Browns QB Joe Flacco is baffling pick for Comeback Player of Year
By Adam Gretz | Last updated 2/9/24
Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco surprisingly won the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award on Thursday night, beating out Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Flacco joined the Browns late in the season as a free agent and took over the starting quarterback job following the season-ending injury to Deshaun Watson. The Browns went 4-1 in his five regular-season starts to lead the teams playoffs.
While Flacco’s story was definitely a positive one for him and the Browns, it is really difficult to see how it warrants winning a major award. Especially given some of the other candidates in the league this season.
The slam dunk pick would have been Hamlin for his return to the field after suffering a cardiac arrest last season in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He did not play a major role in the Bills defense this season, appearing in just five games and recording only two tackles. The counterpoint to that is obviously that he nearly died on the field and came back the next season to play NFL football.
There is nobody coming back from anything more than that. There is also nobody that would have questioned the result if he had won.
Even with that, there is still a production and quality of play element to the award. To that extent, Flacco did produce more than Hamlin.
But did he produce enough to warrant the award? And what exactly did he come back from? Especially when compared to a player like Stafford, who would have been a more logical choice.
Unlike Flacco, Stafford actually came back from a significant injury that at one point was thought to potentially end his career. He not only played all but one game during the season, he played at an extremely high level throughout the year and was even better than he was prior to his injury a year ago.
The only thing Flacco came back from was being unsigned as a free agent to play at a slightly higher level than he did the year before.
It’s just a strange choice by the voters. Flacco didn’t play at a particularly high level and he didn’t come back from anything that put his career in jeopardy. Those are usually the types of players that win this award. Flacco didn’t fit any of that.
