Flacco Offers ‘Old Man Answer’ When Asked About Young Browns originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
In 2024, Joe Flacco was the fifth-oldest player in the NFL, and the second-oldest quarterback. Flacco is older than the classic movie “Back to the Future,” and when asked about his younger teammates and the NFL practice schedule, Flacco went back to the past for comparison.
The NFL practice schedule certainly became less grueling over the years, and Flacco has had a first-hand, front seat view to those changes over his 17-year career.
But NFL practices are still a major adjustment for new players coming into the league from college, something Flacco spoke on.
“Even when it got easier in like 2011, I think, everybody that was playing at that point had been through two-a-days at some point in their life,” Flacco explained, per Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein. “Guys coming into the NFL now have never done it. They’ve never done it.”
Two-a-days were outlawed in the NFL in 2011 as part of that year’s collective bargaining agreement, and the NCAA did away with them fully in 2017.
“We’re out there for an hour and 15 minutes and guys think it’s hard,” Flacco added. “Our OTAs were two hours, for sure.”
Flacco’s “back in my day” answer certainly aged the veteran, and rookies these days will never know the struggle of the NFL’s previously strenuous practice schedule.
The changes to the NFL’s practice scheduling policies certainly benefit the players, who now have a better chance of staying healthy during the offseason and being able to maintain a now-17 game NFL schedule.
On the other side, some wonder if the less strenuous practices cause teams to get off to slower starts in the season.
Flacco has a pair of rookie quarterbacks under his tutelage, in third-round pick Dillon Gabriel and fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 14, 2025, where it first appeared.