It takes a certain kind of edge to win football games this time of year : Browns’ Joe Flacco describes what it takes to win in playoffs

As a Super Wild Card Weekend matchup with the Houston Texans approaches, the Browns are no strangers to tapping into a playoff mentality.

It takes a certain kind of edge to win football games this time of year.

Kevin Stefanski calls it the “second season,” but fans know it more fondly as “the playoffs,” and as the Browns gets ready to embark on their own postseason journey through the postseason tournament, they’re more than equipped pressures that come with it.

You just go prepare,” quarterback Joe Flacco said of what it takes to have a playoff mentality. “There’s not this daunting task of getting ready to prepare for 20 games. You’re preparing for one game and that’s it. You’re promised one game here. So I think that’s something good to fall back on. I think you can get comfort in that one game. Prepare as hard as you can for one week and then when that’s all done, we’ll pick up and see where we’re at.”

Sound familiar? That “one game at a time,” or as the team would put it “just go 1-0” mindset has been the creed of the 2023 Cleveland Browns. From the outset of the season they’ve dealt with an unprecedented number of long-term or season-ending injuries that threatened to derail a promising season.

It started Week 1 with starting right tackle Jack Conklin, quickly got worse in Week 2 when star running back Nick Chubb was lost with a gruesome knee injury, then spiraled into two different shoulder injuries for franchise QB Deshaun Watson, who wound up playing in just six games for the Browns.

There are others. As the roster sits today, 12 players currently find themselves on the IR, with a chance for one or two to possibly return during this postseason.

Through it all, Cleveland’s locker room stayed together and those cliché, coach speaky phrases like “next-man-up” and “1-0” became a way of life. That should make for a pretty easy transition into this high stakes second season, where a Lombardi Trophy is on the line.

“Everybody puts so much thought into what it takes to win these games and it’s doing the simple things the best you can and just playing good fundamental football,” Flacco explained. “This is the time of the year where that stuff shows up. Obviously, there’s going to be plays made and guys are going to make a name for themselves that –something’s going to happen over the next five weeks that we’re going to remember forever.”

Flacco is no stranger to what it takes to win in this time of year. The 16-year veteran won it all back in 2012 during his 11-year stint with the Baltimore Ravens. En route to winning Super Bowl 47 and the game’s MVP award, Flacco was brilliant, throwing for 1,140 yards, 11 touchdowns and not a single interception.

For his career, the veteran gunslinger is 10-5 in the playoffs and has never lost on Wild Card Weekend. He also has a chance to pass the best to ever do it, Tom Brady, for most road playoff wins in NFL history if he can get a win in Houston this weekend. So yeah, he’s seen a thing or two.

“A bunch of things just came together right at the right time,” Flacco said of that championship campaign. “Knd of manipulated our front a little bit with who was starting in our offense, on our offensive line, and I think that really was a big part of it. And then things just kind of go your way.

“…It’s just about playing fundamental, physical football and playing a full 60 minutes. And no matter what’s going on at the moment, being able to keep the blinders on and keep moving forward.”

More than a decade later, Flacco is hoping to channel some of that same magic and produce another magical championship run. This time for the Cleveland Browns and a a city starving to hoist a Lombardi Trophy.

That quest begins in Houston on Saturday, where the franchise will look to win just its second playoff game this century in a rematch with the Texans who it beat 36-22 just a few weeks back. Armed with Flacco and the scars of an adversity littered season, there’s not telling how far the Browns can go.