For a brief moment last season, fans thought Joe Flacco was going to be the savior of the Indianapolis Colts. Head coach Shane Steichen chose to have Flacco start over Anthony Richardson, claiming he gave the team the best chance to win.
On the surface, this perhaps made sense. He's not only a Super Bowl champion from his time with the Baltimore Ravens, but was also named the Super Bowl MVP. His performance began to decline until he landed with the Cleveland Browns halfway through 2023, and he managed to turn that sinking ship around. Flacco took Cleveland to the playoffs and was named the Comeback Player of the Year.
Flacco had experience, leadership, and talent. Richardson was struggling. All the elements of success were there - but instead, Flacco failed miserably, playing so poorly that it took just three games for Steichen to return to Richardson, despite having vowed that Flacco was their starter for the rest of the season.
NFL analyst says former Colts quarterback Joe Flacco should be fired
To no one's surprise, Flacco left Indianapolis at the end of 2024 and returned to Cleveland. But it has not gone well; in just one game, Browns fans learned what Colts fans already knew, and it's only gotten worse. His Week 4 performance has been named one of the worst in the entire league.
Eric Smithling of Yardbarker gave a rundown of the five worst performances of Week 4, and Flacco landed on his list. Smithling argued the Browns need to bench Flacco, and that he's so bad, literally anyone would be an improvement.
"We don't have a preference for whether Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders should start when the Browns travel to London to play the Minnesota Vikings next Sunday, but please, Kevin Stefanski, do the right thing and don't make an international audience sit through another Flacco start. "Eric Smithling
He's not the only one, either; Sporting News' Charlie Baduini argued the exact same thing, and head coach Kevan Stefanski is facing questions about keeping Flacco as QB1. It's easy to see why; Flacco had a catastrophic game. He ended the game with 16 of 34 passes for 184 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, and a fumble.
Altogether, Flacco is making it hard to believe that he used to be a very good quarterback. But now, in the waning years of his career, he is mediocre at best - and absolutely awful at worst.
It's something football fans have seen all too many times: a great player who can't accept that his time is over and destroys his reputation in the process. Colts fans can only be glad it didn't happen while he was still in Indianapolis.