Rookie Dillon Gabriel will start at quarterback in place of veteran Joe Flacco for the Cleveland Browns in Week 5, a decision that head coach Kevin Stefanski explained on Wednesday.
In a series of posts to X, Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com detailed Stefanski’s explanation/justification for benching 40-year-old Flacco in favor of Gabriel, who was a late third-round pick in April’s NFL draft.
“We need to all be better. I know the [quarterback] position gets quite a bit of scrutiny, but this is about our entire team being better,” Stefanski said. “This is not about one person. Joe is a captain of this football team and [we] will need his leadership going forward … Excited for Dillon. He’s handled everything really well since he’s been on campus here.”
“Just my decision,” Stefanski continued. “This decision was best for the football team.”
The move doesn’t come as much of a surprise after Stefanski was non-committal on Flacco’s tenure as QB1 heading into the team’s matchup against the Minnesota Vikings in London this weekend.
That said, most insiders projected the Browns to make a QB switch from Flacco to Gabriel around Week 6 or 7 when the team plays the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins, respectively.
Read More: JJ McCarthy Gets Troubling Prediction on Vikings’ Future from Ex-Pro Bowler
Although the Steelers are 3-1 and will be coming off of a bye week when they host Cleveland on Oct. 12, Pittsburgh’s defense has not been the same sort of consistently dominant unit over the first month of this season that it so frequently was over the last several years under head coach Mike Tomlin. Miami is 1-3 and could be selling off expensive/productive pieces of its defense by the time the Dolphins head to Cleveland on October 19.
But the Browns’ struggles to score points and Flacco’s turnover issues through four games expedited the switch to Gabriel, even despite the specific difficulties he’s likely to face with regard to the often confusing defensive schemes orchestrated by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores.
Flacco heads to the bench with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 2-to-6 along with a 58.1% completion rate on an average of 40 pass attempts per game. Meanwhile, Cleveland heads to the United Kingdom averaging just 14 points per contest.
Read More: Shedeur Sanders Breaks Silence on Browns’ Rumored QB Plans
