom to impart on those guys of things that have come up in his career."
During Wednesday's practice, Flacco split first-team reps in team drills with Pickett. The two were then often followed by Gabriel and then Sanders in practice reps. Stefanski again downplayed the significance of the reps and said the order will vary over the course of the offseason workout program.
Pickett likened the presence of Flacco, who is entering his 18th NFL season, to that of a coach because of his vast experience.
"It's like having another coach when a guy that's played that much football, you could bounce ideas off of, ask him what he saw, how he would read certain things earlier in his career," Pickett said. "There's just so many things, small things that you can learn. Just having that normal, you know, open dialogue that we have in the quarterback room."
The Browns' second OTA practice was a jam-packed session designed to maximize reps for each quarterback. At one point, the rookie quarterbacks conducted team drills on one side of the field while the veteran passers stayed on a separate field to work.
Flacco, who was named Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XLVII after leading the Baltimore Ravens to their second championship, said he hasn't been in a quarterback competition since his sophomore year of high school. But he's enjoying the dynamic of the quarterbacks room and the youth of Sanders and Gabriel.
"Shedeur has been great. I mean, he's a lot of fun to be around in those meeting rooms," Flacco said. "I think so far, there's been at least once in the meeting room that he's made me crack a smile, and that's what it's all about. You know, he's a young guy trying to learn some football and come out here and practice well and do those things. And like I said, he's been a lot of fun. I probably wasn't too far away from playing against his dad, and now I'm playing with him."