{"id":662828,"date":"2026-01-08T03:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662828\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T03:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:52:19","slug":"shedeur-sanders-made-embarrassing-history-in-first-nfl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662828\/","title":{"rendered":"Shedeur Sanders Made Embarrassing History In First NFL Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shedeur Sanders<\/a> wrapped up his first NFL<\/a> season with a win over the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>, as the Cleveland Browns<\/a> finished the year, 5-12.<\/p>\n

The fifth round NFL Draft pick out of Colorado was pleased with some aspects of his inaugural professional season, and frustrated by others. Sanders knows he isn’t assured the starting job in Cleveland in 2026. However, he’s motivated to make things work with the AFC North<\/a> franchise.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think I did what I was able to do, and I definitely grew from a lot of things, and I got experience now,” Sanders said at his end-of-season press conference. “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. I can\u2019t speak on what other people feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland<\/p>\n

Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12)\u2019 surveys the field before an NFL football game at Huntington Bank Field, Dec. 21, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio.\u00a9 Jeff Lange &sol; USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

But while Sanders was happy with parts of his rookie season, he actually made some pretty embarrassing franchise history in Year 1.<\/p>\n

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Sanders finished with the lowest QBR of any Cleveland Browns quarterback in franchise history, after starting the final stretch of the season.<\/p>\n

Mel Kiper, though, remains high on Sanders<\/p>\n

Kiper Jr., who was outraged by Sanders’ NFL Draft slide, is still confident<\/a> in the quarterback’s professional future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what else the kid needs to do. Everything about Shedeur Sanders screams he\u2019s the quarterback. People were negative in April and they\u2019re going to be negative now. They are gonna be like, \u2018Oh, where\u2019s he ranked?\u2019 Forget that. Look at the interceptions that were off of Jerry Jeudy, off of Judkins\u2019 shoulder, batted balls.\u00a0Joe Burrow<\/a>\u00a0had one yesterday, are you blaming him for that? No. Are you going to blame Shedeur for that? You shouldn\u2019t,\u201d\u00a0Kiper said.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWhen you look at what Shedeur did this year, not having any training camp, never with the 1s\u2014defense or offense\u2014he was thrown out there playing in brutal weather conditions. If you are gonna sit there and tell me you weren\u2019t impressed with the rookie year of Shedeur Sanders, I would say you weren\u2019t watching the same game I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The question, of course, is if the Browns are confident in him moving forward…<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by The Spun<\/a> on Jan 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the NFL<\/a> section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shedeur Sanders wrapped up his first NFL season with a win over the Cincinnati Bengals, as the Cleveland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,256,85,54,2337,7,19676,2827,1577,6,15,8345,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-662828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-browns","12":"tag-clevelandbrowns","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-franchise-history","15":"tag-jerry-jeudy","16":"tag-joe-burrow","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-draft","19":"tag-rookie-season","20":"tag-shedeur-sanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115857453766126485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662828","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=662828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}