What Does the Joe Flacco Trade Tell Us About the Bengals and Browns?

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Sheil Kapadia. We had a quarterback trade in the NFL on Tuesday. The Bengals acquired Joe Flacco and a sixth round pick from the Browns in exchange for a fifth rounder. So essentially a day three pick swap for Flacco. Now the Bengals have looked like maybe the worst team in the NFL since Joe Burrow went down getting blown out in their last three games. They thought they had a backup quarterback in Jake Browning, but he's been terrible. So now they're throwing a Hail Mary, hoping that Flacco can provide an upgrade. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, the Browns handed the keys to Dylan Gabriel and have fellow rookie Shadour Sanders backing him up.

0:39So what does this trade mean for each franchise, both in the short term and the long term? And how will the rest of the season play out in the AFC North? To answer those questions and more, I will be joined by the Ringers, Stephen Ruiz. We'll break it all down right after the break. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by FanDuel. And if you're betting on the NFL, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live, and your way so you can set your own lines. The app's fast, it's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid out instantly.

1:17Download the FanDuel app or go to fanduel.com slash Ringer NFL to get started. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states and 18 plus in DC, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tromphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

2:02Tromphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tromphia, proper training is required. Tromphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

2:34Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about TREMFIA today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TREMFIAradio.com.

3:03all right we're back here with steven ruiz let's start here ruiz what does this trade mean for each team in the short term you know it almost feels like the best here's here's my take on the bengal side of it let me know if you you agree because i i told you before we came on you've been grinding the Jake Browning film closer than I have. But it almost felt to me like the Bengals might have been facing like a mutiny or something. You know, it just felt untenable with the way Jamar Chase and his body language, the way this Jake Browning experience was going. It almost felt like they were saying, we can't do that for 13 more weeks.

3:37Like it's just, it's not going to happen with this group of players. We have to do something here. So I think to me in the short term, they were like, all right, you know, let's try another quarterback. We don't know if he'll be better, but we just can't continue with the Jake Browning experiment. What was your take from the Bengals' perspective, what this means just in the short term? I honestly, I think it's more the coaches than the players,

4:00Steven Ruiz:like Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins, who certainly weren't getting good service from Jake Brown by any means. I don't think he's, it's hard to pinpoint a strength with him. It's like he's even fine as generous. It's like he's okay at everything across the board. His accuracy isn't that big of an issue, but it's not a strength at all. it's not good accuracy, but I think it's the turnover-worthy plays, really. Like, just putting the ball in danger. I think they wanted Jake Browning to come in, run the system. We've talked about this a bunch, about how their system kind of changed, becomes more quarterback-friendly.

4:29Steven Ruiz:But even in that more quarterback-friendly environment, Browning was just turning the ball over way too much. And, like, you excuse him for the Jaguars game because he kind of, like, came in, you know, the chips were down. He has to come back in the game if he throws a couple of picks. I mean, you didn't game plan for him. It's understandable. but this last game I mean I think Pro Football Focus had him for five turnover worthy plays and you watch the tape and look like more than that you just can't be that style of quarterback the game manager style of quarterback and turn over the football and I think that's really what did it I think the coaches were like at first they were like oh maybe we can coach around this like we did two years ago but when he's turning the football over that just makes their job so much harder than it is already without Joe Burrow yeah it's so weird because he We talked about how he came in in 2023, and it wasn't like the greatest quarterback we've ever seen, but he kept him afloat.

5:20He had seven interceptions in nine games in 2023. He has eight interceptions in four games this season. And to your point, they're not fluky. It's not like, oh, the ball's bouncing off a receiver's hand. He leads the NFL in percentage of turnover-worthy plays. So it just looks like a different guy than we saw two years ago here. So they're two and three. The AFC North is a mess. I guess they're thinking, hey, can Flacco just give us a little bit better chance to sneak into the playoffs? And, you know, maybe we get Joe Burrow back in December here. I do wonder, I was wondering, why would they go this route rather than someone like, like Kirk Cousins?

5:58Would he be a better option than Joe Flacco here?

6:01Steven Ruiz:I mean, I think the worry there is the investment. I remember during the offseason, the Falcons wanted teams to pay 20 million of the guarantees left on Kirk Cousins. deal and that's just like a non-starter especially for this Mike Brown you come with a 20 million dollar guaranteed bill Mike Brown is not even answering the phone at that point but I agree with you I like Jameis Winston do they give up the do they give the Giants a call and ask about Jameis Winston or Russell Wilson like Russell Wilson I feel like if you're going to go big Russell Wilson was the option there because he can throw the moon ball still I don't know if he can direct it as well as he used to but you don't really need to when it's T Higgins and Jamar Chase tracking the ball downfield but it feels like to me, trading for Flacco is almost giving up.

6:43Steven Ruiz:And it's almost like, okay, now we have a quarterback who won't turn the ball over as much as Browning did. He might not be able to do anything else. He's not going to move the ball. He's not going to move the needle at all. He's not going to raise the ceiling for the offense. But he will be able to do that. It feels like giving up to me. It feels like we just want to get out of this season without embarrassing ourselves and without losing our jobs, really. The coaching staff I'm talking about. And that's the type of move it feels. Because this division is wide open right now. I still feel very good about the Ravens being able to win this division, even though they're sitting at one and four because of the competition within it.

7:17Steven Ruiz:And the Bengals, I think, are two and three, despite having the NFL's worst point differential. I think they're like 28th in EPA and offense, like 29th in defense. It doesn't look good here, but I feel like if you get anything out of that quarterback position, and by anything, I don't mean anything that Joe Flacco can offer you at this point based on his first couple games this season. I mean, I think you could make a run at the division and maybe make the playoffs. At least like Fane being a contender this year. Not a contender, but a wildcard contender. And if you're Zach Taylor, that's like, you know, that's pretty good.

7:50Steven Ruiz:There are people questioning your job every season, it seems like. Especially because you have Joe Burrow and we talk about how it's the Joe Burrow offense and how he controls everything. This was your chance to kind of, you know, put together your own offense for a full season and show that you can bring something to the table. Browning obviously wasn't capable of that, but I thought there were other quarterbacks out there who could be capable of that. Even like Drew Locke, for instance. I'd rather see Drew Locke play in this offense than Joe Flacco. We've seen enough of Flacco. He's been washed up for 10 years.

8:22Yeah, it's a low-risk move because it's a day-three pick swap, but I'm with you. I think it's a move that's unlikely to really be meaningful for the Bengals here. I mean, he might turn the football over a lot in this, maybe not as much as Jake Browning, but I don't know that that's going away here. All right, what about the Browns, you know, in the short term? So they're going with Dylan Gabriel. They made that decision before last week. He didn't look completely overwhelmed. Maybe you, I don't know if you agree or disagree, but on Sunday morning, he plays in that game. And it's like, all right, looks okay.

8:52That's the first part of clear. And there's no, I guess there's no real point to having Flacco on the roster. He started four games and then was benched. So how does this play out sort of for the Browns? Just kind of what does this mean for them in the short term? because I guess it means we're one Dylan Gabriel injury away, maybe from the Shador Sanders content machine kicking off here.

9:11Steven Ruiz:Yeah, it's coming. It's coming. Trust me. I think with the way Dylan Gabriel plays, I think Shador is going to get a chance because I think there is a chance at injury. Dylan, I just want to ask you something. I'm just curious. Did you get up at 930 to watch the Dylan Gabriel Carson Wentz showdown? I did. Yeah, I watched it live. I think I missed the first couple of drives, but I caught up on it. I don't think he looked overwhelmed I just don't think he looked like an NFL starter to me Like he He reminds me of like a value brand Brock Purdy like I don't think Dylan Gabriel Gets drafted in the third round If Brock Purdy doesn't do what he does The last couple of years you know what I mean like The selling point like the elevator Pitch is the same with Gabriel Like they played a ton of college football They're undersized but they're scrappy they can run Around and make plays they're going to run the offense Because they have so much experience they they have a good feel for football and they have a good football IQ.

10:08Steven Ruiz:But the difference between him and Purdy is I think Purdy just has a little more finesse with his arm. Like Gabriel has that thing where he's trying to throw every pitch 90 miles or 95 miles per hour. You know what I mean? I might need to update my baseball references. I haven't watched baseball. Yeah, that's slow now. In like 10 years and now, everyone's throwing 105. That's like Scrabble comes in. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like he's trying to throw everything 105 miles per hour. That doesn't even sound right. Okay. But yeah, that's the thing with him. It's kind of like the J.J. McCarthy discussion with like, can he layer the football over his own?

10:37Steven Ruiz:And I just don't see that with him. And he's not super accurate either. So like your ceiling is like game manager, system quarterback type. But I just think he doesn't have that down-to-down precision that you need. So like, I can see why the Browns feel comfortable having him run the offense right now. And I can totally see why they picked him over Shador to be the starter after benching Flacco. I just don't, I don't think either of these, guys is the quarterback of the future. I don't think the quarterback of the future is on the roster right now. And I think like the front office realizes that and that's why they went about, you know, training camp and the quarterback competition in the same, in the way that they did.

11:11Steven Ruiz:I think Andrew Barry is just happy because he gets to be like, hey, look, I flipped this 40-year-old quarterback for a fifth-round pick. And that's his thing now. That's his main selling point is accruing draft capital. And they got another pick here. Yeah, I wanted to talk more about that, just kind of what this trade means for each team in the long term here, because you touched on it there. I guess you want some information gathering the rest of the way with Dylan Gabriel. Like I probably lean towards what you're saying here, but maybe they're like, all right, well, let's at least give it a shot and make sure we know what we have in him before we have to make these off season decisions here.

11:45And then I think, you know, their off season is pretty interesting because they've taken this approach where it's like, let's take a bunch of dart throws. We're trying to get out of the worst contract and the worst trade in NFL history with Deshaun Watson. We'll take Gabriel. We'll take Shador. We'll get Flacco. We'll get picket. Let's just see where we are. And this is where they are. I mean, now only two of those guys are on the roster. You have a good defense. You have two first round picks next season. And so now they are in this spot where it's like after the season, can you build up the roster around Dylan Gabriel?

12:18Maybe not. Do you want to take a big swing in the draft and draft a quarterback with one of those picks or move up in the draft? You could potentially do that. Can you trade for a quarterback? I mean, right now we don't know, but I don't know, just Kyler Murray or Tua or Bryson. I don't know. I'm just throwing names out there. Is there someone available who it's like, we have draft capital. We can make a trade for a quarterback. And then I think the last option here, Ruiz, is the Reclamation Project quarterback. I think this is about to become a major storyline in the NFL. It's almost defined the first five weeks here.

12:52When you look at Darnold and Daniel Jones and Baker Mayfield, are teams going to talk themselves into this and say, oh, Mac Jones didn't look too bad there last week, or Carson Wentz, is there something? I'm just saying, I think there are some of these guys that teams will look at and say, well, we don't have to spend a ton of resources yet. Let's build up the rest of the roster, put them in position to succeed. So how do you see all those different options with the Browns and what they're looking at kind of in the long-term here?

13:22Steven Ruiz:It would be pretty bold of the Browns to try to do the quarterback reclamation thing when there's a franchise breaking all of these quarterbacks. You know what I mean? I don't think they should have any confidence in their ability to build up a quarterback when they can't even find one. Like, you just look at this regime's, the cracks they've taken. And I think before the Deshaun Watson, like the off the field stuff came along, everybody was like, oh, Deshaun Watson's like a top five quarterback. And like, this is a, it's going to make their quarterback room better if you ignore all this crap that you shouldn't ignore.

13:55Steven Ruiz:And they struck out on that one. But beyond that, drafting Gabriel, bringing in Shador, Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco, all these guys they brought in, I don't really have a lot of confidence in this regime being able to identify a good quarterback. If I'm them, and if I'm Kevin Stefanski too, assuming that he has the job next year, I'm like, for the love of God, can I develop a quarterback? Can you give me a quarterback to actually develop instead of trying to take these shortcuts and finding one or throwing dartboards on day two and day three? I think there's some promise there. What we saw him get out of...

14:27Steven Ruiz:I know we talk about the Browns breaking Baker Mayfield, and I just made a joke about it, but Stefanski was getting good football out of him. So if I'm intent on keeping him around, which I feel pretty good about, I think he's a decent coach. I feel like they haven't sunk to the bottom of the league, and they've had every reason to sink to the bottom of the league. Then if I'm him, I'm going to the front office, and I'm going to be like, can we just do this the right way? Can we bottom out this year, draft a quarterback? If we have to throw in a couple extra round picks to leapfrog a couple people, then so be it.

14:56Steven Ruiz:I know this isn't the best quarterback class, but there's enough there where you could probably talk yourself into finding a franchise quarterback. But that has to be the play here. No more shortcuts for them. I'm with you there. For the Bengals, I'm curious because you did bring up Zach Taylor's job security. And you're right. It does come up. But you mentioned the Bengals financials also. And I don't know that they're in the business of let's pay a coach to not coach for us. And I do feel like he has a pretty easy out here with, come on, Joe, you know, Joe, my quarterback, franchise quarterback got injured.

15:29Look at what's happening with other teams when that happens. And so I think Zach Taylor is going to be OK. I don't think this is like a job preservation thing for him with Flacco. I mean, that would be the saddest job preservation thing of all time to save my job. Go get me Joe Flacco. I don't think that's what's happening here, but I think they're just getting like a real look at the roster and their weaknesses. And it's like, you chose to build it this way. And I think you can win games this way with the quarterback and the wide receivers taking up so much money. But like, there's gotta be something, whether it's the defense or the offensive line or whatever, there's gotta be, like you have a lot of holes on the roster here now.

16:06So how do you kind of look at them long-term and what we're learning about them and how they build this thing to get back to being a contender?

16:14Steven Ruiz:Well, the thing about the coach job security and then the front office job security is that the front office is kind of like a family-style front office, just like the ownership group. So you can't just fire Katie Blackburn, Duke Tope. Those guys, they've been around forever, and I don't think they're going to be the first ones out the door. I think Zach Taylor is going to get the blame. And for him, because Burrow has been hurt, one, I think expectations have been lowered a little bit because it's like, oh, they didn't make the playoffs, but Burrow started the season bad. Burrow was hurt for the first month.

16:45Steven Ruiz:Burrow got hurt for the second half. Of course not making the playoffs. And for him, it's always been about like just not crashing the plane, like just keeping it afloat. And right now it's on the verge of crashing. I know they've won two games. They were lucky to win that Jaguars game. They were kind of lucky to win that Browns game, actually. It could be 0-5 right now. And I think the sky would be falling in Cincinnati. I think we would be talking about Zach Taylor and his job security. But I don't think we're that far away, which is why I think this is a desperation move. It's like, we just can't embarrass ourselves this year.

17:16Steven Ruiz:But if I'm the Bengals, I'm thinking about that extension they gave him right after the Super Bowl loss, where before the Super Bowl run, there was already talk about it. There was already talk about, like, what is he bringing to the table? Like, do we need another quarterback for Joe Burrow? Lou Anarumo goes on a heater in the playoffs. Patrick Mahomes loses his mind in the second half of the AFC Championship game. They're within, you know, one touchdown play of winning the Super Bowl. Aaron Donald doesn't get his pressure. And I feel like that kind of revised everything that we had seen up to that point.

17:46Steven Ruiz:They give him the extension. And now, and after that, it felt like he was kind of untouchable for a couple of years. And this feels like the first time where he's not untouchable anymore. And there are questions about his job. But to your point, like you can never, you never know with Mike Brown, because it could just come down to, hey, we're already paying the guy. We might as well let him coach. And then if it doesn't work out, we've seen it work out with him before. Maybe it'll work out this time. We can move on then when it doesn't cost us money. Yeah, the Browning thing two years ago was almost like Zach Taylor's greatest coaching moment.

18:12You know, it's like, oh, wow. You know, this offensive there, four and three with Jake Browning. Like you do learn about coaches and coaching staffs when backup quarterbacks have to play. And just from a roster building standpoint, in addition to adding talent on defense, in addition to adding talent on the offensive line. Now they do have to think about backup quarterback in the years ahead with Joe Burrow because they thought they had a guy with Jake Browning. Now they're telling you they don't have a guy. Joe Burrow has been injured in three of his six NFL seasons. And so now that's something else that they have to address after the year.

18:42So I still think that you are right, though. There is a point where it gets so bad where it's going to be like, well, you know, we might have to do something despite the Joe Burrow injury. I still think the most likely scenario is that they play poorly, but Zach Taylor comes back and they chalk it up to the Burrow injury. But we'll see how that goes. All right, let's take a break. We come back. Let's talk about, let's finish with how we think this is going to play out for both of these teams. This episode is brought to you by Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. At Little Caesars, the pizzas are always large, so you'll always get more bite for less buck on game day.

19:22You know, I'm not high maintenance. I'm a simple guy. Just give me a plain cheese, like they said, large. Eat it all day. Eat it for lunch. Come back. Have a little slice later in the afternoon for dinner. I mean, what's better than that? And right now you can get 15 % off orders over$15 on NFL game days with code GAMEDAY. Order now at LittleCaesars.com or in the Little Caesars app. Offer ends February 8th, 2026. Offer good at participating Little Caesars stores, on-app and online orders, excluding third-party online sites, with an online purchase of$15 or more, only available on NFL game days.

19:59Enter promo code at checkout to get 15 % off your online order. max discount$5, limit one person per day, cannot be combined with any other offers, plus tax where applicable, prices may vary, delivery available from participating locations with online orders only. Copyright 2025 LCE Incorporated.

20:33Superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26. McLobe Ultra FIFA World Cup 26. Superior access, no purchase necessary. Open U.S. Residence 21 Plus begins on December 1st, 2025. Ends on July 31st, 2026. Multiple entry periods. Visit www.mclobeultra.com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So how does this play out with the Bengals the rest of the way? Like, what does this look like? Do you think they're going to, they've looked like the worst team in the NFL the last three weeks. Do you think that continues with Flacco or do you think it gets a little bit better where, like you said, they don't embarrass themselves even if they're not in that mix when Joe Burrow comes back and gets healthy?

21:09At least it's sort of a respectable performance the rest of the way.