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Joe Flacco is back with the Cleveland Browns.

That’s a sentence most people thought would be written at this point last offseason, but it never happened.

Instead, the team went with Jameis Winston.

Now, with not many other options available, they turned back to Flacco to add a veteran leader to their locker room.

With that in mind, team insider Terry Pluto confirmed that, just like some people speculated, they didn’t sign Flacco last season because of Deshaun Watson:

“The Browns will never admit it, but one of the reasons they didn’t bring back Flacco in 2024 was Watson. The Browns knew fans would start chanting for Flacco when Watson struggled. They also knew the media would be a loud voice in that chorus,” Pluto wrote. “They went with Jameis Winston instead.”

Flacco went from foe to friend in the blink of an eye.

The fan base embraced him and the team rallied behind him, so having him there could’ve and would’ve been a huge distraction.

Of course, the team should’ve still done what was better for them and not necessarily for the player, but it’s not unusual to see an organization protect one of their own.

They still thought that Watson was their guy and that he could lead them to success once he got back to full strength.

That wasn’t the case, but, in hindsight, it’s hard to blame the team for trying to make things work with him and putting him in a position to succeed.

Watson is no longer a priority for the organization.

Team owner Jimmy Haslam openly claimed that they swung and missed with him, and they’re clearly not trying to protect him anymore.

Hopefully, it won’t be too late, but we’ve seen how quickly and drastically things can change in this line of business.