{"id":94843,"date":"2025-06-01T03:55:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/94843\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T03:55:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:55:26","slug":"the-brutal-reality-for-shedeur-sanders-as-browns-qb-competition-begins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/94843\/","title":{"rendered":"The brutal reality for Shedeur Sanders as Browns\u2019 QB competition begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shedeur Sanders is carving up players who will be on practice\u00a0squads or out of the NFL come September.<\/p>\n

And that may be an apt description for his standing.<\/p>\n

Cleveland.com\u2019s Mary Kay Cabot noted after Sanders\u2019 stats in a recent organized team activities (OTA) went viral that the polarizing prospect is the team\u2019s fourth-string quarterback.<\/p>\n

\"Shedeur<\/p>\n

Shedeur Sanders during a recent OTA. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cShedeur Sanders \u2026 did not take one rep in 11-on-11s,\u201d Cabot said earlier this week<\/a> on the \u201cOrange and Brown Talk\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe has to come in here as the fourth-string quarterback and work his way up that depth chart. So, he did not take a team rep. He did not have (rookie defensive tackle) Mason Graham in his face yesterday at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion of Sanders\u2019 positioning in the Browns\u2019 quarterback battle comes after the four contenders for the starting job in Sanders, Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco and Dillon Gabriel participated in OTAs this week. Deshaun Watson is expected to miss the season after undergoing Achilles tendon surgeries.<\/p>\n

Cabot and Dan Labee offered key context on the podcast to the eye-popping practice stats from ESPN Cleveland that showed Sanders completed 7-of-9 passes with three touchdowns \u2013 better numbers than Pickett, Flacco and Gabriel had that same day.<\/p>\n

Except that all of Sanders\u2019 production came during 7-on-7 periods, presumably against the back end of the defensive roster.<\/p>\n

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Why is that distinction important?<\/p>\n

Spring practices are structured to favor offensive success because defensive linemen run by the quarterbacks and raise their hands for what would be a sack.<\/p>\n

Then, take it one step further and 7-on-7s \u2014 with no pass rush and endless quarterback comfort \u2014 are even more slanted toward completions.<\/p>\n

Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski indicated the snaps order isn\u2019t rigid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Sanders<\/p>\n

Sanders is running fourth in the race, per the report. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re mixing it up every single day,\u201d Stefanski said. \u201cSo that\u2019s why I tell you not to read much into it, even though you guys don\u2019t listen to me. But we\u2019re just trying to get guys exposure to different concepts, those types of things. So, it varies by walkthrough. It can vary by drill. It\u2019s not something that we\u2019re really \u2014 we\u2019re not leaning into or worried about the order at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As a point of snap comparison, the Giants gave Russell Wilson most of the first-team 11-on-11 reps during last week\u2019s OTA but also mixed in rookie Jaxson Dart for three plays with the starters.<\/p>\n

Jameis Winston ran the second-team offense, Dart was first up with the third-team offense and fourth-stringer Tommy DeVito \u2013 the former viral sensation \u2013 only took four snaps (none consecutively) with the third-team offense.<\/p>\n

Sanders is not to blame for the NFL world running with his practice stats. He can only do the most with the reps he is given.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

But \u2013 because he is the celebrity son of a Hall of Famer who endured an unprecedented fall from much-hyped first-round prospect to fifth-round pick \u2013 his development is going to be a major story this season.<\/p>\n

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Before he can dream of getting on the field in a real game, Sanders has to start to earn some of the 11-on-11 reps that Pickett, Flacco and fellow rookie and third-round pick Gabriel are taking in practice.<\/p>\n

His 7-on-7 numbers are a good first small step when framed correctly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shedeur Sanders is carving up players who will be on practice\u00a0squads or out of the NFL come September.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,2337,563,1033,7,1801,13,562,570,8934,579,6,4266,11903,24995,572,17,3349],"class_list":{"0":"post-94843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-browns","11":"tag-clevelandbrowns","12":"tag-deshaun-watson","13":"tag-dillon-gabriel","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-jameis-winston","16":"tag-jaxson-dart","17":"tag-joe-flacco","18":"tag-kenny-pickett","19":"tag-mary-kay-cabot","20":"tag-mason-graham","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-organized-team-activities","23":"tag-ota","24":"tag-practice-stats","25":"tag-russell-wilson","26":"tag-shedeur-sanders","27":"tag-tommy-devito"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114606094984776125","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94843","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=94843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}