Joe Flacco: I want to play, and I’m going to play until I can’t
Joe Flacco is 40 years old.
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Joe Flacco is 40 years old.
Elite or not, he was a team’s franchise quarterback for over a decade. He won a Super Bowl MVP with that club, then years later won AP comeback player of the year for a division rival.
Now he’s back with the Browns for a second stint in 2025. He hasn’t been guaranteed a starting role, even though on paper he’s the best quarterback currently on Cleveland’s roster.
But at his age and with his accomplishments, why has he lasted in the league this long? And why continue to play?
“I’ve gotten that question — players ask a lot. You know, ‘why are you still doing this?’” Flacco said in his Wednesday press conference. “And what eventually came to me is, I want to. I want to play. I think it’s easy to. It’d be easy to say, ‘all right, I’ve done enough,’ but I made a decision that I’m going to do this. And I feel like once I made that decision, in my mind, then I didn’t give myself an out, and I want to play, and I’m going to play until I can’t.”
Flacco noted that he’s made tweaks in his routine throughout his career, but “the main thing has stayed like the main thing.”
“I’ve had my trainer for the last 15 years, and we get after it and keep it simple and not trying to reinvent the wheel, but, you know, just staying strong, staying fresh,” Flacco said.” And I think the biggest thing when you get to this age is just kind of the mental side of it and not getting worn out with the daily kind of monotony. So, you just kind of have to keep that fresh. And I think, you know, the best way to do that is just kind of have good relationships and develop those relationships as much. And that kind of keeps everything fresh and exciting.”
Flacco helped lead Cleveland to the playoffs in 2023, when he completed 60 percent of his passes for 1,616 yards with 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions in five games. He appeared in eight games with six starts for Indianapolis in 2024, completing 65 percent of his throws for 1,761 yards with 12 touchdowns and seven picks.
