The Cleveland Browns have named veteran Joe Flacco their starting quarterback for Week 1. That’s bad news for former Pittsburgh Steelers first-round pick Kenny Pickett. While Pickett was a starter with the Steelers, he spent last year as a backup for the Philadelphia Eagles. This offseason, he was traded to the Browns, and it looked like a good opportunity for him to become a starter again. He lost out, but reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala recently hinted that Pickett could still have opportunities elsewhere.
“I was chatting with an offensive coach in the NFL just last night who was asking me about Kenny Pickett as a trade object for trade status,” Kinkhabwala said Monday on CBS Sports HQ. “And I do think, not just Pickett, it could be [Joe] Flacco. If you look around the league right now, there are still some unsettled quarterback situations.
“There are still some teams that potentially aren’t totally satisfied with their quarterback rooms. There’s a very good chance that Andrew Berry and the Browns are going to be fielding phone calls for any and all of these quarterbacks.”
Kinkhabwala is correct that multiple teams around the league are still in need of a quarterback. That most notable might be the New Orleans Saints. This offseason, Derek Carr retired, leaving them with a void under center. While the Saints spent a second-round pick on Tyler Shough, that likely wouldn’t stop them from kicking the tires on Pickett under the right circumstances.
The Saints aren’t the only team that could be interested in Pickett, either. The Indianapolis Colts have questions at quarterback, and Los Angeles Rams starter Matthew Stafford is dealing with injury issues.
Therefore, there could be a decent market for Pickett if the Browns choose to move on from him. They have their starter, but that isn’t the end of their decisions at quarterback. They started this process with four healthy quarterbacks. Now, they have to decide if they want to keep all four players or, more likely, move on from one of them.
Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders are both rookies, so the Browns have a little more incentive to keep both of them. With Flacco starting, that could leave Pickett as the odd man out.
Pickett is still working his way back from a hamstring injury he sustained in training camp. However, he once he’s healthy, the Browns could ship him off to another team. Maybe that will give him another chance to fight for a starting job. Pickett’s NFL career has been disappointing, but multiple former first-round quarterbacks have bounced back in recent years. Perhaps Pickett is next.
