Joe Flacco Doesn’t Want To ‘Just Sign With Anybody’ In 2026

After a wild 2025 season that saw him go from the Browns’ Week 1 starter to filling in for injured Bengals QB Joe Burrow, veteran QB Joe Flacco is set to be a free agent again this offseason.

Flacco wrapped up his 18th season in the NFL in 2025 and is just two years removed from his run with Cleveland where he came out of retirement and helped them to the postseason. For him to play a 19th year in the league, Flacco said the situation has to be right and meaningful for him at this stage of his career. 

“At this point, I don’t want to just sign up with anybody, I don’t want to just play football or be on the sideline for the sake of being out there,” Flacco said, via Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk.

The veteran kept a return to Cincinnati on the table, but sounded like he would prefer to land in a situation where there’s a better path to at least compete for playing time. 

“I like the idea of Cincinnati, but, at the same time, you are resigning to something there. There’s a world where I could see that happening, but I have to see what’s out there.”

Flacco, 41, is a former first-round pick of the Ravens back in 2008. After over a decade in Baltimore, the Broncos agreed to trade a 2019 fourth-round pick to the Ravens for Flacco.

Flacco was in the fourth year of a six-year, $125 million contract that contained $44 million guaranteed and set to make a base salary of $20.25 million for 2020 when Denver released him with a failed physical designation.

He signed a one-year contract worth $1.5 million and up to $4.5 million with the Jets in 2020 before joining the Eagles in 2021. Philadelphia traded him back to the Jets ahead of the deadline for a conditional sixth-round pick. 

Flacco later re-signed with the Jets on a one-year, $3.5 million deal in 2022. He signed on with the Browns during the season in 2023 and parlayed a strong performance into a deal with the Colts in 2024. 

He re-signed with Cleveland on a one-year deal this offseason but was traded to the Bengals before Week 6 of the regular season.

In 2025, Flacco appeared in 13 games for the Browns and Bengals and completed 60.3 percent of his pass attempts for 2,479 yards, 15 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.