Myles Garrett, Joe Flacco will determine Browns' level of success this season

New York Times

a day ago

In December, Myles Garrett began publicly saying the things most already knew about the state of the Browns' roster. Since March, when Cleveland signed Garrett to a four-year extension with $123 million guaranteed, he's been saying what he believes are all the right things about the team's future and his role in a potential turnaround.
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Neither money nor words make Garrett arguably the most important player on Cleveland's roster. It's his otherworldly talent and ability to disrupt opposing quarterbacks. In salary and sack production, it's fairly easy to put Garrett atop the list of most vital Browns ahead of the 2025 season.
We started that list last month by going through some of the team's pivotal players that weren't Garrett or Joe Flacco, who's back for a second stint with the Browns and enters training camp as the favorite — at least from this corner — to emerge from a complicated four-man quarterback competition and win the starting job ahead of Week 1.
Flacco, 40, has been to the NFL mountaintop. When he went from the couch to the practice squad to helping the Browns make the playoffs in the final month of the 2023 season, he cemented himself as a local folk hero even as all involved knew his stay would be short. In 2024, the Browns were too committed to Deshaun Watson to bring Flacco back. Now that the team has accepted that its Watson experiment was a major failure, Flacco is back in a key role — even if he doesn't play the full season.
The football fit is obvious: Flacco is the only one of the four healthy Cleveland quarterbacks who previously ran this offense. With 17 seasons of pro experience and a strong (but short) history with Browns tight end David Njoku, a Pro Bowl-level talent, Flacco brings a cannon arm and nearly two decades of wisdom to the locker room.
It's not just that Flacco has enough experience to coach up the younger quarterbacks and command the respect of the players with whom he'll share the huddle. It's that he appears to have the perfect demeanor for taking on this challenge. There's a chip on Flacco's shoulder that seems to complement his good-guy reputation. He thinks he can still play at a high level, and Flacco brings a strong resume and the proper level of bluntness to his day-to-day business.
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Regardless of how snaps in the early quarterback competition are handled, Flacco knows the Browns are preparing both for the season directly ahead and the future at the game's most important position. After nearly a month of waiting in free agency, Flacco answered the call from the Browns and is comfortable with the possibility of taking on fewer summer reps and potentially even ceding the starting job to someone else.
As we wait to see how that shakes out, the Browns know Flacco is unafraid to make sure his pass catchers are getting to the right places and to speak up when an angry and hungry Cleveland team opens training camp in late July.
.@JoeFlacco was wired up for another day of OTAs! 🎤@crosscountrymtg | #DawgPound pic.twitter.com/KzmZAoPlWs
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) June 7, 2025
Last year's Browns jogged through what was probably the least competitive training camp I've seen. Many players were signed to rich long-term contracts, contributing to a fat-and-happy feel for a team coming off an 11-win season. Nobody had a bigger contract than Watson, who spent most of last August throwing incompletions and didn't play in any of the team's three preseason games.
This year, competition must be a driving force. Jobs are at stake at all levels of the organization, not just in the quarterback room. And though the Browns are much more concerned with what Garrett will do from September to December, the team's insistence that it would not trade the six-time All-Pro — even for the kind of haul that could spark a true rebuilding project — must be rewarded. The folks in charge deemed Garrett both unavailable and irreplaceable, and the first player to record 14-plus sacks in four straight seasons must continue that streak as part of validating that decision.
An unhappy Garrett spent the last month of the 2024 season publicly hinting that he would request a trade. During Super Bowl week, he went public with a trade request that quickly became a demand. The Browns dug in, repeating that Garrett would not be going anywhere. And the day before the player movement period, Garrett accepted a mega-extension that affirms he'll play most, if not all, of his Hall of Fame career in an orange helmet.
It's not always about the money. It's just almost always about the money. The 2025 Browns need Garrett to play like the league's most dominant defensive player and lead a unit that still has enough pieces to win at least a couple of games on its own.
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What's done is done, Garrett said, and he believes no ugliness from last winter will linger this summer or fall.
'I've talked to (my teammates), and they understand it's a business,' Garrett said. 'We love what we do, and I love this team, and they understand that I was trying to do what's best for me. And after talking with them, like I said months ago, talking with AB (general manager Andrew Berry) and (coach) Kevin (Stefanski) about what's best for me and what's best for this team, eventually that aligned and we're looking forward to the future of this team.'
Repeatedly, Garrett has said he 'knows' the 2025 Browns will be better and accepts the responsibility that comes with his new contract and status as the team's most gifted player. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said he's expecting Garrett to have his best season, and Garrett agreed.
'I look forward to having my best season for sure, and I think it's trending that way,' Garrett said. 'I think everything's pointed in that direction. And I like where we are as a defensive unit. It's really firing, really rolling, and I think it's really clicking as far as the scheme and the plays. (Since) the day I set foot here at this facility, with this organization, I've had an opportunity to have a platform and to set a standard. And I've got to continue to be the leader for this team and set that standard.'
The Browns probably hope Garrett will no longer spend Friday open locker room sessions talking about flaws in roster building or whether he believes he'll ever be part of a consistent winner in Cleveland. Certainly, the team believes drafting Mason Graham and giving $10 million in guarantees to 30-year-old defensive tackle Maliek Collins will deter opponents from devoting too much attention to Garrett.
The Browns have seen Garrett take over games. Regardless of what his past actions might reveal about his actual level of leadership, Garrett now knows he's in this for the long haul and under a different level of spotlight. The Browns think they're going to continue to get Garrett's best. For 2025 to be the start of a true turnaround and path forward, his best feels mandatory.