The Packers’ preparation for Week 6 took a twist on Tuesday when the Bengals acquired quarterback Joe Flacco in a trade with the Browns.
Flacco’s change of address was unexpected given the rarity of trades involving teams in the same division, but one silver lining for the Packers is that they’ve seen Flacco recently. The Browns beat the Packers in Week 3 with Flacco as their starting quarterback and seeing him again will mark a first for Packers head coach Matt LaFleur.
“I don’t think, outside of a division game, I’ve ever seen the same quarterback on a different team,” LaFleur said at his Wednesday press conference. “It’ll be interesting.”
The Bengals haven’t officially named Flacco their starter for this week, but LaFleur doesn’t see much reason to think that they will wait to put the veteran into the lineup.
“I would say that Joe Flacco’s been playing this game for a really long time and he’s been in a lot of different systems, so I would bet that he would have no problems picking it up even in a short period of time,” LaFleur said.
LaFleur said that “nuances” of the offense could present some challenges for the Bengals, but he is expecting them to continue doing “what they’ve done” as long as Zac Taylor’s been their head coach and the Packers will be hoping things go better than they did the last time they saw Flacco in action.
