Bengals Snag Offensive Savior Joe Flacco from Division Rival

What They're Saying

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport: "Cincy has been calling around for 48 hours. Now turn to Joe Flacco to keep their playoff hopes alive."

2025 Fantasy Football Impact

Just in case you've been totally ignoring Cleveland football so far this season (never a bad idea), Flacco was available because the Browns had already benched him after four weeks in favor of third-round rookie Dillon Gabriel.

Flacco tossed 2 TD passes vs. 6 INTs before getting iced, completing just 58.1% of his passes at a career-low 5.1 yards per attempt.

Flacco, of course, gets a big WR upgrade in moving to Cincinnati. He's bound to post better numbers at his newest spot, and Flacco did fare much better across 13 games (11 starts) over the previous two years:

• 63.1% completions
• 5.5% TD rate
• 3.3% INT rate
• 7.5 yards per pass attempt

In making this move, the Bengals are clearly telling us they believe Flacco will be an upgrade over Jake Browning. But we'll have to see whether there's any difference for fantasy purposes.

Don't expect much to change this week with our rest-of-season outlooks for Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, or the other Bengals.

Other Winners & Losers

The biggest winner here is very easily Shedeur Sanders. He now climbs to second on the depth chart and should start getting activated on game days.

Of course, Gabriel played well in his first start Sunday and should maintain the job until/unless he gets hurt or struggles mightily.

Dumping Flacco for a minor draft-pick upgrade says the Browns feel no less comfy riding their rookie QBs the rest of the way than they did potentially turning back to Flacco.