{"id":729267,"date":"2026-02-04T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/729267\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:32:12","slug":"shedeur-sanders-thinks-he-showed-he-can-dominate-todd-monken-isnt-even-sure-hes-clevelands-starter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/729267\/","title":{"rendered":"Shedeur Sanders Thinks He Showed He Can ‘Dominate’. Todd Monken Isn’t Even Sure He’s Cleveland’s Starter."},"content":{"rendered":"

Todd Monken wanted to draft Shedeur Sanders last year with the Ravens. Now he is his coach\u2014and doesn\u2019t know if he\u2019ll start. Sanders, a 2025 Pro Bowler<\/a> [pause for laughter], finished the season as the Browns\u2019 starter. He believes he proved that he can dominate<\/a> in the NFL. Monken, however, hasn\u2019t seen enough to blindly hand him the starting job.<\/p>\n

Asked if he will operate with Shedeur Sanders as the Browns\u2019 starting quarterback this offseason, Monken demurred<\/a>. \u201cWell, I think like any position on the team, that\u2019s still to be determined. Am I excited about Shedeur? Am I excited about all the quarterbacks in the room? Am I excited to coach this football team? Absolutely. I can\u2019t wait for them to get back and for us to get started\u201d.<\/p>\n

A fifth-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Shedeur Sanders spent a good chunk of his rookie season as the Browns\u2019 third-string quarterback. After the team traded Joe Flacco, he graduated to backup, with fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel starting. An injury to Gabriel opened the door for him to claim the starting job. Or at least for the Browns to use it as an excuse to see how it plays out.<\/p>\n

Now, Sanders did make some big-time NFL throws, and he clearly has talent. His body of work, however, frequently ranked near the bottom of the league. He was among the least accurate passers in the NFL and had the second-highest interception rate. On 212 attempts, he threw 10 touchdown passes and 7 interceptions. The only quarterbacks who had a lower successful play rate were Brady Cook and\u2026Dillon Gabriel. So Sanders eventually starting over Gabriel is not so impressive.<\/p>\n

Reports surfaced that the Ravens wanted to draft Shedeur Sanders, but that Sanders didn\u2019t want to be stuck behind Lamar Jackson. Todd Monken declined to comment about that, though he told Sanders he wanted to draft him. The Browns even advertised it on social media<\/a>. \u201cWe tried to draft your ass last year\u201d, he said in a video clip posted on Cleveland\u2019s X account. \u201cIt\u2019s all worked out. You remember that, right? Someday we\u2019ll get a chance to talk about that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet when asked about it during his press conference, Monken said of Sanders and the Ravens\u2019 interest in him that it would be \u201cunfair\u201d to comment. \u201cObviously, we had an affection, like a lot of teams, of Shedeur\u2019s skill set and what we thought he could become, but I really wouldn\u2019t want to go in depth of another team\u2019s process\u201d.<\/p>\n

If Shedeur Sanders is not Todd Monken\u2019s starter, the Browns don\u2019t currently have a lot of tempting alternatives. There is Deshaun Watson, to whom they are still chained due to his comically bloated contract. Now finally healthy enough to play, will Monken actually consider playing him? There is also the draft and free agency\u2014including bringing back Joe Flacco. Another Pro Bowler. Because the honorific no longer holds any meaning at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Todd Monken wanted to draft Shedeur Sanders last year with the Ravens. Now he is his coach\u2014and doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[54,7,17,23813],"class_list":{"0":"post-729267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-cleveland-browns","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-shedeur-sanders","11":"tag-todd-monken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116013560647843754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729267","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=729267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}