Joe Flacco Fires Back at “Mentor” Questions: “I’m Not a Mentor. I Play Football.”

Joe Flacco arrived in Cleveland with 17 years of NFL quarterback experience and strong opinions about veteran responsibilities in the QB room.

At Browns OTAs today, Flacco had a pointed response for reporters when asked about mentoring younger quarterbacks like Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel while also competing with them for a roster spot and the team's starting QB role.

Flacco called out the media's "mentor" question as a deliberate trap designed to create a controversy or "talking point" regardless of how a veteran quarterback responds.

"It's a good question to bait somebody into answering, and no matter how they answer it, it kind of makes the guy that's answering it look bad," Flacco said, adding, "If I say I don't want to be a mentor, I look bad. If I say I do want to be a mentor, then I look like an idiot that doesn't care about being good and playing football."

Rather than dance around the topic, Flacco offered a refreshingly honest perspective: he's competing to play, not preparing to step aside. When pressed further, Flacco firmly stated, "I see myself as a guy that can play in this league. So if your main focus was just like, 'Hey, bud, I'm going to get you ready,' you're just not taking care of business".

Clearly summarizing his stance on the issue, Flacco stated, "I'm not a mentor. I play football."

Despite his resistance to the "mentor" label, Flacco didn't dismiss the value of or his interest in helping younger players: "In a quarterback room, there's a lot of times—there's already been a ton of times—where there's learning experiences, and I have a lot of experience, and I can talk on things, and hopefully they listen."

For a Browns quarterback room with a wealth of younger talent, Flacco's message remains clear: he'll share his extensive knowledge, but his primary focus is winning the starting job himself.

"The best way to be a mentor, honestly, is show people how you go to work," Flacco explained. "And like I said, hope that they pick up on that stuff, but not necessarily force them to pick up on the things that you do."

Perhaps most revealing was Flacco's meta-commentary on sports journalism itself. He acknowledged the strategic nature of certain questions he's received during his lengthy career, noting that reporters can "write what you want to write about it" regardless of his response.

Flacco's willingness to call out the inherent bias in the line of questioning demonstrates both his extensive media experience and his refusal to play along with narratives that don't serve his goals—like one might expect from a savvy 40-year-old vet.