Joe Flacco Pulls Strings on Dillon Gabriel’s Future as End Nears for Veteran QB, Says Browns Insider

Call it the Joe Flacco paradox. The Browns enter 2025 riding the high of his storybook run two years ago, but the question lingers—can a 40-year-old quarterback really summon that magic again? Twenty months removed from his improbable playoff push in Cleveland, Flacco is again QB1. At 40 years old, he’ll take the field against Cincinnati on Sunday (September 7, 2025), seventeen years to the day after his very first NFL start came against those same Bengals.

On the surface, the Browns’ QB situation should finally feel stable after trading away Kenny Pickett to the Raiders and officially handing Flacco the crown. But heavy is the head that wears the crown. The opening six weeks will be a grind, the kind of stretch that demands more than one arm to survive. That’s why rookie Dillon Gabriel matters. His role may begin as the backup, but if you listen to Hall of Famer Cris Carter, this isn’t just about Flacco’s last stand. It’s also about how Gabriel’s future gets shaped in the process.

In a recent episode of the 92.3 The Fan podcast, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com didn’t mince words about how the Browns will handle their quarterback room. “If Joe’s going out there and he’s hitting those explosive plays, not throwing interceptions, not getting sacked, not fumbling and he just so happens to win some football games. Then I don’t think that you can yank him out of there,” she said.

For Flacco, the competitive fire still flickers, even as his body has weathered 17 years of NFL seasons. When reporters asked him about Gabriel’s hamstring recovery, he didn’t frame it like a mentor plotting someone else’s rise. He talked about himself. He made it clear his energy is locked on his own preparation, not monitoring the rookie.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco throws a pass during the first half of an NFL football game against the Cleveland Browns, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

“You’ve got to give this team every possible chance to win. You can’t sell losing to your fans, and you can’t sell it to your players…And If he is demonstrating that he can do that, you can’t touch him. You gotta let him roll,” Cabot added. That’s the reality facing Dillon Gabriel. The Browns like him—love him, even—but opportunity doesn’t come on sentiment in this league.

Cabot admitted as much when he said, “I do think they love Dillon Gabriel and I think they want to see him at some point this season. It’s really, in my mind, up to Joe to keep him out of there and say, ‘No, this is mine. You go wait over there for a while.’” The rookie’s chance hinges less on his talent and more on whether Flacco falters.

Since leaving Baltimore, Flacco has struggled, going just 5-18 with Denver and the Jets. But in Cleveland? He found lightning in a bottle, going 4-1 down the stretch in 2023 and throwing for 300-plus yards in each of those wins. That’s the version Kevin Stefanski is betting on. Back in control of play-calling this season, Stefanski has leaned into his offensive principles. He sees Flacco as the steady hand who can still sling it. Gabriel may represent the future, but Cabot’s words echo the truth: the present still belongs to Flacco.

Joe Flacco’s Leash Is Shorter Than You Think

Here’s the cold truth: Joe Flacco isn’t being handed a victory lap in Cleveland—he’s being given a stopwatch. Mary Kay Cabot laid it bare, in an earlier interview (August 31, 2025) with the 92.3 The Fan podcast, when asked how long the 40-year-old gets to hold onto QB1: “I don’t know if he even as much as half a season because I think they are really going to wanna know what they have in their rookies…So Joe’s got to go out there and really stave off Dillon Gabriel and make them not want to take him out of the game.” That’s not faith, that’s a warning. One wrong throw, one sluggish start, and the plug could be pulled before the leaves even change color.

NFL, American Football Herren, USA Cleveland Browns Minicamp Jun 12, 2025 Berea, OH, USA Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco 15 walks off the field during mini camp at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus. Berea CrossCountry Mortgage Campus OH USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATION x IN x GER x SUI x AUT x ONLY Copyright: xKenxBlazex 20250612_kab_bk4_041

And really, why wouldn’t it be? Flacco’s magical 2023 run was storybook stuff, but stories don’t always get sequels. He’s part of that infamous carousel of 40 quarterbacks the Browns have trotted out since 1999. A haunted house of half-measures.

Flacco doesn’t move Cleveland closer to ending its decades-long quarterback curse; he’s just a placeholder. Like a bandage over a wound the franchise keeps reopening. With two first-round picks waiting in the 2026 draft, and a QB class loaded with names like Arch Manning and Nico Iamaleava, the Browns can’t afford to waste time clinging to nostalgia.

The silver lining? Dillon Gabriel. The Oregon Duck already flashed poise in preseason, even when his pick-6 against the Eagles got pinned on his stat line more than his mistake. As Robert Griffin III put it bluntly on X: “This pick-6 goes on Dillon Gabriel’s stats, but it’s really on the TE.” That kind of nuance matters, because Cleveland doesn’t just see Gabriel as a project—they see a kid with the juice to steal the job outright. If he’s good enough, Flacco won’t even get the ball back. So yes, the veteran starts Week 1. But if Cabot’s read is right, the Browns are already staring over his shoulder, waiting for the rookie to run with it.

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