2025 NFL Week 5 Buzz: Cleveland Browns Make QB Change

Who’s starting, who’s hurt, and who’s on the move? 

NFL news is nonstop, and we’re breaking it all down week by week this season.

Here’s the latest on what’s happening around the league entering Week 5:

Browns make QB change

Cleveland is benching veteran quarterback Joe Flacco for rookie third-round pick Dillon Gabriel, per NFL Media. Flacco will serve as Gabriel’s backup, with rookie fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders remaining the emergency third-string quarterback for Cleveland’s Week 5 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings in London. Gabriel has thrown four passes this season, including an 8-yard touchdown pass in Week 2. The Browns are averaging just 14.0 points per game, good for 31st in the NFL.

The Ravens will go the rest of the 2025 season with defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike, as head coach John Harbaugh announced on Monday that a neck injury was ending his year.

Harbaugh also announced the team will be without two additional defensive starters for an extended time. Smith is out with a Grade 2 hamstring strain while Humphrey is dealing with a calf injury; both are expected to miss multiple weeks.

Baltimore placed Madubuike on injured reserve on Saturday, which meant he would have missed at least the next four games. In Week 3’s Monday night game against the Lions, which Detroit won 38-30, the Ravens allowed 227 rushing yards to the Lions and Baltimore failed to record a sack –the absence of Madubuike significantly contributed to those results. In Week 4, the Ravens lost to the Chiefs, 37-20. 

Madubuike was named to the Pro Bowl in the previous two seasons, and logged 5.5, 13, and 6.5 sacks in the last three years, respectively, as well as a combined 141 tackles in that stretch.

Browns lose two WRs to injury for “weeks”

Wide receivers Cedric Tillman and DeAndre Carter are both injured, and according to Browns’ coach Kevin Stefanski, the pair will each be out for multiple weeks before they can return, per ESPN.

Tillman injured his hamstring early in Sunday’s contest against the Lions, exiting the game in the second quarter before briefly reentering it and then being removed from the game. Carter, a kick returner, injured his knee returning a kick in the fourth quarter. 

Lamar Jackson was out regardless of score

On Sunday, the Ravens’ quarterback injured his hamstring, keeping him from returning to the loss against the Chiefs. According to coach John Harbaugh by way of ESPN, Jackson was out regardless – that the Ravens were losing 30-13 in the third quarter at the time of the injury didn’t play into his sitting out the rest of the matchup. “There was no way he could have gone back in the game,” Harbaugh explained on Monday.

Harbaugh did say after Sunday’s game, per ESPN, that he did not believe any of the injuries suffered by his players against the Chiefs were season-ending.

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