three more 2024 quarterbacks have led their teams to a playoff berth<\/a>.<\/p>\nSelected at first, third and 12th respectively, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Bo Nix vary in style and NFL early-career experience. While Nix arrived to an organization with coaching stability, receiving play calls from Super Bowl-winning Sean Payton, his counterparts each entered Year 2 with a new head coach. Their two coaching r\u00e9sum\u00e9s differ vastly, Chicago\u2019s Ben Johnson a first-time head coach who\u2019s calling offensive plays while New England\u2019s Mike Vrabel is a second-time head coach calling plays on neither side of the ball.<\/p>\n
And yet, talent evaluators around the league look at each of their stories and see the success stemming from coach at least as much as quarterback. The \u201cright\u201d coach was hired. Neither his quality nor quantity of experience determined whether he was the right coach.<\/p>\n
Finding Mr. Right will be Berry\u2019s job in the coming weeks, after which the group will decide how and with whom they want to augment the quarterback room. Doing nothing, while currently on track for a host of 2026 draft picks, including the sixth overall as well as a late first-round selection, would be shocking.<\/p>\n
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While free agency is always an option, 12 of the 14 starting quarterbacks in this year\u2019s postseason were selected in the first round. Three are no longer with the team that initially drafted them, a reminder of success teams have had in recent years finding quarterbacks via trade or free agency.<\/p>\n
That context may hint at the Browns brass\u2019s next move. And it may hint at Sanders\u2019 chance of keeping the starting job through 2026.. Fifth-round quarterbacks face uphill battles. So do quarterbacks selected before a coach had input in that decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think overall, like as a quarterback, I showed different pieces in different games to all add up to one complete quarterback,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I had to get to in those situations \u2014 red-zone situations, field-goal situations, third-down situations, \u2018where you at on the field\u2019 situations. So, it was a lot of situations that was good. I feel like this was a good learning year for me, and I\u2019m excited for it. Because like I say, like moving forward I\u2019ll be prepared.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did what I was able to do, and I definitely grew from a lot of things. And I got experience now. So, I\u2019m always the same: confidence-wise, I\u2019m there. But like, that\u2019s not in my hands. Like, that\u2019s not my decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t speak on what other people feel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a day when the Cleveland Browns knew fans wanted answers and accountability, team brass didn\u2019t hide the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[2007,925,86,1036,692,85,54,2337,427,563,1033,833,7,734,2033,19973,8591,1167,6,1257,17,582],"class_list":{"0":"post-657947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-andrew-berry","9":"tag-bo-nix","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-caleb-williams","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-cleveland","14":"tag-cleveland-browns","15":"tag-clevelandbrowns","16":"tag-commanders","17":"tag-deshaun-watson","18":"tag-dillon-gabriel","19":"tag-drake-maye","20":"tag-football","21":"tag-jayden-daniels","22":"tag-jimmy-haslam","23":"tag-joel-bitonio","24":"tag-kevin-stefanski","25":"tag-new-england","26":"tag-nfl","27":"tag-quarterback","28":"tag-shedeur-sanders","29":"tag-the-browns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115847198596362717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"CHICAGO,](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/b8294303-a8ea-4f69-8a08-86ab95cea011.jpeg\"\/)
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