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Fans chanted for the Browns to bench Dillon Gabriel for Shedeur Sanders against the Ravens.
The Cleveland Browns don’t need Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel next season, and one of them makes more sense as a trade candidate than the other.
Sanders might draw more interest on the market after taking the starting job from his fellow rookie signal-caller following Gabriel’s mid-season concussion and displaying more dynamism with a higher ceiling. But Browns fans embraced Sanders, and he showed enough that team brass has to at least give him a chance to win the QB1 job in training camp.
Gabriel, on the other hand, was a third-round pick who offered game-management skills and protected the football more effectively than Sanders during his time on the field.
Cleveland may not get anything better than a late-round draft pick back in return for Gabriel, though the Browns could potentially package him to a team in need of a backup along with a 2026 draft asset and take a flier on a former first-round QB in exchange.
The Indianapolis Colts got into the Daniel Jones business last season, and things were going swimmingly until he tore his Achilles tendon. Jones took over for former No. 4 pick Anthony Richardson ahead of his third NFL season, and Richardson’s time in Indy appears unlikely to stretch beyond the end of his $34 million rookie contract after this season.
Indianapolis can pick up Richardson’s fifth-year team option this spring, but that makes little sense if the Colts intend to sign Jones to a contract extension and transition back to him once he’s healthy.
However, flipping Richardson to a team like the Browns in exchange for Gabriel and the No. 107 overall pick, for instance, would allow Indy to extract maximum value for Richardson before he presumably leaves on his own for nothing a year or two from now.
Colts Have Made Clear Anthony Richardson Isn’t Team’s Future
GettyIndianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson.
Bradley Locker of Pro Football Focus dubbed Richardson among to league’s likeliest 15 trade candidates heading into 2026, authoring a case for Indianapolis to move him.
“The former fourth overall pick played just 14 total snaps last season, missing a golden opportunity to gain reps because of an orbital fracture,” Locker wrote on January 20. “Across his three-year career, Richardson has recorded just a 60.0 overall PFF grade with 22 big-time throws and 19 turnover-worthy plays.”
Indy might decide to hold onto Richardson due to Jones’s health situation. However, it’s difficult to imagine Richardson as a longterm starting option after the team benched him in 2024 for Joe Flacco then picked Jones over him last preseason.
Gabriel isn’t the answer as a starter for the Colts either, but he could fill a backup role while also adding a fourth-round pick to Indy’s depleted draft stores after the Colts dealt away two first-rounders (2026, 2027) to the New York Jets for cornerback Sauce Gardner ahead of last year’s trade deadline.
Shedeur Sanders, Anthony Richardson QB Competition Isn’t Worst Outcome for Browns Next Season
GettyCleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
There are other pathways for the Colts to gain a stopgap starter and/or future Jones challenger, while the Browns could bring in a high-talent, low-risk player to compete with Sanders for the QB1 job under a new head coach.
“It also wouldn’t be surprising [for] teams [to] take a swing on the 23-year-old [Richardson], especially given his raw talent and the recent wave of first-round reclamation projects under center,” Locker continued.
The Browns own the Nos. 6 and 24 picks in this year’s first round, but that won’t land them an elite QB prospect in 2026. Next year’s group of incoming rookie signal-callers will be considerably better and deeper, however.
Cleveland is about to undertake a massive offensive rebuild regardless, so using its draft capital and free agency to reconstruct an abysmal offensive line and add skill position players around the QB spot makes sense.
Meanwhile, Sanders and Richardson can use their second and fourth pro seasons, respectively, to try and establish a resumé that earns them the right to remain in Cleveland and play/compete for a starting role longterm.
If neither works out, the Browns can move on from Richardson and Deshaun Watson following the 2026 campaign, figure out some path for Sanders — either a trade, cut or spot as a reserve QB until his rookie contract is up — and pursue a viable starter via free agency, trade or the draft in 2027.
Max Dible covers the NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns. He covered local and statewide news as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and served as news director for BigIslandNow.com and Pacific Media Group’s family of Big Island radio stations before joining Heavy. More about Max Dible
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