Rookie Shedeur Sanders reportedly produced impressive numbers during the Cleveland Browns’ organized team activities practice session on Wednesday. However, it was also said that Sanders was a “distant fourth” behind Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel as it pertains to reps taken.
During the latest edition of the “Orange and Brown Talk Podcast,” Browns reporters Dan Labbe and Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer expanded on what did and didn’t happen in Berea on Wednesday.
“Today, at least, Shedeur Sanders very much looked like the fourth quarterback,” Labbe directly said. “Dillon Gabriel was working his way up and down a little bit. Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco were trading things out pretty much all day. In everything we watched, Shedeur Sanders was, I don’t want to say an afterthought, but he was definitely the last guy in the pecking order.”
Cabot noted that Sanders “definitely was” QB4 during Wednesday’s practice.
That makes sense considering Sanders was the last of the four signal-callers to officially join the Browns this spring. Cleveland traded for Pickett before the club signed Flacco ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft. The Browns later made Gabriel a third-round draft pick before they took a flier on Sanders in the fifth round of the player-selection process.
“Sanders is very clearly fourth on the depth chart,” Browns insider Jason Lloyd of The Athletic wrote for a piece published Wednesday night. “…If Sanders is going to win [the starting job] or even a spot on the roster, he has some hurdling to do. Luckily for him, he has plenty of time.”
For what it’s worth, most local reporters believe only Flacco or Pickett has a legitimate chance to emerge as Cleveland’s Week 1 starter as long as both stay healthy. FanDuel Sportsbook has consistently listed Flacco as the betting favorite at +116 odds to win the job.
That said, Nick Baumgardner of The Athletic mentioned in a piece posted on Thursday that “Sanders is a better prospect (than Gabriel) and did more statistically last season with far less talent around him.”
“If there’s any Day 3 quarterback with a reasonable line to a starting job,” Baumgardner added, “it’s Sanders, who joins Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel in a fight to take Deshaun Watson’s old job. Flacco is 40, Pickett is on his third team in four years and Gabriel, despite being selected higher in this year’s draft than Sanders, is a 5-foot-11 QB with a lot of question marks.”
Fans who assumed ahead of the draft that Sanders was a first-round talent will undeniably campaign for the polarizing prospect to receive playing time this fall if the Browns enter November with a losing record. Additionally, Cleveland could trade Flacco or Pickett shortly after the team names a Week 1 QB1.
Cabot was sure to point out that head coach Kevin Stefanski “indicated he’ll continue to mix up the order — such as flip-flopping Pickett and Flacco going first in team drills — meaning not too much should be read into Sanders’ status at the outset.” In short, it’s possible Stefanski wanted outsiders to assume he has Gabriel ahead of Sanders on the depth chart as of the final week of May.
