The Cleveland Browns have not committed to Joe Flacco as their starter going forward, despite his solid performance in a 36-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
Flacco finished the matchup 23-of-44 for 254 yards and a pair of touchdowns. His lone mistake came at the wrong time in the fourth quarter. He threw up a deep ball looking for Elijah Moore and was picked off by Rams safety John Johnson III.
Johnson returned the interception 42 yards and it was all downhill from there for the Browns. Cleveland was down just 20-19 at the time of the interception but Los Angeles scored 16 unanswered to close out the game.
The interception was bad but Flacco provided the Browns with a spark at quarterback that they’ve rarely had this season. Despite that, Stefanski declined to back Flacco as the starter going forward.
“I’m not going to get into all that,” Stefanski said after the loss. “I thought he saw it well and made good decisions. Did what we expected him to do.
Flacco doesn’t know what his future holds in Cleveland but clearly wants to be in the mix.
“I think anytime you get a little taste of playing football, you want to keep that going for as long as possible,” Flacco said.
The alternative would be rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who missed the game due to a concussion. Thompson-Robinson was in concussion protocol this week but did not clear it in time to play. His status is still up in the air but is expected to be cleared by next week’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Thompson-Robinson provides some additional mobility but has made rookie mistakes and does not have the same command of the offense that Flacco does.
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