With rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson still sidelined for Thursday’s practice while in concussion protocol, veteran Joe Flacco is in line to start for the Browns when they play the Rams on Sunday.
Flacco has taken the first-team reps in practice this week with top receiver Amari Cooper saying the 38-year-old quarterback looks good.
“He throws a very pretty ball,” Cooper said Thursday, via transcript from the team. “I don’t know if it’s intentional or what, but when he drops back and he lets it go, the whole motion is like poetry in motion. It looks good.”
Flacco just signed with the Browns last week so the quarterback hasn’t had much time to build chemistry with the team’s receivers. But Cooper noted that Flacco has stressed communication and being on the same page with routes.
“I wouldn’t say it’s difficult, because with him being a veteran, with me being a veteran, we kind of know what the connection on certain routes is supposed to look like,” Cooper said. “We can eliminate a whole bunch of scenarios already.”
Cooper added Flacco’s experience is “utterly important” since most of the game is played through your mind and what you know.
“When you’ve been playing a game for almost 20 years, you have so much knowledge,” Cooper said. “That knowledge is power and it just makes things easier out there. So the game is going to be very slow to him, 100 percent. It’s just better.”
If Flacco is indeed the first QB on the field for Cleveland, he’ll be the fourth starting quarterback the Browns have had this season, joining Deshaun Watson, P.J. Walker, and Thompson-Robinson.