Joe Flacco can replicate rare feat not seen since 1962

This weekend Joe Flacco comes up against the Green Bay Packers, again. For the second time this season the veteran quarterback will take on the Packers due to a odd quirk of the NFL schedule.

Flacco began the season playing for the Cleveland Browns and secured a win over Green Bay in Week 3. Earlier this week he made a shock trade to the Cincinnati Bengals, who are now taking on the Packers in their Week 6 matchup.

There have been six previous examples of a quarterback playing against the same opponent twice in a season while representing two different teams. Only once has a quarterback won on both occasions, Jack Kemp in 1962. Kemp led the Chargers to a 40-14 victory over the Titans, before moving to the Bills and inflicting a 20-3 loss on the Titans in Week 14. Flacco is looking to replicate that little-known record this weekend.

It’s a strange turn of events for the 40-year-old, who is already on his second team of the 2025 NFL season. Flacco was recently benched for Dillon Gabriel with the Browns and was unlikely to force his way back into the starting position with Shedeur Sanders also pushing for playing time.

The Bengals were eager to make a chance behind center after the injury to Joe Burrow earlier in the season. Backup Jake Browning was initially given the opportunity but after losing all three of his starts by a combined 76 points the Bengals decided they had no choice but to move on.

“After a game like that we’re going to look at all personnel to make sure we’re doing the right thing,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said after the 37-24 loss to the Detroit Lions. “I won’t shy away from that because it’s a very fair question after the amount of turnovers we had. To say Jake [Browning] can’t win games for us, I believe Jake can win games for us. I do. We’ll just continue to look at everything we can personnel-wise.”

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