Joe Flacco: "His mom's 8 days older than me": When Joe Flacco hilariously shot down "cool" compliment from Anthony Richardson

Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco is one of the oldest active players in the NFL entering the 2025 season. Flacco, currently competing for Cleveland's starting job this offseason, will be 41 before the end of the season.

Last season, Flacco played for the Indianapolis Colts, the same team as Anthony Richardson, the youngest quarterback in the 2023 rookie class. Flacco appeared in eight games in 2024, including a Week 4 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

After the game, the topic of his age came up in an interview with CBS reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala.

During the interview, Kinkhabwala revealed that Anthony Richardson told the CBS crew that he thought Flacco was "cooler than he thought he'd be". Responding to Richardson's compliment, Flacco dropped a hilarious quote to end the interview.

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"(Anthony Richardson's) mom is eight days older than I am, so there's no chance in the world he thinks I'm cool."

Flacco finished the game with 16 completions in 28 pass attempts, throwing for 168 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. The Colts upset the Steelers 27-24, giving them their first loss of the season last year.

Joe Flacco not looking to mentor Browns rookie QBs

The Cleveland Browns are one of few teams in the NFL entering their offseason program with a competition in the quarterback room. After bringing in Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, Cleveland drafted Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Flacco, 40, has a small leg up over the competition despite his age: Familiarity with Kevin Stefanski's system. While many expected Flacco to use the offseason to help bring Gabriel and Sanders along, the quarterback insists he's not looking to mentor Cleveland's young pair of signal-callers.

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"I'm not a mentor," Flacco told reporters on Thursday, May 29. "I play football. In a quarterback room, there's a lot of learning experiences, and I have a lot of experience, and I can talk on things and hopefully they listen. But it's not my job to make sure they listen."

Joe Flacco previously suited up in five games for the Browns in 2023, where he led the team to the postseason after throwing for 1,761 yards and 13 touchdowns with eight interceptions.

About the author

Ethen Hutton is an analyst who works for Sportskeeda, covering College Football, the NFL, the NBA and the WNBA. Ethen graduated high school with academic and athletic honors and is a member of the National High School Honors Society. After a gap year, Ethen jumped into sports writing and has over two years of experience in the field.

Ethen was raised in Ohio and is a Cleveland Cavaliers fan. His favorite all-time player is Pete Maravich as his shooting and ball-handling abilities were way ahead of his time. His favorite player in today’s NBA is Nikola Jokic due to his fascinating skillset as a big man.

Ethen loves the storylines around the NBA and the chaos that the offseason and trade deadlines bring. He enjoys technical deep dives with strong statistical analysis as well as stories where he's able to take a stance as an analyst. He is very prideful in the correctness of his work and will do extensive research to ensure all facts and evidence are 100% accurate.

When not working, Ethen enjoys recording his sports podcast, Wide Right. He is also a very invested fantasy football player.

Know More

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Edited by Prem Deshpande