BEREA, Ohio — The Browns' quarterback room is full as they look for their starter ahead of the upcoming 2025 season, and on Wednesday during an OTA session in Berea, all four of the QBs got to work and hit the field together.
Veteran quarterbacks Joe Flacco, who the Browns re-signed in April after he spent last season with the Colts, and Kenny Pickett, who the Browns traded for in March, joined the rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.
The reps were split between the four, with Flacco getting many of the first-team reps, sharing the bulk of those with Pickett. Gabriel and Sanders worked mostly with stringers, with two separate fields used for the rookies and the veterans at times.
"There’s a little bit of directing traffic when you’ve got two drills going on at one time, but they’ve done a really nice job. The players and coaches making sure that we’re practicing in a safe way. We’re getting good looks for our guys to learn from on both sides of the ball and not asking more than we need to of the guys physically," said Head Coach Kevin Stefanski after the session.
Throughout the day, the quarterbacks would watch other portions of practice that didn't involve them, such as special teams drills, and were always talking to someone, whether it was a coach or another quarterback. That's particularly important for the rookies, and an appreciated aspect of getting the vets in for OTAs.
"It’s just fun having some veterans in that room, some young guys in the quarterback room. They really feed off of each other," Stefanski said.
For Pickett, he enjoys a wide variety of talent in the room with him, and with his experience from the Steelers to his time with the Eagles, he believes there's plenty of knowledge to be shared amongst the group.
"When you're day-to-day and you're in meetings with these guys, you're out at practice. You spend so much time together. Of course we're all competing, but you become friends with everybody. We're helping each other. There's an open dialogue in the quarterback room to help each other grow," Pickett said. "Same with Shedeur and Dylan on the side. If they ever have a question to ask me and talk through, it helps me just as much as it helps them. So yeah, it's a great working environment in that quarterback room.”
That open dialogue is well underway. Flacco has already fielded his share of questions from the young guys in the room with him.
"The first day we were out here throwing routes, Shedeur was asking me about steps and things like that. Dillon was calling me up, trying to mimic my cadence. For whatever reason, he wants to get it similar. Even down to the cadence, there's questions and things and conversations that are happening and they're fun," Flacco said.
That said, there is still a competition for the starting role and at the end of the day, that's what everyone is focused on amid the learning.
Flacco will be the first to tell you he's not interested in being a mentor to a rookie quarterback—not because he doesn't want to share knowledge or lend a hand, but because he's not interested in giving anyone a free pass at the role he aims to earn.
"If I say I don’t want to be a mentor, I look bad. If I say I do want to be a mentor, then I look like an idiot that doesn’t care about being good and playing football," Flacco said candidly. I tend to try to be honest, and I’ve said I’m not a mentor. I play football and in a quarterback room, there’s a lot of times already, there’s been already a ton of times where there’s learning experiences, and I have a lot of experience and I can talk on things and hopefully they listen. But it’s not necessarily my job to make sure they listen to me. And, hey, hopefully you have a really good relationship with the guys that are in the room and you naturally want to do that."
The 17-year NFL veteran knows that he can't just pass a baton to the 20-somethings vying for the role. He plans to be a friendly face, a beacon of information when needed and a leader in the room and the roster. But having two rookies drafted after he signed with the team has his competitive juices flowing.
"I see myself as a guy that can play in this league, so if your main focus was just like, ‘Hey, bud, I’m going to get you ready,’ you’re just not taking care of business. The best way to be a mentor, honestly, is 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 said. "When somebody asked a question, do you feel a certain way when they draft two quarterbacks or whatever. I think there's no shying away that there's something that gets ignited in you a little bit. There's a reason I still want to play this game. But at the end of the day, I really don't focus on those things. I focus on coming out here, doing my work, having a lot of fun and all those other things fall into place. Having good relationships with guys, and that's the quarterbacks included."
As for Pickett, he may not have been as putright about it as Flacco, but he shares similar sentiments about the competition this summer brings.
“I think the longer you play in the NFL, you just take everything in stride, man. Like I said, I have a job to do. I think everyone's focused on doing their job, so it's been going really well so far," Pickett said. "I'm kind of having the same mindset that I've always had since college of coming in, preparing [as if] I'm the guy. So whatever happens, it's just another day. I always have that same mindset."
