'It's Tough!' Former Ravens QB Joe Flacco on Winning Comeback Player of the Year Over Damar Hamlin
While former Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco feels honored to have been voted the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year, he's not sure he deserves it.
He thinks Bills safety Damar Hamlin should've been honored instead. Hamlin died on the field last January after suffering a cardiac arrest episode and had to be resuscitated on the field.
“It’s tough,” the Browns quarterback told cleveland.com on the red carpet at the NFL Honors show. “Obviously what Damar did was remarkable. The fact that he played at all, or wanted to play at all, that’s pretty unique.”
Flacco beat out the Bills' Damar Hamlin and the Bucs' Baker Mayfield for the win, although Hamlin had more first-place votes. Flacco won on points total.
Flacco joined the Browns in Week 12 and lit a fire under the team as he became the starting quarterback due to injuries to Deshaun Watson and Dorion Thompson-Robinson.
The former Ravens signal caller registered four consecutive 300-plus yard outings in five starts to help the team clinch a playoff berth.
After winning the award he gave a kind shout-out to the city of Cleveland - something probably unheard of a few years before when he was playing in Baltimore.
"Big thanks to the city of Cleveland, everybody in Cleveland," Flacco began. "I want to say thank you to my teammates just for welcoming me into that locker room at that point in the year. To welcome a new guy is not the easiest thing, so want to say thank you to those guys.
"Want to say thank you to the organization for just giving me the opportunity to do what I love to do, and that's play football. And I want to say thank you to the city just for making me and my family feel at home for a couple months."
Flacco has expressed a desire to return to the NFL in 2024, and specifically with the Browns, but Cleveland VP Andrew Berry avoided making any promises at the end of the season.
