BEREA, Ohio (AP) — Kevin Stefanski resolved the biggest storyline of the Cleveland Browns training camp by naming Joe Flacco the starting quarterback on Monday.
But as is the case with the quarterback position in Brownstown, naming a starter for the Week 1 opener against the Cincinnati Bengals set off a new round of questions.
The one at the top of everyone's mind is how long Flacco thinks he can hang on to the job? Of the 10 quarterbacks who have started a game for the Browns since they traded Baker Mayfield in 2022, Flacco is tied for fifth with five starts in 2023, when he went 4-1 and directed Cleveland to its third playoff berth since returning to the league in 1999.
“Well, we all know how that works. I mean, that’s everybody in the league, but it’s not really my job to look at it in that way. It’s just to go out there and play my game. Kind of like I’ve been doing all training camp and not worrying about all that stuff, just going out there, playing my game and being the best I can," Flacco said Tuesday. "I felt like I was having a good camp with the reps that I was given, and that’s all you can do.”
Flacco would also become the 11th different quarterback in league history to start a Week 1 game when they were at least 40 years old.
Even though Flacco was the only Browns quarterback who has not missed time during training camp because of an injury, Stefanski said the decision went beyond what has transpired for the last month.
“I understand with the injuries, how that may look, that’s really not the case here,” he said. "Joe performed really well, both in practice, in the joint practices, in the meeting room, you name it. What he’s able to bring to the football team, he’s earned that role.”
Stefanski has not determined if Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders will be Flacco's backup. General manager Andrew Berry also has one week to determine if the team will indeed keep four quarterbacks on the roster. According to Sportradar, that has happened only five times since 2000.
Pickett continues to come back from a hamstring strain but did get some snaps in 11-on-11 drills on Tuesday. Sanders was limited due to an oblique injury.
Flacco and the starters will see action in Saturday's preseason finale against the Los Angeles Rams, with the amount of playtime left to be determined.
“I think we all feel pretty good. You only get a certain amount of reps out there, and I think we’ve made the most of it, and I think that’s every team in the league to a certain extent," Flacco said. "I think the good thing about this week is, we kind of get to put ourselves through a little bit of a game plan and simulate what we would be doing during the year. I think that’s going to give everybody that extra confidence to take that next step.”
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Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski gestures during an NFL football practice in Berea, Ohio, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco passes during an NFL football practice in Berea, Ohio, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura won Honduras’ presidential election, electoral authorities said Wednesday afternoon, ending a weeks-long count that has whittled away at the credibility of the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system.
The election is continuing Latin America’s swing to the right, coming just a week after Chile chose the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its next president.
Asfura, of the conservative National Party received 40.27% of the vote in the Nov. 30, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, who finished with 39.53% of the vote.
The former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, won in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla were neck-and-neck during a weeks-long vote count that fueled international concern.
On Tuesday night a number of electoral officials and candidates were already fighting and contesting the results of the election. Meanwhile, followers in Asfura's campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.
"Honduras: I am prepared to govern," wrote Asfura in a post on X shortly after the results were released. “I will not let you down.”
The results were a rebuke of the current leftist leader, and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, whose candidate finished in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on Wednesday, writing on a post on X: “The people of Honduras have spoken ... (the Trump administration) looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”
The European Union and number of right-leading leaders across Latin America, namely Trump-ally Argentine President Javier Milei, also congratulated the politician.
Asfura ran as a pragmatic politician, pointing to his popular infrastructure projects in the capital. Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative just days before the vote, saying he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.
Nasralla maintained the claim that the election was fraudulent on Wednesday, saying electoral authorities who announced the results “betrayed the Honduran people."
On Tuesday night, he also addressed Trump in a post on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”
He and others opponents of Asfura have maintained that Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that ultimately swung the results of the vote.
The unexpectedly tumultuous election was also marred by a sluggish vote count, which fueled even more accusations.
The Central American nation was stuck in limbo for more than three weeks as vote counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one point was paralyzed after a special count of final vote tallies was called, fueling warnings by international leaders.
After expressing democratic concern about the lack of results days before, Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Rambin wrote on a post on X on Wednesday that the OAS “takes note” of the results announced and noted it is “closely following events in Honduras”.
It also condemned electoral authorities for announcing the results while the final .07% of votes were counted with such razor-thin margins in the election.
For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption.
She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American who were elected on a hopeful message of change around five years ago but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their vision. Castro said last week that she would accept the results of the elections even after she claimed that Trump’s actions in the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”
But Eric Olson, an independent international observer during the Honduran election with the Seattle International Foundation, and other observers said the rejection of Castro and her party was so definitive that they had little room to contest the results.
“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson said. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.” —— Janetsky reported from Mexico City.
Supporters of the National Party celebrate as the National Electoral Council decelerate presidential candidate Nasry Asfura the winner of Honduras' presidential election in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Destephen)
Supporters of the National Party celebrate after the National Electoral Council declared presidential candidate Nasry Asfura the winner of Honduras' presidential election in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Destephen)
