Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski has to be telling a lie — a white lie, mind you, but a lie nonetheless — when he says, as he did in Monday’s “day-after” press conference, that he won’t commit to a starting quarterback yet for Sunday’s home game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Because if he is truly serious — and, for the life of me, I can’t believe he is, or would be — then he has gone mad. And I don’t mean he’s angry. That’s mad as in losin’ his cotton-pickin’ mind.

Although the Browns lost 36-19 to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, and although he threw a costly interception late in the fourth quarter, Joe Flacco, in his first start for Cleveland, put on the kind of performance the club has not had in 16 years, since Derek Anderson’s 29-touchdown passes season of 2007 that earned him a Pro Bowl berth.

Before that, it was Kelly Holcomb’s 429-yard performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2002 playoffs, and before that, it was Bernie Kosar throughout the last half of the 1980s.

Why in the world would Flacco not start again — and again, again, again and again in the Browns’ five remaining regular-season games, and perhaps the playoff contest if they make it?

If the season ended today, then the 7-5 Browns would be in the postseason for the first time since 2020. The Browns need to put everything they have into doing that. This is not at all about bringing along a rookie quarterback in Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

And, let me also be clear on this: Stefanski is not keeping the Jags guessing by failing to declare Flacco as the starter. They would laugh at the coach and the Browns if they started the kid.

Steve King