CINCINNATI — Joe Flacco is the Bengals’ new starting quarterback, and Sports Illustrated insider Albert Breer thinks it’s a “game-changer” for the Bengals’ season.

He has a serious belief that Flacco could win enough games for the Bengals to eventually let Joe Burrow come back and punch home a playoff spot. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Cincinnati an 8.7% chance to make the playoffs, the lowest odds of any 2-3 team. Ironically, the Bengals playoff chances decreased following the Flacco trade from 9.2% to 8.7%.

“I think that Joe Flacco is in two ways,” Breer wrote. “One, he doesn’t need to be great. He just needs to be average, which would give the Bengals a level of quarterback play they just weren’t getting from Jake Browning, who, for whatever reason, wasn’t throwing it or seeing it the way he did two years ago (his arm really died the past couple of weeks). Two, the idea isn’t that Flacco’s going to run off seven or eight consecutive wins before handing the reins back to Joe Burrow—it’s to keep the team alive through a reasonable schedule.

“I’ve said it a ton, and I’ll say it again: The opportunity to enter the playoffs with Burrow as your quarterback is gold, and should be treated as such. The Bengals, I think, greatly improved their chances of making that happen on Tuesday, and don’t need to get Flacco a time machine for it. Adequate might be enough.”

Average would be great from Flacco, but there has been zero sign this season that he can climb from the bottom of the barrel, let alone play average.

Browning ranks last among qualified NFL QBs in EPA/play. The next spot ahead of him? Flacco, who actually rates worse in ESPN’s QBR than Browning.

Now, that was with arguably the worst receiving corps in the NFL from the Browns. Having Cincinnati’s elite weapons could pull him from those depths. The same could be said the other way with Cincinnati’s offensive line, which is statistically the worst offensive line in the league, and it’s not that close.

We will start to find out which weighs heavier on Sunday against the Packers at 4:25 p.m. ET.

Pass protection composite ratings

Audibly laughed when I saw the bottom 2. Have fun with that, Joe Flacco pic.twitter.com/kdZLaOXKFS

— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) October 8, 2025