The Cincinnati Bengals very well may have salvaged their 2025 season when they swung the trade with the Cleveland Browns for quarterback Joe Flacco. Not only did it seem like the season was over when Joe Burrow went down, for the next few weeks it certainly looked like it.
Flacco was great in the team’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers last Thursday night, but it definitely helped that he had wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to throw to. Those guys are so high-end that it even made a veteran like Flacco uneasy.
“I know I’m 40 years old, but the first couple times I threw to Ja’Marr and Tee, I was a little bit nervous,” Flacco said on Fitz & Whit. “I’m like, ‘Man, I want them to know. Like, I can put some nice touch on it. I could put it where you want it.’ I overthought it for sure.”
He ended up putting nice touch on it and where they wanted it as both went bananas against the Steelers.
Joe Flacco figured out how to work with Chase and Higgins
As Flacco said, even for a 40-year old Super Bowl champion, playing with guys like Chase and Higgins can be intimidating. Flacco has played with some stars over the years, but certainly nothing like these two (at least not Chase).
“Like, one of the first balls I threw to Ja’Marr,” Flacco said. “He was running one of these little skinny posts we have, and he was a little bit deeper than I thought he was going to be, and I missed him. And I was just like, ‘Oh man, he thinks I suck.’ With those guys, especially, just put it somewhere around them, and they’ll make you look good.”
And they did. Flacco threw for 342 yards and three touchdowns. Heck, it even allowed the Bengals to run the ball! Imagine that!
Browns consulted Joe Flacco before the trade
Flacco didn’t have a no-trade clause with the Browns, so they could have theoretically sent him packing to wherever they wanted. Yet, Flacco said they still consulted him before making the deal.
“Now I don’t know if they would’ve done it anyway, if I wasn’t interested. If I said, No, I really don’t want to do that, guys, I don’t know if they would’ve said, O.K., yeah, that’s cool, we won’t do it then,” Flacco said. “But, it did seem like [GM] Andrew [Berry] was like, Listen, man, we appreciate what you’ve done. Would this be something you’d be open to? So we had a conversation about it, for sure.”
He was also asked about bathing in the post-game glory and spending some extra time on the Amazon Prime set following the Steelers game.
“You have to,” Flacco continued. “Because, listen, it is fun. It’s enjoyable when you’re doing things like last night. And there’s a lot of pressure, man, with this game. And even though I’ve been playing it for so long, I still get those feelings before a game. They’re not that much fun—I don’t want to have those feelings. But fighting through that, you don’t get to experience the level of fun that I had last night, unless you’re able to get over those feelings. And, yeah, that takes it to a whole other level.”
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