“It’s tough to have expectations,” Joe Flacco admitted on the second day of Browns camp. That wasn’t frustration—it was realism. At 39 years old, the Super Bowl MVP has seen it all, yet even he couldn’t mask the unpredictability of what’s unfolding in Cleveland. The Browns’ quarterback competition isn’t just tight—it’s tangled. Four names, two tiers, and one job. You’ve got the vets—Flacco and former Steelers starter Kenny Pickett—and the rookies: third-rounder Dillon Gabriel and fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders.
But over the weekend, the script flipped. Kenny Pickett—arguably Flacco’s biggest challenger—pulled up in practice with a hamstring injury, leaving Kevin Stefanski to deliver the update no one wanted. Flacco may now find himself in a more favorable position—at least on paper. If the Browns lean toward experience while Pickett recovers, the 39-year-old could emerge as the logical next man up. But that doesn’t mean he’s celebrating. “I think, listen, I think there’s worse timing,” Flacco said, via Chris Easterling of the Akron Beacon Journal. “But at any point when you’ve been working so hard, you don’t want to see something like that.”
There is “no timetable” on a return for Browns QB Kenny Pickett from his hamstring injury, per HC Kevin Stefanski.
Stefanski said Pickett suffered the injury at the end of Saturday’s practice. He threw a TD while rolling to his right on the final play. pic.twitter.com/ZYhZXqCLzJ
— Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) July 28, 2025
That’s the tightrope he’s walking—balancing opportunity with empathy. The reps will shift, the depth chart may too, but Flacco isn’t counting anything before it happens. “We’ll see over the next week how they kind of want to treat it,” he added, noting that while more reps will be available, the path forward remains fluid. And in a competition, this crowded, every snap could be a statement.
This is a developing story. Stay tuned!
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