Joe Flacco had a simple message for the Browns’ young quarterbacks: stop chasing the look and focus on what actually matters.
That moment comes through in Season 3 of Netflix’s Quarterback docuseries, where Flacco is one of four quarterbacks featured. In episode two, the veteran is on the practice field in Berea when he notices Shedeur Sanders wearing a mirrored visor over his helmet. He first flags it to a nearby coach, then turns to Sanders and Dillon Gabriel with a blunt explanation of why he thinks the accessory is a bad idea.
”Yeah, but if you wear a visor, it’s for looks. You think you look sweet.
It’s that era. I don’t want my kids to wear visors either.
They all want visors. I’m like, ‘Guys, they’re just annoying.
They’re gonna fog up.’
”They (expletive) suck, dude. It’s all about look.
When I was a kid I wanted a visor too, and then I’m like, ‘The visors suck. They don’t make sense.’
“I would let (my kids) wear it, but I would tell them, ‘You’re a quarterback, bro, you’re (expletive) wearing a visor? You look like a (expletive) idiot. If you’re a quarterback, you can tell (when) you’re trying to look too sweet.”
The exchange is played for laughs, but the point lands clearly: in Flacco’s view, substance beats style every time. And in a Browns quarterback room that spent the offseason, training camp, preseason and fall surrounded by wild possibilities, that kind of straight talk fits right in.
Cleveland’s 2025 quarterback situation was the kind of thing that would sound made up if it weren’t real. At different points, people believed Kenny Pickett might start a regular-season game, Deshaun Watson could get back on the field while still recovering from a twice-torn Achilles tendon, and Flacco might somehow recreate the brief spark he produced in 2023.
Then there were the rookies, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, who each became part of the conversation in their own way. Gabriel was compared to former head coach Hue Jackson’s quarterback situation, while Sanders drew claims that he had been conspired against in the NFL Draft, deliberately sabotaged by Kevin Stefanski, and still managed a heroic season despite being statistically one of the worst rookie quarterbacks of the past 25 years.
Hollywood might have passed on a setup like that. Netflix did not. And in the middle of all that noise, Flacco’s visor lecture offered a small but telling snapshot of what the veteran thinks a quarterback should be about.
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