As Joe Flacco‘s stunning resurgence has lifted the Browns to a playoff berth, injuries have still defined the team’s season at quarterback. Flacco’s backup, and Deshaun Watson‘s top reserve to start the season, Dorian Thompson-Robinson is on IR.
The Browns had brought P.J. Walker back to their 53-man roster, but they now have some additional insurance. The team signed Jeff Driskel off the Cardinals’ practice squad Friday, GOPHNX.com’s Howard Balzer tweets. Driskel will join Flacco and Walker on Cleveland’s active roster.
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Because the Browns are poaching Driskel off another team’s P-squad, he must remain on their 53-man roster for at least three weeks. Driskel represents the latest Browns-Cardinals QB move, with the teams exchanging Josh Dobbs in August. Driskel moving from Drew Petzing‘s system to Kevin Stefanski‘s will make for a smooth transition, seeing as Petzing was the Browns’ QBs coach previously.
This will be team No. 7 for Driskel, who had been with the 49ers, Lions, Bengals, Broncos and Texans before joining the Cardinals in April. During a busy period for the Browns at quarterback, the 30-year-old passer joins a team that has two signal-callers on IR, a starter who was out of football until November and a backup who had been demoted to the practice squad.
A 2016 49ers sixth-round pick, Driskel has not thrown a pass this season. The Cards reshuffled their QB room by drafting Clayton Tune and trading for Dobbs four months later. Dobbs became Arizona’s starter, late arrival notwithstanding, and Tune his backup as Kyler Murray finished off his ACL rehab. Although the Cardinals moved on from Colt McCoy and David Blough, Driskel remained as a P-squad arm.
Driskel is just a 59.2% career passer, at 6.1 yards per attempt, and has a 1-9 record as a starter. Most of those starts came for struggling Bengals and Lions teams (2018-19), with Driskel filling in for Andy Dalton and then Matthew Stafford. He started one game for the Texans last season. It is unclear if the Browns will want Driskel as their backup, but Walker has completed just 48.6% of his passes (6.1 Y/A), regressing from his Panthers form.
It’s a smart move to carry three QBs into the post-season, especially after what happened to the 49ers last season. Driskel will probably be the emergency QB.
If you’re down to using an emergency QB in the playoffs, your season is probably over. I imagine a few coaches would like the option of carrying 3 kickers though.
Man, that is a quick read n turn around on an unfamiliar playbook. A whole new system w/diff jargon, need 2B up 2speed firmly grasping that O w/ability to call plays in huddle within days. All the diff routes of receivers n then trying to have timing w/em. Of course if he was drawn into service that quickly they’d dummy the playbook down sum what but still new team, new town, n need2 learn new pro system in hours. And talking bout emergency QBs, wasn’t Flacco P-squad QB n now has browns sniffing playoffs ?