The Cleveland Browns entered training camp with Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett as the likeliest candidates to be QB1.
Flacco always seemed to have a bit of an edge, given his familiarity with the offense and his experience.
Even so, watching Pickett suffer an injury at this point in the offseason was a big blow.
When asked about that, the veteran signal-caller showed some solidarity towards his younger colleague:
“Listen, I think there’s worse timing, but at any point when you’ve been working so hard, you don’t want to see something like that,” Flacco said in a brief interview before practice. “Like I said, anytime you’ve kind of worked a full offseason and you’re getting an opportunity, it’s got to be disappointing.”
Granted, not many fans or analysts are as high on Pickett as the Browns seem to be, but it’s still disappointing.
If anything, the best player should be the one to win the spot, and getting it just because someone else got hurt may not feel right.
Flacco offers zero long-term upside at the position, although he’s clearly the best choice if this team wants to hit the ground running and make some noise early in the season.
If that’s not the case, then the Browns shouldn’t hesitate to pull the plug on him early and just allow the young players to prove whether they have a future in this league or not.
All things considered, the Browns’ quarterback of the future might still be in college, or at least not on their current roster.
At the end of the day, injuries are a part of the game, and most of the time, they simply cannot be avoided.
That doesn’t make them any less disappointing, and if Pickett was going to lose this race, he should’ve lost it on the field and not on the sidelines.
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